LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Roald Dahl: Royal Air Force
built 255 days ago
After school, Roald Dahl didn't go to university, but applied for a job at the Shell company, because he was sure they would send him abroad. He was sent to East Africa, where he got the adventure he wanted: great heat, crocodiles, snakes and safaries. He lived in the jungle, learned to speak Swahili and suffered from malaria. When the second World War broke out, he went to Nairobi to join the Royal Air Force. He was a fighter pilot and shot down German planes and got shot down himself. After 6 months in hospital he flew again.
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At 18, rather than going to university, Roald joined the Public Schools Exploring Society’s expedition to Newfoundland. He then started work for Shell as a salesman in Dar es Salaam. He was 23 when war broke out and signed up with the Royal Air Force in Nairobi. At first, the station doctor balked at his height (6ft 6in) but he was accepted as a pilot officer and spent the early part of the war flying birdplane Gladiator fighters against the Italians in the Western Desert of Libya. Dahl’s exploits in the war are detailed in his autobiography Going Solo. They include having a luger pointed at his head by the leader of a German convoy, crashlanding in no-man’s land (and sustaining injuries that entailed having his nose pulled out and reshaped!) and even surviving a direct hit during the Battle of Athens.
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At 18, rather than going to university, Roald joined the Public Schools Exploring Society’s expedition to Newfoundland. He then started work for Shell as a salesman in Dar es Salaam. He was 23 when war broke out and signed up with the Royal Air Force in Nairobi. At first, the station doctor balked at his height (6ft 6in or 2 metres) but he was accepted as a pilot officer and was trained on the birdplane Gladiator fighters, mainly in Iraq. He then flew to join his squadron in the Western Desert of Libya but crashed en-route.
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In November 1939, Dahl joined the Royal Air Force. After a 600-mile car journey from Dar-es-Salaam to Nairobi, he was accepted for flight training with 20 other men, 17 of whom would later die in air combat. With seven hours and 40 minutes experience in a De Havilland Tiger Moth, he flew solo; Dahl enjoyed watching the wildlife of Kenya during his flights. He continued on to advanced flying training in Iraq, at RAF Habbaniya, 50 miles west of Baghdad. Following six months training on Hawker Harts, Dahl was made a Pilot Officer.
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On leaving school, Dahl joined the Public School Exploring Society's expedition to Newfoundland. He then worked as a salesman for Shell in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. When world war two broke out he signed up with the Royal Air Force in Nairobi and was trained in Iraq before flying Hurricane fighter planes during the war, as recounted in Going Solo.
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