anti-aircraft

Mr Morris joined the Army at the age of 17 and during the war served as an anti-aircraft gunner in the Royal Artillery.

He had volunteered for the Glider Pilot Regiment in 1942 because he thought it would be "more exciting" than his time as an Army private manning a Royal Artillery anti-aircraft unit.

Flying from RAF Gosfield, near Braintree, Essex, Mr Latham carried a mortar section, with a Jeep and trailer, and was dropped into ground smoke and heavy anti-aircraft fire.

He noted that some incidents over the past few months were unforeseeable, citing an Azerbaijan Airlines flight which crashed in Kazakhstan in December after being targeted by a Russian anti-aircraft missile.

Anti-aircraft guns fire tracer into the sky for hours, aimed at the waves of Russian drones that cross the border near here to attack targets much deeper inside Ukraine – and sometimes in Sumy itself.