Ogden was born on 5 April 1923 in Mombasa, Kenya, his full name being John Michael Hubert Ogden. He was the son of John Ogden, a shipping exporter, and his wife Louise (nee Clark). Ogden was educated privately and at schools in England, earning his school certificate from the Polytechnic, London, in 1939. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1941 and, at the end of the war, joined the ROyal Navy as an officer and pilot.
He retired in 1958, after 3,500 hours of flying time in British forces. He was the first air detail over Inchon beachhead in 1950 and flew support missions for U.S. Marines in the Korean War.
In 1958 he began freelance writing and contributed stories to Chamber's Journal, Fighting Forces, the Sheffield Weekly Telegraph and other magazines. He was a lecturer in creative writing at South Dorset Technical College in 1960-63.
In the late 1960s, he became chief flying instructor of the Singapore Air Defence Command and was a freelance military aviation training advisor.
He was married in 1946 to Peggy L. Allsopp and had two children; he married secondly to Ivy Doreen Naish and had a son. He lived at various times in Southsea and Walton-on-Thames. He died in 1994, aged 71.
No Calm in the Morning. London, William Kimber & Co., 1960.
The Battle of the North Cape. London, William Kimber & Co., 1962; abridged as Destroy the Scharnhorst, London, Fleetway Colourbacks, 1963.
Lieut.-Commander Michael Ogden was also a teacher at the London Nautical School. I cannot recall exactly when he started but I think he joined the staff after I became a pupil in Sept. 1975. One of the few genuinely good teachers I had in my time there.
ReplyDelete