A Good, Roman-Looking Nose

While at the Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead, rear air gunner Douglas Hicks not only recovered from his burns but had surgery to repair what he called his ‘pug’ nose.  A piece of bone was taken from his hip and used to give his nose more prominence.  According to Hicks, he awoke from surgery with a “good, Roman-looking nose.  I must say my appearance improved considerably.”

In the end, Hicks may not have been the hospital’s most successfully treated patient, at least from the perspective of his mother.  Despite Hicks’ satisfaction with his nasal surgery, his mother Alice wrote to Margaret Harris in the fall of 1945: “Doug… has put on weight but his forehead is badly scarred and his nose is not just up to the mark…”