Just before lunch on 12 May 1945, after a 20-minute air test, I casually landed my Spitfire XVI, LO-X, at Ludham in Norfolk, and sauntered to the pilots' room of No 602 Squadron's dispersal without a care. Life was simple and life was good. I commanded the Best Flight of the Best Squadron flying the Best Aeroplanes in the World. Clearly we had beaten the Germans and were about to fly off to the Far East to beat the Japanese. Had anyone suggested it would be 29 years before I flew a Spitfire again I should have assumed he was 'round the bend! I might have had a quiet word with the squadron doc about him. Such things did happen from time to time. Probably a few days' leave would fix him up - otherwise he'd be 'posted! and that would be that. The least said about that type of unpleasantness the better. In fact it was to be 29 years and two months before I flew a Spitfire again. Not that I didn't fly other, lesser machines: Mustangs and Dakotas with the Royal Air Force, and a wide variety of Other People's Aeroplanes in the course of duty with the BBC, ranging from BEA's Viscount in the New Zealand Air Race of 1953 to a trip with the Red Arrows at Farnborough in 1970, in Concorde for Farnborough 1972, and many, many others between and since.
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