…… another story tells us that the Kittyhawk had emergency water an food :
Interview with Squadron-Leader Mahinder Singh Pujji, DFC, one of the first batch of Indian pilots to serve in the European theatre during WW2. He arrived in the UK in late 1940; spent most of 1941 flying Hurricanes with 43 Squadron, RAF, on fighter sweeps over Occupied France; and then spent 1942 flying Kittyhawks in North Africa. He went back to India for the rest of the war, spending 1943 and part of 1944 on the North-West Frontier and eventually commanding No 4 Squadron, RIAF, in Burma
He’s still alive, bless him; and occasionally pops up in pictures on the UK MoD website.
North Africa was a much more primitive theatre than Europe, and Pujji found the food a particular turn-off; particularly as he wouldn’t, for religious reasons, eat bully beef. But there was plenty of flying, and that kept him happy; though a lot of it was the down-and-dirty business of close air support. Around the time of the fall of Tobruk he was shot down. In his own words:
“I was in a Kittyhawk and … my instrument panel suddenly shattered. … Later I found that a bullet had gone through my overalls – the same one that had shattered the panel. I preserved that as a souvenir for many years.
“Then … suddenly the aeroplane started disintegrating. I immediately throttled back and landed … in the middle of the desert, right in the sand. Every aeroplane had water and these sort of things, so I sat on top of the aircraft, waiting. I knew to the north was the Mediterranean Sea – I couldn’t walk that far. South, east and west there was nothing. There was no choice for me …
“I was there for about nine-ten hours, when I saw a dust column. As it happened, it was our soldiers … retreating. I was picked up.”
Sign In
