A Spitfire Pilot - Part 36
Making a Pigs of Identification, in the Air and on the Ground
On 14th December it was decided to give me a rest and we had an aircraft that was due to be taken back to Algiers for replacement. It had a bullet through the main spar and wasn’t any good operationally and in fact it probably wasn’t any good anyway. So they took the guns and ammunition out and I was told to fly it to Algiers, pick up a spare and come back. It seemed like quite a simple job. Anyway, I took off and flew very gently back towards Algiers. On the way back I spotted two Lightnings and as I’ve said before, we were all on the same r/t channel, which was a right bind sometimes, as the Americans started talking, you couldn’t get a word in. I was continuing on my way, when I heard the Americans call up and say they’d spotted a 109. Now that, didn’t please me a great deal inasmuch as I was flying an aircraft with the main spar damaged, so I couldn’t throw it about too much. In any case I had no guns. So I weaved gently from side to side, trying to spot this 109, and the more I listened to the Americans, the more I realised the 109 was me! So I called them up and explained very carefully that the 109 they thought was a Spitfire and showed them by flying up on the side so that they could see the shape of a Spitfire wing, which by that time should have been fairly familiar with anybody.
“OK, OK”, they said and flew away, and on I trundled to Algiers.
Just before I got there, the same two Lightnings, who apparently had gone off looking for something else, again spotted a 109 and when I looked round, there they are, just behind me. So again, I called up and flew around in a circle to show them a Spitfire and I said,
“It’s the same bloody Spitfire that you nearly shot down some miles back, now BUGGAR OFF!” and with that I continued on and landed at Algiers.
Now Maison Blanche was at this time an absolute mad house. It was a mass of aircraft with millions of them on the ground and there seemed to be thousands of them doing circuits and bumps and everything else. But I managed to get in and taxi to the only dispersal that I saw which had a few Spitfires round it and got out an explained that I’d brought this aircraft from Souk-el-Arba and please could I have a spare and fly back again. Well, by this time it was getting towards late afternoon and I wouldn’t have had time to get back to Souk-el-Arba in the light and there was no way I could have landed on in the dark down there, so they told me to find somewhere to sleep and call in the morning.
There didn’t appear to be any spare beds anywhere at all and I couldn’t get in the mess, but I chatted up a couple of sergeants who were on the groundcrew and they explained that each night they would get in a lorry and hike off about five miles to some little village, where they used to sleep behind some estaminet or pub, and there was room for me there if I cared to go. Well that suited me fine, so I joined them and got in this lorry and disappeared off to this little village, the name of which I do not know, and it was very pleasant. I think the spare bed they’d mentioned, happened to be in a loft, which was approached by a rickety ladder, and although the bed itself was just a mass of straw, at least it had sheets. That was the first time I’d slept between sheets since I could remember and I had a very pleasant nights’ sleep.
The owner of the estaminet said he’d drive us into Maison Blanche in the morning if we got up early, so all three of us were up and ready by about half past six to find nothing moving at all. There was a small van outside the estaminet and the proprietor was wandering around doing odd bits and pieces. He’d fill up umpteen bottles of wine which he placed in the van, and they’d be followed by boxes of vegetables, then he’d come back, sit in the estaminet and have a coffee and a roll, and so did we, and finally he got a most ginormous pig and stuck this pig in the van as well!
The seating arrangements left much to be desired, but I let one of the sergeants sit in the front seat next to the driver, mainly because he was nearer the front end of the pig than we were. The other sergeant and I sat in the back of the van on boxes and protected from the rear end of the pig by more boxes. Well the old Frenchman shut the back doors, got in the front and away we went. Now all went well for a while until the pig apparently got a bit fed up with being stuck in this van and proceeded to grunt and rip everything within sight. The boxes went for a Burton first of all and then he started trying to edge forward and rip up bits of floorboard – it was a most frightening experience, made more so by the fact that every now and again the driver would turn round and with one hand on the wheel, not looking were he was going, and thump the pig smartly over the head. Eventually we decided we’d had enough of this and managed to get the driver to stop and we piled out very gratefully and finished the journey by walking back to Maison Blanch