Sunderland man reaches 100 years old - 78 years after he was almost buried at sea in a body bag

Harry Oxman’s life almost ended in tragic style in 1944.

He contracted malaria while he was serving with the RAF in the Second World War in Africa. A vicar even read him the last rites while he was being treated at sea.

He went into a coma and as they prepared a body bag to throw him overboard, he coughed. It was an action which saved him.

During a time of limited communications during the war, his wife Vera was instructed to come to the ship and collect his belongings.

When she got there she was delighted to find Harry alive, but, despite being saved, Harry was so ill with malaria, it took him five years to fully recover from the disease.

To make up for lost time he threw himself into badminton, tennis, allotment gardening, swimming and finally flying again with the Newcastle gliding club.

He went back after the war to his job as a draughtsman in the shipyards before taking early retirement.

Now Harry lives every day to the full and his granddaughter Sophie Butler said: “He often tells his family ‘I am still breathing so today is a good day’.”

Harry himself told the Echo: “I was in a coma for two days. When I pulled out, the medical officer said ‘I was certain you were dying’.”

He said the crew was told to prepare a bag and chains to ‘throw me overboard’.”

His special day included a restaurant meal with his four sons, Peter, Keith, Brian and Ken, who paid him a surprise visit from Connecticut, in the USA.

Sophie, who was planning to travel from Manchester to surprise her granddad with a birthday cake, added: “He still does his own gardening and that’s what keeps him going. He plays chess as well. He has had an amazing life.”

Harry has 13 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren, with an 8th great grandchild on the way.

His remarkable tale began when Harry was born in 1922 in Sunderland. His dad, Bernard Oxman, was an aircraft fitter and Harry loved learning about planes.

In the Second World War, Harry signed up and joined the RAF in November 1940, aged just 18. He started as a trainee 2nd pilot in Feb 1941 and had to move to Blackpool.

He joined the Mosquito fighter planes, but the engine noise made him air sick, so he was assigned as a navigator for the Sunderland Flying Boat (still training in Blackpool).

Once trained he was dispatched to the West Coast of Africa in August 1941. He was on submarine patrol and he would fly up to the north near Free Town and down to the south at the Belgium Congo taking out enemy submarines.

Harry’s war ended when he became seriously ill, but his love of flying continued at Usworth after his recovery from malaria. He even broke a duration record for a thermal flight in a glider of 5 hours and 15 minutes.

He had five children and unfortunately lost his wife Vera (who he’d married in 1943) in 2008 and his only daughter, Sheila, to a brain tumour in 2014.

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