WAR hero Eric Viles has been honoured by the Prime Minister for the part he played in a Bristol-formed civilian unit.

Retired Wing Commander Mr Viles served in the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) during World War II, playing a crucial role ferrying planes to and from maintenance units and front-line squadrons.

The ATA was established at Whitchurch airfield in Bristol and ATA pilots had flown more than 309,000 war planes by 1945.

Its first 28 pilots were recruited in Bristol at what was then the Royal Hotel at the bottom of Park Street. Five years later there were more than 650 pilots in the unit.

Other civilians were needed and Mr Viles, 80, of Chipping Sodbury, was among those taken on as a flight engineer.

He is chairman of the national Air Transport Auxiliary Association, which has about 300 members and meets regularly, with an annual dinner at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire.

Earlier this year it was announced that badges of recognition would be presented to surviving members of the unit.

Mr Viles went along to a reception in Downing Street to be awarded his ATA Veterans Badge.

A third of the pilots were women – known as the Spitfire Women – and included aviator Amy Johnson.

Their work involved taking aircraft between factories and airfields and returning them when they were damaged.

Mr Viles joined as an air cadet in 1944 when he was just 15 years old.

"The minimum age to be a cadet was 16 so I had to pretend to be a year older than I was to get in," he said.

"I had no formal training, but I became a pilot's assistant, meaning I helped the pilot fly the twin-engined aircraft where they needed a second person to reach all the controls.

"There were certain pilots I used to fly with who would take off, then hand over the controls and vanish down the back of the plane for the rest of the flight.

"I wouldn't see them again until we were in the landing circuit."

Veterans also attended a reunion at White Waltham airfield, near Maidenhead, where they saw an exhibition of ATA memorabilia and enjoyed a display of wartime aircraft.

The ATA had a remarkable record and very few aircraft were lost or damaged.

But 173 pilots and eight flight engineers lost their lives, including Amy Johnson.

Sometimes the pilots would not even have a map to find their way. They would have to memorise landmarks below and sometimes flew in terrible weather.

They would also often have to deliver aircraft they had never seen before, let alone flown.

The ATA was eventually based at 14 ferry pools around the country. Mr Viles was based at Aston Down in Gloucestershire and his work took him around the UK as well as into France and Belgium.