Listening back to one of the tapes Chug, he does mention 33 L5's I can only think that two were spares in case of Cat 5's 4Corps had just broken out of Imphal. On one tape he talks of Dave Proctor claiming to have the only air conditioned L5 in Burma, there were so many holes in bottom of the fuselage - tears in the fabric from branches. The interesting thing is, John had given up on the 'Five into four won't go' appearing in print so never expected any of this to see the light of day. He often said no one would believe you if you told them. He does mention that a photo of the gaggle in flight over India has appeared in Flypast magazine and also that on un-packing the a/c that they been in so much of a hurry that a couple of the a/c had American markings on one side of the fuselage and British markings on the other.
MPN11 Now you know why he was my hero. Speaking of which, the late Len Thorne was a friend. Len was on occasions wing man to Paddy Finnucane, Jonny Johnson and Al Deere though he always stressed that this was after the B of B. Len flew a captured FW190 for 50 hours during the war. He would drool over the fact that it would do six upward rolls before falling off. There is a book called 'So Few' in which Al Deere is featured. I asked Len if he would sign my copy under Al Deere. He signed, put his rank and squadron and then wrote " He was my hero then, and is my hero now" If only I had had the foresight to record Len
Last edited by Box Brownie; 25th Sep 2016 at 15:47.
Reason: word alteration