🌿 Introduction

G. T. Harris arrived at RAF Exeter in May 1940, a young driver posted to an airfield that was still more civilian than military. He kept a diary — not for posterity, not for publication, but simply to record what he saw, felt, and endured. His notes capture the earliest days of the RAF at Exeter with a clarity that official histories rarely achieve.

These fragments are among the few surviving first‑hand accounts of life on the station in 1940. They reveal the improvisation, the humour, the fear, and the humanity of men who found themselves building defences one moment and facing the consequences of Dunkirk the next.

Harris’s words are presented here exactly as he wrote them. Nothing altered. Nothing embellished. They stand as a testament to an ordinary airman whose quiet observations now speak for a generation that is slipping beyond living memory.

📜 Why His Story Matters

• He offers a ground‑level view of RAF Exeter before it became a fully operational wartime station.
• His diary captures the emotional landscape of 1940: uncertainty, camaraderie, exhaustion, and resilience.
• He records the atmosphere of Exeter itself — a city still bright and unscarred, unaware of what lay ahead.
• His voice is unfiltered, honest, and deeply human.

In preserving his words, we honour not only Harris but the thousands like him whose stories were never formally recorded.

🌤️ A Note on Presentation

The diary entries below appear exactly as Harris wrote them. Spelling, punctuation, and phrasing are unchanged. They are accompanied only by light contextual notes to help modern readers understand the setting and significance of each moment.

The first few months of the war at Exeter Airfield was historically captured in the form of diary notes by G T Harris. He worked in the MT section as a driver. Harris arrived on 23 May 1940 and wrote in his diary,  ‘the station at Exeter is a place that was previously used as a civil airport. There are no beds but otherwise it was well equipped. I slept on a wood-blocked floor with a ground sheet, a few old newspapers and four blankets.’ 

When the RAF first arrived in June and July 1940, the only building was the first phase of the terminal building which was used by the Aero Club in short time before the war started. Ground crews were billeted in bell tents and the pilots and officers were lucky enough to stay in Exeter and the surrounding area hotels and mansion houses.

The following day Harris wrote ‘a lorry arrives with pickaxes and shovels. Soon we are filling sandbags. This done we threw up earthworks, a machine gun will be mounted in the centre. All over the drone similar posts are being built. It is quite a novel sight to see the RAF in their shirt sleeves doing some work. A flight Lieutenant who earlier in the day had been doing practice dive bombing at 300 mph with a fairey battle is swinging a pickaxe.’

Main source Exeter Remembers The War – Life on the Home Front p20-21 – Todd Gray. 

From a series of notes from the diary of G T Harris, RAF Driver, Exeter.

Three days later, 26 May 1940, Harris wrote in his diary, ‘In the evening I go to Exeter. People stare curiously, for down this way the war is still far away and it is not usual to see a man armed. As everywhere in England the women are smart, but in Exeter possessing more than average good looks. The atmosphere in the city is bright and friendly. Cheerfulness everywhere, one day I shall visit Exeter in peacetime.’

Main source Exeter Remembers The War – Life on the Home Front p21 – Todd Gray. 

Imperial War Museum (IWM).

From a series of notes from the diary of G T Harris, RAF Driver, Exeter.

Continuing the notes from G T Harris, RAF diary during the war, it is interesting that some of the pages from his time in Exeter were torn out. He was a driver in the RAF and wrote on the 31 May, ‘Exeter is packed with troops from the Flanders coast. Some of them have no more that they walk in, dirty uniforms, tin helmets. Here and there is an occasional French officer. Where’s the Air Force been? Is the cry hurled at us in the street. It isn’t any fault  of ours. Go see the Air Ministry I reply truculently to one fellow in the fish shop. Seeing I am not taking it lying down the soldier becomes apologetic and hastens to assure us that of course the ordinary airmen had nothing to do with the scanty air support on the Western Front.’

Main source Exeter Remembers The War – Life on the Home Front p26 – Todd Gray. 

Devon Record Office, Town Clerk’s papers.

From a series of notes from the diary of G T Harris, RAF Driver, Exeter.

Rumours were rife about the fact Germans were invading the British shores particularly Budleigh Salterton, Exmouth and Sidmouth. Washed up bodies were being confused as the enemy when in fact they were the sad evidence of something that had gone badly wrong in Slapton, South Devon. The bodies were all Americans. Perhaps the most striking example was recorded by G T Harris, a driver with the RAF, who was on duty at the airport in May 1940. He wrote in his diary after one night, ‘in the guardroom we are given a lecture by the CO who is evidently three sheets to the wind. Unidentified aircraft have been seen flying near the camp. There are wild rumours of parachute troops, thousands, landing near Folkstone. Shoot says the CO, shoot to kill.  We wander around the camp in a daze. Cold dawn is perceptively lighting the darkness. Black figures on the horizon which appear to advance towards me become visible as short stumpy trees.’