Careful Daz, my anorak side is coming to the fore here!
The goggles most often seen worn during the early BoB period were MkIII’s or MkIIIa’s, which had celluloid lens. Only later on were new goggles designed which had glass lenses (MkIV series – with the flip-shield sun visor) and they entered service mid-late BoB but weren’t particularly popular as they were heavy, cumbersome, and fiddly, hence the simple MkIII’s stayed in use. The down side of celluloid though is that it does indeed burn and melt well. He did not wear his goggles underneath the visor.
Whilst I cannot conclusively say why, but I would imagine Geoffrey Page thought his new visor design would offer more protection from fragments, and chose to take a chance on the burn factor. He states that after he returned to ops, he did wear issue goggles, pushed up on his flying helmet “just in case”. These had glass lenses.
Fire protection – the D-type mask (canvas & chamois) and B-type helmet (leather & chamois) being both fabric made or lined so had little in the way of fire retardant qualities especially if fuel or oil was leaking all over them. IIRC D-type masks were also “constant flow” masks rather than on demand so a steady flow of oxygen would also have been fuelling the fire in that area. Fire protection was not seen so much as a priority back then and Nomex was years in the future.
Possibly of some interest.
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