[paulmcmillan]

More information may be in the following books - text 'captured' from Google Books

Pathfinder Cranswick By Michael Cumming
Published 1962
W. Kimber
Page 41
At the last minute, before the enemy advanced on Merville, Louis Strange climbed
into the cockpit of the only plane left on the drome — a Hurricane fighter without any armament - and set
course for Hendon. The Germans were not going to let him slip away quite so easily. Messerschmitt fighters
raced to head him off and shoot him into the annel. Even so, by sheer experience in handling aircraft — an art he had learned probably
before the German pilots were born — Strange manoeuvred so cunningly that he must have bluffed his
interceptors into thinking he had guns in his plane and that when the occasion was ripe he
was going to use them with deadly accuracy.
He beat of attack after attack and all the more remarkable is the fact that he
had never before flown a Hurricane. For his action in bringing the Hurricane home there came
the award of a bar to the DFC he had won in the First World War.
The citation mentioned his work at Merville, France and went on:

Citation as previously posted

Hurricane By Edward Bishop
By Edward Bishop
Published 1986
Airlife
ISBN:0906393620

Of these, possibly the oddest concerned Louis Strange, ... Towards the end of May, Strange was part of an operation to fly spares and mechanics to Merville
to make Hurricanes sufficiently airworthy to fly home
He was to recall: 'We quickly got busy servicing the Hurricanes we had come to rescue. The first was soon away, a good
many bullet holes in it, the variable pitch airscrew tied into fine pitch with a bit of copper
wire and a piece of telephone back to the cockpit to enable the pilot to change pitch by breaking
the copper wire with a good tug, and other simple devices to make good broken controls and shot-away instruments.
In the event the pilot who made it home in this machine used it for his second attempt.
He had already baled out of a blazing Hurricane over the airfield. 'Have another Hurricane', Strange offered,
as the pilot landed. Strange, who had never flown a Hurricane, took the next one out. It was unarmed,
but he ran the gauntlet of antiaircraft fire and enemy fighters