From Fire to Faith and Freedom

FOR as long as he can remember Jimmy James has been fascinated and intrigued by aeroplanes and the thought of fiying. He can recall the feeling of wonder and excitement he experienced as he watched the light planes taking off with the lucky people who could afford the 2/6d (12 1/2p) or 5s (25p) cost of the pleasure fiights taking off from near his family home in Llangynwyd, Bridgend, Wales. His family couldn't afford the fiights but Jimmy was never to lose that fascination with fiying and aircraft. And for this young boy with his head in the clouds that fascination was so nearly to cost him his life about a decade later ... as a Second World War fighter pilot. His single seater 1360hp Kittyhawk had been hit by enemy ground fire. He knew he had to get out but was too low. He opened the throttle to gain more height but that increase in power had a devastating effect. The engine burst into fiames which blew back over the cockpit.

He jettisoned the canopy, disconnected the oxygen mask and RT leads and gripped the cockpit above him to pull himself out and parachute to safety. He couldn't. The metal had been heated to such a degree by the burning engine that he was unable to hold on. And all the time with the engine cut the plane was in danger of stalling and plunging to the ground with him still inside the cockpit as it filled with acrid, choking smoke. But Jimmy did get out and survived being trapped inside his cockpit, a scenario faced and feared by so many fighter pilots throughout the war. Today he is an active 95-year-old. In the comfort of the home in Chesham in Bucks which he shares with his wife Betty, Jimmy is happy to talk of his wartime experiences as a pilot and a prisoner of war, told without heroics, bravado or a sense of bitterness but with a touch of humour. He tells it as it was in a very matter of fact way.

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