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Donald Healey
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== Early life == Born in [[Perranporth]], Cornwall, the elder son of Frederick (John Frederick) and Emma Healey (nΓ©e Mitchell), who at that time ran a general store there, at an early age Donald Healey became interested in all things mechanical, particularly aircraft. He studied engineering while at [[Newquay College]].<ref name=APB>Anne Pimlott Baker, ''Healey, Donald Mitchell (1898β1988), car designer and rally driver'', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, OUP 2004</ref> When he left, his father bought him an expensive<ref name=DH1/> apprenticeship with [[Sopwith Aviation Company]] in [[Kingston upon Thames]], Surrey, and he joined Sopwith in 1914<ref name=TT62979>Mr Donald Healey. ''The Times'', Saturday, 16 January 1988; pg. 10; Issue 62979.</ref> continuing his engineering studies at Kingston Technical College. Sopwith had sheds at the nearby [[Brooklands]] aerodrome and racing circuit. Barely 16 when [[World War I]] started, he volunteered for the [[Royal Flying Corps]] (RFC) in 1916, before the end of his apprenticeship,<ref name=DH1>page 11, Geoffrey Healey, ''Austin Healey, the story of the big Healeys'' Gentry Books, London 1977 {{ISBN|0-85614-051-1}}.</ref> and earned his "wings" as a pilot. He went on night bombing raids, served on anti-[[Zeppelin]] patrols, and also as a flying instructor. Shot down by British [[anti-aircraft]] fire on one of the first night bombing missions of the war, he was invalided out of the RFC in November 1917 after a further series of crashes,<ref name=TT62979/> and spent the rest of the war checking aircraft components for the Air Ministry. Following the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918|Armistice]], he returned to Cornwall, took a correspondence course in automobile engineering, and opened the first garage in [[Perranporth]] in 1920.<ref name=APB/> Donald Healey married Ivy Maud James (d. 1980) on 21 October 1921 and they had three sons.<ref name=APB/>
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