Although he died in february, the obituary for Charles ‘Sox’ Hosegood was in the newspaper today. He was a golfing friend of my father, but he was also a helicopter test pilot from the beginning of when they were first developed as part of a combat force, initially in anti-submarine operations.
Sox was born in January 1921 on St Lucia and was educated in Hong Kong and Bath. During the war he flew Walrus amphibians of 765 NAS from the Royal Naval Air Station Sandbanks in Dorset, on search and rescue missions and later he commanded a flight of two Seafox float planes… at the age of twenty-one! After the war he continued to use his abilities as a pilot. However I knew him as an interesting and kindly man, who was a good friend to my dad.
Read his obituary here:
http://loiselden.com/2013/01/05/happy-birthday-sox-hosegood/
Lois Elsden 