Australia's Few. 10 August 1940

After his first flight in Hurricane P3528 on 4 August 1940, John Crossman flew almost every day at Sutton Bridge. Intent on completing the course as soon as possible so he could ‘go back to my squadron and finally get into the war’ he systematically worked his way through the set flying exercises which ‘puts the finishing touches to us’, and notched up five hours and fifty minutes in the Hurricane between 4–9 August. Although ‘every day we practise combat fighting’ they only used cine-camera guns. It wasn’t until 10 August that John ‘fired all eight guns for the first time, it was quite a thrill’.