On April 20 1943, my father Charles Lywood, who has died aged 84, was the bomb-aimer among the five-strong crew on a 199 Squadron Wellington aircraft, mining the Lorient U-boat base in Brittany, when it was attacked by a Messerschmitt 109 which raked the plane five times. In the moonlight, with ammunition exhausted, the Luftwaffe pilot came alongside, saluted and then flew off. The plane's fuel gauges were on empty when the Wellington crash-landed on home soil.
Within a month of that incident, all 25 of Charles's hut-mates on their RAF station had been shot down or killed, but his fortune held. Bomber Command's death rate was more than 40%, but after his mandatory 30 missions, he volunteered for a further 20. He survived hitting a bomb dump on take-off, his planes being hit by flak more than 20 times and a bomb passing, from higher altitude, through the wing. In 1943 he was awarded the DFC. In 1944 he was posted to India, moving on, as the war ended to Java, and Bangkok, where he was an air traffic controller. Once when the officers' mess was low on beer he flew a bomber to his uncle's brewery in Rangoon and stocked up. Reprimanded by his superiors, he was much praised by his fellow officers.
Demobbed in 1946, Charles believed he had been saved by God for a purpose. In 1949 he began training to be an Anglican minister. After doctrinal disputes with the Bishop of Rochester in 1951 he set up his Goudhurst Free Evangelical Church in Kent, ministering to the travelling community in Kent and Sussex.
Pastor "Eyewood" became a dogged advocate of the rights of what he perceived to be a persecuted minority. He baptised many of the travelling community with the help of a large white bedshirt and cold water in the "rusty bath" in Goudhurst parish hall.
Charles was born in Exton; his parents were owners of the Heavitree brewery in Exeter. He was educated at Sherborne school before he joined the RAF in 1941. His life as a preacher was not without cost, and his determination that he was chosen to do God's work led him to neglect his own personal and family needs. He married our mother in 1949, but the pressure of his work led to their separation in 1963.
He never abandoned his beliefs. His last few years were passed in a Christian care home, where he still led prayer meetings. He is survived by me, my brother Charles and our sister Sally.