He served with the Royal Engineers and was attached to Force 136 of the Special Operations Executive in the Far East, comprising Malaya, Burma, Sumatra, Siam and French Indo-China.Force 136 was a general cover name from March 1944 for a branch of the SOE, established to encourage, train and supply indigenous movements in occupied territories and, occasionally to mount clandestine sabotage operations.
He was flying back from Rangoon to Jessore in a DakotaNo KN 584 of 357 Squadron when the aircraft crashed, killing all16, both crew and passengers on 7th September 1945. There had been a side operation of the flight to make a supply drop to the Mongoose section of the SOE operation Character (possibly part of the Otter operation with which Alan Goldsmith was connected. The plane hit the side of a mountain 10,000 feet above the drop zone and was not located for 2 weeks. The weather at the time was unpredictable as it was the Monsoon season. The reamins were taken to Mewaing in Burma where they were buried in a communal grave. and later re-interred.