Whistling – The cannons on the Spitfires had rubber caps over the open ends of the barrels in order to keep the barrels clean and to keep moisture out. These caps were referred to as “French safes.” When a Spit returned to base after an operational flight with the safes blown, the open ends of the barrels had a type of whistling like nothing else. This meant, of course, that the returning pilot had fired the cannons and the pertinent ground crew was stirred to excitement and they would jump onto the mainplanes before the Spit came to a stop at the dispersal point to ask the pilot what he (they) had gotten. If a pilot reported that he had missed then the ground crew would leave the pilot in disgust, but if the pilot had been successful he would be lifted from the cockpit bodily.
Friston, Sussex – Friston was a grass aerodrome on the south coast of England. It consisted of former farm fields. There were two grass runways forming a “V” with a forested valley or gully between the runways or “V” with the valley or gully rising to the top of the cliffs from the sea. Each runway was humped in the middle of the length to quite an extent with the down-slope to the top of the cliffs. When one was landing into the wind and towards the sea, one thought that for sure, as one rolled over the rise or hump at a rate of speed, that one was not going to be able to brake the aeroplane in sufficient time before going over the cliff. But someway there always seemed to be enough grass left towards the cliff; it was a ‘hairy’ feeling while landing not knowing where the edge of the cliff was.
The odd little field was used as a refuelling base for fighters. Very often the pilots, including me, would plunk into Friston, whether the kites needed petrol or not, because the Salvation Army had a little tea-and-a-bun wagon there and they served hot coca and tea and, believe it or not, I once got a real orange to slowly peel and to slowly eat.
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