From Fire to Faith and Freedom

"One day the army nursing sister came to see me. She handed me some medicine - and some advice at the same time: 'Take the medicine in one swallow and then put a sweet in your mouth immediately'. I did as I was told. I swallowed the medicine and immediately realised the reason for the advice. The medicine was raw quinine and it tasted awful, hence the advice about the sweet:'

After being discharged from hospital Jimmy was transferred to an operational conversion unit at Abu Sueir outside Cairo. It was from here he took off on his first solo flight - and it was a flight which took him into the face of a sandstorm. He couldn't land back at his airfield so followed a canal down to El Firdan, phoned his base to explain what had happened and then headed back when the weather cleared. From Abu Sueir he went on a refresher course at a base in Perugia, Italy and it was after he had completed his training he joined the 450 Australian Squadron, as Jimmy put it, to make up the numbers. He was now operational, flying the sturdy, four ton Kittyhawk single seater fighter which was armed with six .50in (12.7mm) machine guns, three in each wing. The plane's 37 foot wing span was four feet greater than its length and it could also be armed with three 5001b bombs, one under each wing, the other under the plane.

Spitfires lined up in Japan

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