1384441 – I.S. de Souza – Jamaica – attested 3.2.41 – Pilot – commissioned 8.9.44

[Source: NA AIR 2/6876 – Nominal Roll of Coloured Candidates, October 1944]

Service no. on Commission 185192

[Courtesy AD]

KENT, ENGLAND. 1944-06-07. Aircrew standing near their Mosquito aircraft of No. 464 Squadron RAAF which operates with the Allied Expeditionary Air Force at RAF Station Gravesend, after landing from a night intruder operation over the invasion areas where road convoys and a rail junction were successfully attacked. Shown: Sergeant E. Dean, RAF, Wembley, England, Navigator, and Flight Sergeant I. S. De Souza, RAF, Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies, Pilot (facing step ladder).

[Photocredit: Australian War Memorial Collection, accession no. AWM UK1432. (Courtesy of Mark Johnson)]

The London Gazette lists his service number per 8 March 1945 as 185192. Promoted Flying Officer per 8 September 1945.

He is mentioned several times in The Gestapo Hunters: 464 Squadron, RAAF 1942-1945, by Mark Lax and Leon Kane-Maguire

Born 24/08/1918.

In 1960 he contributed a chapter to The West Indian Comes to England, published by Routledge & Kegan Paul.

After the war, Ivo De Souza became a diplomat, serving as Permanent Secretary of the Jamaican Ministry of External Affiairs and the Ministry of Defence.  He also served as High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Guyana, and as Ambassador to Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia.

The Royal Air Force Museum, Archive, Library and Research Department, holds his Memoir (1940-1974).

Ivo De Souza died 19/01/1997, aged 78.

[Courtesy AD]