by Phil Thomas (first published in The News, Wednesday January 17th 2001)
Staring downcast at the floor, the bruised and battered face of Jon Peters was one of the defining images of the Gulf War.
The former Petersfield schoolboy's Tornado GRI was shot down above Iraq on the first day of Operation Dessert Storm, 10 years ago today, and he and his navigator, John Nicol, spent seven harrowing weeks in captivity.
They were tortured, repeatedly blown up by allied aircraft, starved and threatened with death.
After days of beatings, which included being smashed on the spine with a baseball bat, the pair were paraded on television by their Iraqi captors.
An audience of millions saw the sight of two British officers, barely able to speak, in the clutches of Saddam Hussein's regime.
Now, as the world marks the 10th anniversary of the start of Operation Dessert Storm, John is drawing on his experiences as he embarks on a new life away from the RAF.
He has set up a management development company, will colleagues including England rugby star Rory Underwood, to help businesses improve their talents for solving problems and dealing with stress.
John said: "Although I don't have a background in business, people recognise that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to stress management and making decisions quickly".
"Partly that's my training in the armed forces. But obviously my experiences 10 years ago add to that".
The former flight lieutenant with XV Squadron says throughout his ordeal his mind went into work mode.
As his plane turned into a fireball after being hit; as 15 Kalashnikov-wielding Iraqis rained bullets on him from 30 yards (and missed); and as torturers in Baghdad set about their grisly work, John kept as cool a head as could have been expected.
He said: "I was very frightened. But because of your training you look at everything as a problem and try to work out how it can be solved. But there were times I thought they were going to shoot us".
After the initial week of beatings the pair were put in solitary confinement in a series of stinking Iraqi jails, barely surviving on a tiny square of pitta bread and half a cup of gruel every day.
Eventually an Iraqi in a grey suit opened his cell door, told him the war was over. Days later the pair were in hospital in Cyprus.
John, who lived in Petersfield until he was 18 - and whose mother still lives in the town - now lives near Worcester with wife Helen, 38, and children Guy, 12, and Toni, 10.
He added: "I'm glad to say I've never had a single nightmare or flash back about what happened either".
A decade after the event, people still recognise John Peters in the street. He still occasionally keeps in touch with former colleague John Nicol - and vividly remembers the feelings during the infamous TV appearance.
He said: "It was complete dejection. It felt as if I had succumbed. But I managed to get away without reading the script they had written, despite being hit in the face with a pistol". "I just tried to show through my body language that I wasn't happy - I lowered my head so the camera would see the cuts on my eyes - and just gave my name and rank and said I had bombed an airfield".
