Short the sleep the foe is taking
'Ere the morrow morn is breaking
They shall have a rude awakening
Roused by Harlech men


Charles was born on 20 January 1920 to an ordinary family of innkeeper at the seaside county of Caernarvonshire, Northern Wales. Growing up, he attended secondary school with mediocre grades and refused to pursue further education, instead, he helped his parents running their family businesses. At the age of 18, inspired by travellers he met during his work on his parent's inn, his ever-adventuring heart brought him venturing as far as eastern coasts of England, much at his own expenses.

When the war came to the British isle in 1940 he enlisted to the RAF hoping to join the fight with the famous 'Few', the RAF Fighter Command. His 4 feet posture, however, only landed him on the cramped cabin of Handley-Page Hampden medium bomber with the rank of Sergeant, flying shipping raid over German ports of Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven or laying aerial mines over North sea.

It didn't take long before his squadron converted to four-engined Avro Lancaster heavy bomber in 1942, but Charles didn't fare better, he ended up manning the tail-end turret which was unheated and unpressurized, making a night time high altitude raids deep inside Germany, sometimes a 10-hours round trip to Berlin, least comfortable. He started out by maning the Frazer-Nash FN-20 turret equipped with quadruple .303 Browning machine guns, by that time he was participating on 1,000 bomber raid to Cologne and numerous night raid to Berlin and Ruhr valley.

As the war progressed his station was continually upgraded to newer turrets such as FN-120 and finally vilage inn radar equipped FN-121 Automatic Gun Laying Turret. While H2S and Oboe-equipped Lancasters lead the way as the 'Master Bomber', his AGLT equipped plane stayed behind the formation becoming the bait against German nightfighters, this fact combined with his position as a tail gunner earned him the infamous title of 'the rearmost man on the formation'.

Charles and his crewmates survived the war with 63 sucessfull bombing mission, slightly more than 2 complete bomber tour.

Short biography of my character Charles, whom some of you may have seen on latest commission by vixyyfox, He's a Pembroke Welsh Corgi whose height is only slightly taller than his gun, a Browning .303 Mark II, he carried a sling of .303 British ammunition with cloth belt which you can see the starter on his right side.

I thought that part of 'Men of Harlech' is fitting for a night bomber crew