Dr Arthur Page, who has died aged 100, was a wartime pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, one of the last to attack mainland Japan, and later a general practitioner in the New Forest.
On July 16, 1945, the British Pacific Fleet carriers Victorious, Formidable, and Indefatigable joined the U.S. Third Fleet in Task Force 38 to “soften up” the Japanese home islands. Aircraft from Victorious attacked Japanese ships, transports, and air bases on Honshu and around the Inland Sea.
On July 28, Page was flying a Grumman Avenger of the 849th Naval Air Squadron over Habu, southwest of Fukuyama, when his plane was hit and set on fire. Page piloted the plane over the Inland Sea and surrounding hills toward the Pacific Ocean and reached the open sea, where he encountered mountain-high waves.
He thought it would be better to land with a crosswind and at high speed in order to avoid hitting the crests of the waves or sinking in the troughs, so he ran along the front of the waves.
Page and his crew, consisting of a tail gunner and a Reuters reporter, survived the crash and climbed into a life raft, ready to try their luck. Fortunately, his crash landing was spotted by one of his squadron, the fleet was informed of his position, and within three hours he, his gunner and his journalist passenger were rescued by a whaler from a British destroyer.
Page returned to Victorious later that day and within 36 hours flew another Avenger from the carrier’s deck to continue the attack.
Arthur Reginald Webster Page, the eldest of two sons of a Royal Navy chaplain, was born in Deal, Kent, on 19 December 1923. His mother’s family, the Brewers, included many doctors who had benefited from 200 years of first-class medical training at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London.
Young Page was trained at Haileybury and was destined for Barts when war broke out. During the winter of 1942-43 he trained at Lee-on-Solent, Wirral and Crail and undertook advanced flying training at Kingston, Ontario, crossing the Atlantic aboard the RMS Queen Mary. Page began his flying career in the Fairey Barracuda with three crew, but by August 1944 he had qualified to fly the more powerful American torpedo bomber Grumman Avenger and joined Victorious and 849 NAS in Ceylon.
The sturdy Avenger became a reliable workhorse of the Royal Navy, but not without its accidents: on 19 December 1944, while celebrating his 21st birthday with Ken Dorman, a friend who shared his birthday on the same day, Page landed only to find that an Avenger ahead of him had gone into a spin and crashed onto the deck, decapitating Dorman in his path. For Page, it was an ugly reminder of the misery of war and a birthday he would never forget.
Page took part in Operation Lentil, an air raid on oil installations at Pangkalan Brandan in North Sumatra on 4 January 1945, and in Operation Meridian, the raids on the oil refineries at Palembang in South Sumatra on 24 and 29 January. During the latter raid, Page’s aircraft developed engine problems and he was forced to return to Victorious early.
The attacks were successful and the plants’ aviation fuel production was reduced by three-quarters, but nine pilots were captured by the Japanese and subsequently beheaded in Changi Prison in Singapore on the last day of the war.
After a stop in Sydney, Victorious sailed to the Admiralty Islands and the Philippines before supporting the American invasion of Okinawa from March to May 1945 and flying attack missions against airfields used by kamikaze aircraft on the Sakishima Islands and Formosa.
Returning to Britain in September 1945, Page began studying medicine, graduating in 1952. After assistant jobs at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital and a spell in obstetrics and gynaecology at Southampton General Hospital, he found a general practice in Totton in Hampshire. This suited him as he enjoyed both sailing on the south coast and living in the New Forest. He built up a successful and busy practice and served the area for 35 years.
Page obtained a private pilot’s license and flew regularly until he was 75, kept horses at home in Ashurst and hunted with the New Forest Hounds until he was 79, and continued sailing his Westerly 33 until he was 87.
Until he was 92, he visited the Isle of Wight in his own motorboat. At 98, he swam for the last time from a rigid inflatable boat (RIB) in the Mediterranean and was hoisted back on board by his worried family. Even in his late nineties, he was still chopping his own firewood, learning to play golf and enjoying trips to St. Tropez, where the family has holidayed for more than 50 summers.
In 1956 he married Elizabeth Frances Ingram, who died in 2012. He leaves behind two daughters and a son.
Dr. Arthur Page, born on December 19, 1923, died on August 23, 2024
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