Born in Nottingham, John Marshall was conscripted into the Royal Air Force, serving as a wireless mechanic in India.
2.
Hughes was stationed as a ground wireless mechanic in the RAF on an isolated three-man station in east Yorkshire, a time during which he had nothing to do but " read and reread Shakespeare and watch the grass grow ".
3.
Russell's biographer John L . Ingham states however that " there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in his R . A . F . record to show that he was anything more than a wireless mechanic and radio operator ".