Senior RAF officer captured in Sicily, 1940?

By: snafu - 3rd August 2014 at 00:10

Interesting biography found - as usual - when I was actually searching for something else:

Air Vice-Marshal Owen Boyd CR, OBE, MC, AFC

AOC 93 (OTU) Group, 1944

Of all Bomber Command's wartime group commanders, Owen Boyd spent the shortest time in command of his appointed group. His life was cut tragically short at the age of fifty-four in August 1944, six months into his appointment as AOC of 93 (OTU) Group.

Owen Tudor Boyd was born on 30 August 1889 and educated at RMA Sandhurst before entering the Indian Army in 1909. He saw service in the First World War with the RFC and RAF, and commanded 66 Squadron. In 1938 he became C-in-C Balloon Command and two years later in 1940 was promoted to Air Marshal and appointed Deputy to the AOC-in-C Middle East. On his way out to Egypt the aircraft in which he was a passenger was forced down over Sicily by enemy fighters and he became a POW in Italy. When Italy capitulated in September 1943, Boyd and two British Army generals {Neame and O'Connor, who had been captured in North Africa in 1941) made a bid for freedom and finally reached Allied lines. Life was not easy for Boyd on his return to England. In July 1944 his wife divorced him and little more than a week later on 5 August he was dead from a heart attack.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/bombercommandcommandersofworldwarii.cfm

Anybody got the full info on what on earth happened that a senior officer's aircraft should be flying close enough to enemy territory that it could be forced down? Navigation error, maybe, or is it possible that Britain wasn't at war with Italy when the flight set out? And what was the aeroplane anyway?

All these questions I tempt you with...;o)