Christened Fred, but always known by his second identify, Vivian, Griffiths was born at Hove, Sussex, on Might 26 1922. He was one particular of four young children of a Scottish mom, and a Welsh father who, as a soldier in the Very first Globe War, had been gassed. Vivian was educated in Sevenoaks and, when his dad and mom refused to let him join up at the outbreak of the 2nd Planet War, took a occupation in a bank, delaying the begin of his education with the RAF until finally May possibly 1940.
Already displaying the prickly but intuitive character that his sufferers would later on bear in mind, he flew 66 sorties in Hurricanes above north-west Europe. After a single mission he was forced to radio an accompanying Free French pilot in a Spitfire who failed to set a return program to Britain: “If you really don’t flip back I’ll shoot you down!” The Frenchman obeyed.
Griffiths served with No 3 Squadron, based at North Weald, then with No 607 Squadron, flying from Scotland, from Martlesham, Suffolk, and then Manston in Kent .
Following transfer to India in 1942 and converting to Spitfires at Alipore, Calcutta, he joined a Photographic Reconnaissance Unit, creating 44 sorties across the Arakan mountain selection, each and every time completing eight straight and level runs with wing-mounted cameras in excess of targets in enemy-held jungle. He carried a cyanide capsule in situation of capture. He flew both at 27,000ft or beneath the region’s immense periodic cloud formations, at times going perilously reduced.
Griffiths photographed the landing grounds for the Airborne Landing Force in preparation for Operation Thursday in 1944, when Brigadier Orde Wingate’s Chindits went in by gliders towed by Dakota aircraft. By the time the operation really got underneath way, even so, Griffiths had succumbed to amoebic dysentery and been invalided house.
In the latter component of the war Griffiths worked in RAF hospitals at Halton, Buckinghamshire, and Northallerton, Yorkshire, and it was with that experience that he was accepted in 1946 as a healthcare student at the Middlesex Hospital, London. He qualified in 1953.
He manufactured obstetrics and gynaecology his early speciality, and was elected to the Royal School of Surgeons. He then went into common practice at Hove in 1959, prior to moving in 1962 to London, first to Tooting Bec, when he had a practice in Clapham, and then to Albert Bridge Street, when his practice was in Chelsea.
Vivian Griffiths is survived by his wife and by their daughter and four sons. Shortly right after his marriage, at the end of the war, he drove his wife home from a ball in Brighton fully in reverse gear for 3 miles simply because the clutch of their Austin vehicle had caught. In his forties he discovered to play the piano, but stopped when at Grade 5 he made the decision that concert-level proficiency would elude him.
Dr Vivian Griffiths, born Might 26 1922, died December 30 2013
Dr Vivian Griffiths - obituary
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