[The following takes place during World War II. Lt. Rounds was a B-24 co-pilot stationed at Cerignola, Italy, at this time.]
Rounds was one of those out of the hospital [he has just recovered from pneumonia] and he was in high spirits. Defying the miserable weather – rain, sleet, fog – he told Bill Ashlock to help him spill a fifty-five-gallon drum of white gasoline on the field next to the cooking area. He wanted to spill the fuel and set it afire as a form of fireworks to celebrate the new year.
”Rounds, you don’t have any idea what you’re about to do,” Ashlock said. “If that stuff gets in the air while you’re pouring it, it will create an explosion and the flames are liable to cover a huge area. You don’t want to do it.”
Rounds did want to do it. Ashlock recalled that “he did it anyway by himself.” Ashlock retired to his tent. A half-hour later he heard a “big whoomp sound.” Rounds came running to the tent, “his eyebrows singed off, his face black. And he says, ‘You know, you were right. That thing blew me about thirty feet through the air.’”
Source:
Ambrose, Stephen E. “The Isle of Capri.” The Wild Blue: The Crews of the B-24. Simon & Schuster, 2002. 199, 200. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Ashlock interview with Hugh Ambrose, Eisenhower Center.
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