DH28M

PATCHING GASOLINE TANKER - AFTER RAID ON DARWIN

by S/Sgt Harold DePeel, 28th Sqd.

While in Darwin Australia on detached service from my squadron, working on a servicing detail refueling transit ships and pursuit ships going north, we encountered the first air raid the Japs made on Darwin, Australia.

The first raid came about 10:30 am on the morning of 19th February. The field was strafed and both hangers bombed. Then about 2:00 pm that afternoon 2 flights of bombers, 27 in each flight, flew over the field at high altitude and dropped their bombs. We had our one and only “G.I.” 2000 gal tanker dispersed in the woods near by which happened to be in the line of flight the Jap bombers had taken.

There were three near misses but no direct hits on the tanker, but one piece of shrapnel hit the tank cutting a hole six inches long about a third of the way down from the top of the tank. Some way this hole had to be patched to make the much needed tanker serviceable again.

By removing some of the self-sealing lining from a gas tank of a P-40 that had been wrecked during the air raid, I devised a patch holding it in place by a bolt through a small plate on both inside and outside squeezing the self sealing lining into the hole, putting the tanker back in commission as good as new.