On May 3rd 1942, I had done two operational flights in the morning. Asked by a friend whose wife was coming to visit, he asked me to take his flight that afternoon and I agreed. .

 My helmet had been ripped off, no oxygen mask and my eyes were jammed shut. I reached for the rip cord at my left shoulder and it wasn’t there, then I remembered that the rip cord was at my waist and I pulled it. The chute opened with a hard jerk, my right eye was now open and I saw my boots sliding off my feet A most wonderful feeling was to be able to see and be alive. I rubbed my left eye and it too opened. I had burns on my wrists and face. I landed in a potato field.

My descent had been observed by three members of the Luftwaffe in a motorbike and sidecar. They took me in the sidecar to their airbase, where I was taken to the officer’s mess. After a time an elegant Luftwaffe officer approached me and in pure Oxford tones said “I am the one who shot you down.” We shook hands and talked shop over wine and sandwiches

I was at 32, 000 feet in my Spitfire over northern France when I was jumped by a Focke Wolfe and his cannon fire ignited my aircraft which had a 90 gallon tank in front of me. There were flames coming up from the bottom, the canopy flew off and I found myself floating in mid air.