You're welcome.Forgot to add - there's some film footage of 136 Sqn Spits at the IWM, which can be purchased on a DVD. If you're interested, I'll dig out the catalogue number etc.
That would be amazing if you could find the Cat No. for the DVD
Viking - there are so many stories to tell, i will have to sit down with Gramps and write some things down so i have all the proper info.
A couple of my favourite anecdotes perhaps;
Whilst out on patrol he decided to see how high he could take his Spit, and his own words "I had it hanging by the prop, as looked out the canopy at Mt.Everest"
He remembers being "incredibly stupid" he and his mates would weave in and out of Palm trees flying knife edge slalom just above the ground.
Once during the Japanese retreat from Burma, after the battle of Imphal i believe. Grandpa had been doing ground attack work on this Japanese "aerodrome" on an island on the Burmese Coast.
All day he had been strafing and what not, whilst the British Army moved to encircle the runway on the ground. Later in the day, the British Army had made it up onto the runway, down one end but there
was still some Japanese resistance coming from the other end of the runway. In the middle of this, Grandpa was the first to Land on the Strip, they were pretty confident that they had wiped out the Japs.
So Grandpa lands on the strip, from the British end toward the Jap end, realises things aren't quite secure, the British are still shooting so he spins her round taxis back to the british end of the strip.
Once he's out of the plane, things got quiet. The last Jap, an officer, stumbles up onto the end of the strip and cuts his own throat.