I seem to recall a story about a Dak in North Africa at the end of WW2. With one engine dead it was decided to spin the one good engine up to start it running about the flat desert in a wide circle until it had enough speed to allow the equivalent of a V1 cut by locking the tailwheel so that it ran straight. Probably a load of borelocks but quite a good story.
The other tale is from Ron Webster (who designed and built his own radial engines in his shed) was that he used to struggle to hand-prop the 7-cyl engine so he would whip out 3 plugs and spin it over just firing on the other 4 until the engine was warm enough to start more easily. Lateral thinking?