A Near Death Experience

I was given a squadron, an RAF squadron from there, 274. But unfortunately, I had to go back to the other side of Italy and go back on older Spitfires. But I was happy. My own squadron and RAF, too, cause you don’t, they didn’t just give them to anybody outside of the RAF. Anyway, that was March the 17th and I was doing a show from...it was the east side of the Adriatic side, anyway, of Italy, to go on a strafing show up near Rome and my Spitfire got a glycol leak over the mountains and I was going to bail out and I was too low for the peak. So, I decided to try and force land on this little spot and I was coming in to land and the engine blew up and I didn’t remember anything after that, see. And the guys that were with me, they circled and the air plane was burning. And so they went back and said that, some of them went on to finish OPS, the rest went back and told the commander of the base that “The poor guy’s had it, you know. His air plane’s burnt up.” Somehow, there was a Gurkhas, the Indian gun post in the mountains somewhere near there; one of those hills. And they were able to go over there and they took me down off the mountain. I don’t know how, you know, what they went through cause it was quite hilly, like thousands of feet. Hundreds anyway. Anyway, they took me down to a medical station and this was about 4:30 in the afternoon. I remember waking up about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. I woke up and this nurse was bending over me. She had that, her white veil on, the air force type, and I thought it was an angel. And I thought, “Jeez, I’m in heaven.” you know. I really thought that. And she said to me, “Don’t worry.” I guess I must have got fidgety. “Don’t worry. You’re in friendly hands.” and then I got a needle and that was, I don’t know what happened. I had a big cut over my one eye and a bruise on my back and a few other things. And I don’t remember how long I was there, how I got there or anything cause they must have just been giving me needles eh. But anyway...or how many days it was before I woke up. When I woke up, jeez, I felt good. I got up on my feet and I felt good, and I thought “Jeez, no place for me around here.” I got my uniform, put it on, went downstairs and I said, “I would like to leave.” And they were quite friendly. They said, “Sure, you can go. Just sign here.” see. I just signed and I left. I went out and hitchhiked back to the squadron. There was an army truck going up to the front, went right by the squadron, I got off, walked up to the OPS trailer. The fellows were just briefing to go on a show. They all turned around and they just all went white. You know, they thought I was dead.