Ironies

Ironies – The ironies of happenings were, at times, ridiculous. One afternoon, Dixie made an emergency landing at Manston aerodrome. On the way out of France, he flew over an E (flak) boat in the Channel and he ran his cannons and small bore from stem to stern over the boat. In return, one lousy bullet entered Dixie’s cockpit and the bullet tore the muscle from the back of his right leg. He had to keep from bleeding to death while trying to get to the nearest aerodrome which happened to be Manston. He passed out at the end of his erratic landing roll. On the other hand, and on the same sortie that afternoon, Stoopie Stoop was mauled in a dogfight and we counted no less than 72 bullet and shell holes in the length of the fuselage of his Spit and the rascal did not have a scratch on him.

A few days later, the Squadron was hard put to get nine pilots into the air upon three different scrambles in one day. The three flights were toughies and a number of holes were spread here and there in my kite. The ground was wet and the walkway on the mainplane of my aeroplane complimented the weather condition. As I got laboriously out of my cockpit, my boot slipped on the wet mainplane and I fell onto, and broke, my wrist. The ironies here were not taken lightly by Bullfrog who was having a difficult time, as it was, trying to recruit pilots, never mind experienced pilots.