I remembered another, this was when my Italian Grandfather got shot down for the first time.
He told me that it was North Africa, and he was just starting out. It was only his fifth or so sortie on the continent, and he hadn't got any kills yet, so he was always talking to those who had, getting ideas. Well I guess on this sortie, he and six others including his flight leader took off and were going just for a little training/hunting sortie. Well as they flew over the desert, they kept their canopies open since it gave them better visibility and kept them cooler.
Suddenly he said that as he scanned the skies above, he spotted a flight of Hurricanes, and they seemed to be heading back to their base. Well he called the flight leader, and they waited to see what the Hurricanes were all about. But I guess one of the green horns got a bit jumpy, and started towards the Hurricanes, not wanting to avoid them. Well I guess what my Grandfather didn't see, or anyone else, was that above the Hurricanes, was another smaller flight of Hurricanes. And as the green horned pilot went in to attack, the Hurricanes above swooped down and they shot him down. Luckily the guy bailed out, but was captured by British troops, and I guess became a POW. Well as the already attacking Hurricanes came down, the flight leader told my Grandfather to stick with him, and make sure everything stayed o.k. And so my Grandfather, not having that much experience did so, but quickly saw another one of his friends who died in the crash, get shot down and just plummet to the ground in a smoking wrecked plane.
Then he usually went on about how he missed his friend, and was glad that when he was shot down, his plane didn't completely lock up on him, allowing him some ability to keep the plane going. Anyway, I guess as my Grandfather followed the flight leader, a Hurricane got on his tail, and hit him with some .303 rounds. I guess he broke off, and tried to evade the Hurricane, that as he used to say, "KEPT PUMPING HOLES INTO MY GODDAMNED GOOD PLANE!" I guess as the chase continued, my Grandfather looked back and saw that a huge hole had been torn in to his fuselage, and that there were hundreds it seemed of little holes from the Hurricanes machine-guns. But since he wasn't fully taught in how to evade or something, he made the wrong move of trying to climb, giving the Hurricane a perfect shot at him. Lucky for him, the bullets landed around him, and not in him like he thought would surely happen since the Hurricane had peppered his fuselage. I guess the Hurricane pilot was really trying to kill my Grandfather, but his guns jammed or something and he had to break off, leaving the fight. And as my Grandfather looked around, seeing his peppered plane full of holes and tears, he started for home. He never said he was afraid that he would be killed, but that he never had time to be frightened, but I think he really was, and that was just his Italian macho getting in the way. But anyway, as he flew away, he got out of the combat zone fairly quickly, but it seemed that the Hurricane had damaged his control panel and none of the numbers seemed right etc. and once again as my Grandfather used to say. "I must have looked like I was flying some swiss cheese, but I in reality I was flying a brick." And while he flew back towards base, he started getting the idea to bail out as the engine started to make a terrible noise, and he knew he was loosing oil pressure. But when he looked down towards the ground, he realized that it was to close, so he decided that it was best to lower the landing gear, and just try to get back with what he had. Unlucky for him, his gear wasn't working, and only one wheel came down. So he was forced to bring it back up, and belly land.
He used to always tell me that when he belly landed, it was like driving down a seriously bumpy road, with no ability to stop with the breaks or steer in any direction. Well after he belly landed, he hurried from his plane, realizing that he was leaking oil, and that the plane could explode at any minute. 24hrs later or so, he was back at his airfield, sun burned like nothing before, and with him nothing but his torn aviator hat that he wore just around all the time. He was told that he couldn't fly for a few days, that his sunburn was fairly bad, but back then Italian guys didn't care. So my Grandfather wrote a letter to his future wife/my Grandmother, asking for a light thin shirt. I guess it helped, because his sunburn was still bad, but it wasn't irritated by his other shirt.
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