Group Captain William Harries was a surgeon in the RAF. Born in Brawdy, Pembrokeshire on 17 October 1921, he was the oldest child of Ernest Henry Lloyd Harries, a farmer, and his wife Priscilla Winifred née Griffiths. He was educated at Treffgarne Owen Council School and Haverfordwest Grammar School

William Alexander Duncan Drummond was born in Cape Town on 16 September 1901 where his father was then working for the Anglo-American Tobacco Company. The family later returned to England. Having initially studied engineering and lost two fingers of his left hand in an accident at the Liverpool ship