Danny's Last Operation (Part II)
We'd had a lifetime's entitlement of luck in the last few seconds, but were in no position to appreciate it, both knocked out in the crash. My luck had stretched even further. I'd been wearing my "Ray-Bans" under my helmet, with my goggles pushed up on my head. When we hit the final obstacle, the cable retaining my shoulder harness snapped and I went face first into the instrument panel.*
By rights, the glass lenses should have shattered into my eyes and blinded me. But, as far as we could make out, the goggles had taken the first impact, in the next millisecond the lenses must have jerked out of the frame and away from my eyes. The frame buckled, scooped the bridge off my nose and ploughed into my forehead and left cheek. And that was the extent of my injuries !
* (The P-40 recently found in the Saraha has the "Needle&Ball" glass smashed. It's dead centre of the panel: it's the only broken instrument glass - cf 682al's pic on #2709 p. 136 - every picture tells a story.
Stew had been facing forward, braced head down on his navigation table. He broke a bone in his left wrist and got a bang on the nose, leaving him with an odd disability - he couldn't smell! This was no great loss out there and he got scant sympathy on that account, but it earned him a nice lttle lump sum from the War Pensions people later.
The RSU people ran over to pull us out; watchers at the base had seen us go down and sent the ambulance. I came to briefly as they were loading me on a stretcher, and remember the hot sun on my face. I couldn't see as my eyes were full of drying blood. "How's Stew?" - "He's all right". I looked a lot worse than I actually was, and that had an amusing sequel.
I came to fully in a Mobile Field Hospital at Cox's Bazar. They'd had mostly malaria and dysentery cases, and were quite chuffed at getting two proper "battle" casualties. Stew got a big cast on his arm and his nose shrank to normal size over the next few weeks. The enthusiastic medics sewed up my face and made up a new bridge for nose out of a patch from my thigh. Kept in place by a "saddle" of dental plastic, this wasn't perfect, but has done very well.
We were looked after quite efficiently by a staff of RAF nursing orderlies, for the three (I think) RAF wards. (The Army, of course, had the lion's share of the Field Hospital: it was an army surgeon who did my job). We must have spent about a month there, then "threw away our crutches" (Stew's cast and my nose 'saddle'), and prepared to go off to Calcutta on convalescent leave.
First task would be to secure our belongings. The ambulance crew had reported back to the Squadron what they'd seen when they'd picked us up, but of course it had taken them some time to reach us and I'd been bleeding all over everything in the meanwhile. So the tale they told was pretty gruesome; the general opinion was that they'd seen the last of me.
No use my kit going to waste. My DIY bed was a prize legacy, they had a draw for that. The rest was shared out among the others; there was no use trying to send stuff after me, it wasn't worth it and the chances were that it wouldn't reach me if they did. (This was standard procedure - anything personal or of value would, of course, be secured for safe keeping by the Adj. or I.O. - we are talking about clothing, bedding and towels etc., which you could quickly and cheaply replace).
Six weeks later the bad penny turned up. A shamefaced procession turned up with various items of my kit: "Sorry about this, old man - didn't think you'd be needing it any more!" And of course I recovered my bed - not that I would need it for long, for all the VV Squadrons were ordered to cease operations in June, and we would shortly be moving out (as it happened, never to return).
That done, we went off to "Cal" for our leave (transport no problem, you could always cadge a ride on the many 'Daks' which were continually shuttling Cal-Chittagong-all points-east. I will not describe our leave now, as I plan to make a separate Post out of Calcutta; it is worth a Post on its own.
The Thread is hotting up nicely now!
Goodnight, all.
Danny42C
Worse things happen at sea.
Last edited by Danny42C; 20th Feb 2015 at 00:19.
Reason: Add Text.