Buster11
Quite so... where did it all go wrong? And why is the UK in such disarray at the moment? No, no... we won't go there! Back to the topic of 'Arthur Gill'. (Though, of course, a little digression does no one any harm... just so long as it isn't dull!)
In 1942, Arthur escaped from Sumatra by ship, in the wake of the Japanese invasion of that island. The remnants of 84 Sqdn, a handful of Blenheims, had flown across to Java to continue the fight. But as Arthur's own aircraft had been lost at the hands of another pilot, he was put in charge of the evacuation of surplus personnel, and thus got out to the safety of India. They landed at Karachi, and were accommodated at 301 Maintenance Unit. Arthur was given work ferrying aircraft across from the Middle East and also around to squadrons in India. At this time, in March 1942, his log book shows a terse entry: 'Hurricane IIB... Karachi - Jodpur - Chorahat (Forced Landed)'.
Arthur later filled in the details:
'Together with three other Hurricanes, I took off from 301 MU, Karachi, bound for Allahabad. We had no navigational aids available, such as radio beacons, but the forecast was good. However, after some hours the visibility deteriorated to nil due to heat haze. We couldn't identify any useful features on the ground and it became evident that we had to put down as fuel was very low. We descended to about 1000' and spotted a suitably flat cultivated field close to a small village. I told the other pilots to watch my landing and take their time to follow me in. I got down without incident, as did the next two aircraft. But the fourth evidently approached much too slowly. To my dismay, I saw it stall and go into the ground. The aircraft didn't burn, but we discovered that the pilot had struck his head on the windscreen, killing him in the process. In the village, an Indian police constable passed my message to the RAF Station at Allahabad. After which we had nothing to do but wait for three days, until a convoy arrived. They refueled the aircraft and took the body of the dead pilot for burial at Allahabad. We took off and continued our journey. Later I wrote to the Rao Sahib of Chorahat, the local ruler, to convey my thanks to the villagers who had fed and accommodated us.
Some weeks later I received an invitation from him to dine at his fort. I duly accepted and later found myself beside him, each with a separate table laden with numerous dishes of Indian delicacies. All went well until it came to dessert. This consisted of a square of sweetened gram flour, which appeared to have a piece of silver cigarette packet foil covering the top. I hesitated, not knowing quite what to make of it. Seeing my concern, the Rao Sahib, felt obliged to apologise. He explained: 'I'm very sorry, I can't afford gold'. It turned out that the 'cigarette packet foil' was beaten silver and it was deemed to be perfectly good to eat, its purity being an attractant for any impurities otherwise ingested. I tucked-in, reassuring myself with the thought that in India, 'every aristocratic stomach has a silver lining'!
A light-hearted end to an otherwise unfortunate story.
