First leave in England

First leave in England – We were given a few days leave and Don Keith and I went to London. On the second night we were in the Euston Station area where we got caught in a bombing raid. The blast from one of the bombs blew Don and me up against the wall in the alcove of one of the stone buildings. (I can still see the small chunks of stone nicked from the wall about us.) Keith and I did not believe in going into the bomb shelters. Farther down the street near Euston Station, one end of the air raid shelter in the street was hit directly. We went over to find the Air Raid Warden to see if there was anything we could do. The well organized Warden sent us into a type of headquarters and told us to start making tea. Someone tied aprons on us and we made tea the whole bloody night. We were pooped, but we learned a great lesson pertaining to the personality of the British people in general. Two items impressed us greatly. They brought in a young girl of about seventeen years of age. Her entire right leg was a piece of elongated hamburg and she never flinched. Indeed, she inquired as to how we were doing. Then a middle-aged (whatever that means) mother came in and her face was slashed to ribbons, but the only thing that she was capable of was trying to find out whether or not they had found her young son. They, also, brought in the inert ones.

I never crowed again about the ‘terrible’ food in our mess or about the ‘terrible’ blankets on my bed or about..…. Many British persons were having a much tougher chore.

Posted – After about thirty hours of formation flying and firing at both stationary and moving targets with the Miles Master and the old MKI Spitfire, I was, now, ready to easily shoot the Hun from the skies. I was posted, along with George ‘Dixie’ Davis, to No. 610 Squadron at Westhampnett.