Harry wearing his leather jerkin with personal "Knight" insignia.
Harry wearing his leather jerkin with personal
"Knight" insignia.
In 1942, on a quiet day in October, Bobby Gibbes sent a few of us rookie pilots on a low-flying exercise.
I was really enjoying it. Flying just a few feet above the ground and waving to Diggers of the 9th Div. Suddenly all the chaps on the ground pointed in the direction I was flying and started waving madly. I looked ahead and there was this palm tree!
I jerked the joystick back as hard and quick as I could. - I think I closed my eyes too.
When I got back to the Squadron base and landed, there was Harry Knight waiting for me. He was the plane’s Fitter.
“What the HELL have you done to my airplane???”
- Palm fronds were hanging from the wings and the tail and I was bloody lucky to come out of it alive.
I won’t repeat what Bobby Gibbes had to say…
Fano, Italy, 15 December 1944. No.68267, Leading
Aircraftman H. F. Knight, BEM, of Woollahra, NSW, a
Fitter IIE in No. 3 Squadron RAAF operating in
support of the Eighth Army, finds time to read a letter from home
while working on a North American P51 Mustang aircraft.
On 3 June 1944 LAC Knight was working on a Kittyhawk at an
advanced landing ground in Italy, when another aircraft carrying
1,500 pounds of bombs,
and in the same dispersal area, burst into flames. LAC
Knight endeavoured to extinguish the blaze, until forced to stop
by the terrific heat.
He then taxied his own aircraft to safety, less than two minutes
before the bombs on the blazing aircraft exploded.
For this action he received the British Empire Medal. [AWM MEB0228]