… The True Story of Australia's First Purple Heart
"The frozen Korean peninsula was a hostile environment for any downed pilot in 1952. It was a situation that was exacerbated by the nearby North Korean troops for Flight Lieutenant John ‘Butch' Hannan of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) who had been forced to eject when his Gloster Meteor F.8 jet had been crippled by enemy fire.
As his squadron mates desperately tried to locate Hannan, one pilot caught a fleeting glance of something on the snow. Sergeant Phillip Zupp, a country boy from Australia, wheeled his jet around at low level, believing he had possibly seen Butch's scarlet ‘marker scarf'.
AdvertisementShortly after, his own world erupted as ground fire shattered his canopy and sent fragments of metal and Perspex into his face.
Zupp regained control of his aircraft at a perilously low altitude and made for the heavens, bleeding, his goggles shattered and his oxygen mask pulled askew across his face…"
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experiments to find a better way to mount aircraft for wargaming.