大象传媒

The Scavenger鈥檚 Story from
N0.1 School of Army Co-operation
And R.A.F FEU62 (Forward Equipment Unit)

Meeting Lizzy

Prior to the war I lived in Stockton On Tees with my six sisters, the only boy. At 19 the country needed my help and so I joined the military by enlisting in the RAF. I left my sisters and headed South for me an adventure but for them the thought of not seeing their brother again, their pony tails were no longer going to be pulled.
I completed my training as a Leading Aircrafts Man ready to work on the aircraft so vital in the war effort.
Working on the airfields with aircraft bussing around can be very dangerous.
To assist takeoff and landing it is an advantage for the aircraft to head straight into the wind to achieve maximum lift at low speed so on every airfield there would be a wind direction indicator. Nowadays they use a orange wind sock but on the airfield I was working, at Old Sarum, they used a smoke generator. The 鈥淟eading Aircrafts-man鈥� of the day, would have the task to cross the airfield with a can of diesel and one of paraffin to a little dugout where a small Tilley stove was positioned, on top of this was a zinc plate. Once the Tilley was filled and lit the tank above was filled with diesel, and the tap turned on to allow a drip to fall onto the plate, which immediately erupted into a plum of white smoke, which filled the outlet flue. On one occasion I had the task to get the wind indicator primed and going for the days activities. Once lit I stood up so that I could get fresh air. As I heard an aircraft circling to land from a neighbouring airfield. I watched it make the final approach for landing, and it did, direct in line with me and the indicator, so accurate was it that the 鈥淟izzy鈥榮鈥� touched down,,,, and then the main undercarriage wheels went each side of me. The tail wheel hit the lip of the pit, which I had been leaning on the side and skimmed inches over my head and body.
Funny the pilot of the Lysnder and said the same thing to each other, 鈥渨here the ** hell did you come from!!!!鈥� Thank you designers for putting a tall undercarriage to the 鈥淟izzy鈥�. so high!

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