大象传媒

In 1943 I was posted to Canada, initially to Patricia Bay, the Canadian Coastal Command Unit then to Debert at the end of '43. I was working on an airspeed Oxford, flying to Debert from Monkton, New Brunswick. Having been airborn for about 5 minutes the starboard engine stopped. On restarting, the engine burst into flames. Fortunately I was able to extinguish the fire and we flew on one engine for about 100 miles. The pilot was on the port side of the plane and was not in a position to see or do anything, but by me being able to put out that fire, and the engine being able to be re-started, no lives were lost. There were three of us in that plane, one of whom was a Canadian soldier without a parachute. There was no sense of panic, there was no point really as there was nothing we could do. When we landed, I took off the engine cowling and found that the petrol feed banjo unit was split.
It was very lucky that we were in a Canadian plane which had self-starting buttons, while the English planes needed a starting handle on the outside of the aircraft. Had we been in this sort of plane we could not have re-started the engine and we would not have survived. Three lives were saved that day.

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