Howard Layton
WWII Flyer - RAF/Comercial Airplane Pilot , Inventor - 22 US Engineering Patents, Published Author/Speaker
Fee Range
$3,000Travels From
Brookfield, CT, US
Howard Layton
Biography
Howard Layton, raised in Coventry, England, enlisted in the Royal Air Force on the first day of WWII. A navigator/bomb aimer, he was sent to Africa as a crew member in a Bristol Blenheim IV participating in the air escorted evacuation of Greece and flying many missions, first against the Italians in Abyssinia, then against Erwin Rommel in North Africa. After the war he signed on for a permanent commission and attended the RAF Radio Engineering College.
Once out of the service, he spent several years as an actor; working in the film industry in Elizabeth Taylor's 'The Conspirator' and on the stage in London, performing before Queen Mary in the play 'Romance,' afterward receiving a private audience with her majesty. He is a life-long member of British Actors' Equity.
Howard Layton is also a member of several organizations relating to his military service including Forces Re-united - a British veterans association, The Institution of Electrical Engineers (Fellowship), serving also as the Vice Chairman of its New England branch. Having received a commercial pilot's license and instrument rating, he purchased a high-performance aircraft which he flew for ten years. In 1954 he joined The Aircraft Owners & Pilots Association and remained a member for decades.
'Love and Sand' is the author's second offering in a biographical trilogy released by Three Spires Publishing which he founded in 1998. It is an RAF flyer's recounting of love, lies and mayhem in the WWII deserts of North Africa. The first printing of 2,000 copies was sold through Borders Book Stores in New York and Connecticut.
Howard Layton resides in Connecticut and is founder and Chairman of the Board of a hi-tech equipment manufacturing firm in the semiconductor and optical industries. He has earned over 20 US patents for inventions created in this endeavor.
Howard Layton
Featured Keynote Program
World War II - An Untold Air War Story
THE VICTORY THAT CHANGED THE COURSE OF WWII
News reports in the early years of WWII were always about survival. The well prepared Nazi war machine had taken great toll of Allied resources. France had fallen and Hitler was invading one country after another. The ‘Blitz’ had taxed British defense resources to the limit and our aircraft and other munitions production was not keeping up with our losses. Although we had managed to keep the enemy at bay, we had not achieved any significant victories.
In the Middle East, the situation was no better. Hitler’s purpose was to replace Britain as the dominant force in the Mediterranean area and although we had put up a good fight, by early 1942, the renowned General Erwin Rommel was threatening the last bastion of British forces defending the Nile delta and the Egyptian metropolis itself.
By this time, the tragedy of Pearl Harbor had brought the United States into the war, but despite the enormous production resources of the American war machine, its influence on our fortunes had not yet had time to take effect.
It was not until the US defeat of the Japanese in the battle of Midway in June of 1942 marked a turn of events in the Pacific, that there was any heartening news anywhere.
Meanwhile, beginning in December of 1941, the Japanese had invaded everybody in sight: Hong Cong, Manila in the Philippines, Burma, the Solomon’s, Singapore, Rangoon. In Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines, US troops had surrendered to the Japanese, and in the interim, the German Africa Corps had been steadily pushing the British forces back toward Egypt and the Nile delta.
We badly needed a significant victory, and in the closing months of 1942, our desperate need for such a victory was satisfied in spades. Quite suddenly, the resounding triumph of the British victory at El Alamein, followed a few days later by the Anglo American victory at Operation Torch in North West Africa, provided exactly what was needed. The morale of the people at home and in the trenches, and in fact the whole Allied world suddenly soared, and between them, those two victories marked a turning of the tide in the entire war.
As everyone knows, a whole host of excellent books were written about those battles and victories. However they were all army books, almost exclusively about army activities. Curiously, no-one ever thought to write about the vital air-support at El Alamein - without which the victory itself would not have been possible.
And since this airman was there, dropping the bombs and strafing the enemy throughout that campaign, it seemed necessary to fill in that missing piece of war history. That is how and why my book ‘Love and Sand’ came into being.
Howard M. Layton, Flight Lieutenant RAF 117863 retired
Howardlayton@sbcglobal.net
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