Getting Shot Down (Part 2 of 4)
Heroes Remember
Getting Shot Down (Part 2 of 4)
Abbeville, in France, and it was, it was, I knew the area so I
thought I was duck soup to get down there and I’d just head for
my old school masters house and I’d be home. But I went blind so,
there was no point, I couldn’t do it. It happened so fast, that
you haven’t got time to pray and I’ve got a story about that.
When I was brought to Dulag there a minister there.
A Catholic minister, nice, really nice guy; Scottish brogue.
You could cut it with a knife, and said, and I was known as
Scotty, “Scotty,” he said, “did you pray when you got shot?”
And I said, “Father, if I had prayed I would have been dead.”
He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well raw oxygen and raw gas
hitting me in the face, if I had taken a, open my mouth and said
help, I was dead.” “Oh,” he said, “I understand that.” So, and
that’s where, I got hit in the gas tank and, and it came back
and most of my instruments were gone and so I, I just pulled the
what do you call it and jumped right away. And luckily I’m one of
of the people that can stand high altitude. Most people faint at
twenty five thousand without oxygen.
They were doing tests to see, because we, there was a good chance
I was going to be posted to Africa and they wanted people who
didn’t need as much water, and I didn’t, at that time I never
drank much water. I was very, and there are two types of people;
some that use a lot of water and some don’t. Anyhow, the other
thing they wanted to test was my oxygen, or metabolism, my rate,
metabolic rate. And so, they put me in one of these pressure
chambers and that’s when they discovered that I could stay
conscious to twenty five thousand feet.
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