Harold Henry Allgood was born in Cambridge in July 1915 and educated at the Central School. On leaving school, in July 1931, he joined the RAF at Halton as an apprentice metal rigger that September.
Harry Thomas James Anderson had arrived in Britain as a young boy with his family in May 1920. He had been born on 19 September 1911 in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba; the son of Harry and Kate (nee Dales) Anderson.