Wings of Duty — Page 21
21 broken was later in service for three years with the Indian Air Force. It was then retired and placed in the Indian Air Force museum. Many years later, the RAF museum in England needed a Model-14 Spitfire and purchased the retired airplane at a great cost from India. It now sits in the RAF museum in London. If Allah wills, I hope to visit London again some day, a city I have been to many times and have my photo taken next to this airplane. In addition to this, the book also mentioned in detail the other three Spitfire accidents I was involved in: that is to say, the ground collision between a petrol tanker and my plane, the time my drop tank fell off my plane and my crash belly landing when my engine failed, including the reason for the engine failure. We had been in Trichinopoly for about eight months when we received orders that three squadrons of the Royal Indian Air Force, including ours, were being sent to Kolar Air Force base. Kolar is a district in the south Indian state of Karnataka which is known for its gold fields. The base was situated about 60 miles to the east of Bangalore. We usually visited Bangalore about once a week, sometimes for work and at other times for recreation.