Roald Dahl joined the RAF in 1938. As an employee of Shell Oil Company, Dahl went to Africa in 1938. But as war broke out, he enlisted himself with the RAF in Nairobi and learned to fly in Tiger Moths with them. He was assigned to fly Gloster Gladiator after joining an operational fighter squadron in Iraq (Habanniya). He ran out of fuel and crashed in no-mans-land. Dahl wrote a story about this incident published as 'Shot Down Over Lybia'. The story is sold as a true tale; however it is not completely true part of it being fiction. After the incident, he was blind for a few days but managed to pull through. He joined the 80 Squadron at Elevsis, Greece after six months. He managed to shoot down two bombers with only seven hours of training on Hurricanes. It was only in 1986 that he told the real Lybian story in 'Going Solo'.
