At Coltishall, I learnt about rescue, the first lesson being on working with
petrol, having not had any use for petrol prior to going into the services.
This petrol was of a higher octane than that used in the ordinary motorcar.
When the aircraft came back in, both the airplane lads and myself as engine
crew, all mucked in to get the flaps off the covers of the petrol tanks, and
help them to refill as soon as possible. This was done on a regular basis.
On this particular day that I would like to mention, was we had a squadron
stood by. We were put onto what was known as ‘20 minute readinesses.
In the process of checking the aircraft; we had to top up all the aircraft
petrol tanks. This involved bringing the petrol tanker close to the aircraft-the
back of the tanker had a little engine, ordinary petrol engine, and on this
occasion, it had run out of petrol .One bright spark, decided to fill it up
with the aircraft petrol. He squirted it out of the large nozzle into the small-necked
tank. What happened next was really amazing. Upon putting the handle in to
wind the engine up at the rear, there was one big flash and a bang. This was
caused by the fact that some of the petrol had sunk into the well, where the
flywheel was. There should have been a hole there, but it was blocked up, so
a pool of petrol had got there instead. With the petrol flying up on the flywheel,
it went straight to the spark plug at the side of the cylinder. The result
was one almighty big bang and the whole of the rear of the tanker was a blaze.
Full credit to the person who jumped onto the tractor, and started pulling
the tanker into the middle of the airfield out of harms way. Alarm bells rang
and in the process, the fire brigade went out, and fortunately, they did get
the fire out and kept it away from the full petrol storage tank. This, as I
say, was my first lesson in petrol.
A little later on we had an incident .One of the Spitfire’s had been
attacked by a German fighter, having chased him, the Spitfire dived and hit
the sea .The German pilot seeing all the spray go up, veered away and cleared
off home. Amazingly enough, the pilot had managed to pull the aircraft back
up off the waves and started heading for home, complaining of an unstable engine!
. At the station, two aircraft were scrambled immediately, one with the Commanding
Officer and they went out to meet him and escorted him back to our dispersal
.On stopping his engine, and having complained about a rough engine, we looked
at the aircraft, all the yellow tips at the end of the three propeller blades
were missing. Having hit the water so hard, he had broken them all off, one
of the props was slightly split but otherwise, in tact. No wonder he complained
about it being a rough engine! It had brought him back home, we were all amazed,
and the pilot was very lucky to have survived.
The next instance I would like to mention about the petrol, was concerning
myself. All the aircraft were at full readiness, we had filled the tanks, wiped
the wings down, and stood by .As we walked back, and I went into the hut, a
wooden hut, to see the lads. I was walking near the fire, a wood/coal cinder
fire, which had a flap in the front at the top and a flap at the bottom, to
let the draft in and a pipe up into the roof. As I walked past it, there was
a flash, and I was in flames from top to bottom. With that, I headed out of
the hut, and rolled on the floor in the grass, and fortunately for me, the
lads knew the drill and threw the fire blanker over the top of me.