Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 23, 2013 23:32:57 GMT 12
Another incredible tale of the air, thanks to Papers Past:
Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXIV, Issue 44, 4 June 1943, Page 2
AMAZING THINGS HAPPENED
BOMBER'S RAID ON DUSSELDORF
BATTERED PLANE KEPT IN THE AIR
If anybody had told me that night of September 10, as we waited to take off for Dusseldorf, the things which were ahead of us, I'd frankly have refused to believe them. It would have been incredible to me that any skipper in the world could bring a home all that distance on only two engines, and with one of those cutting out spasmodically. I'd have disbelieved anybody who claimed to have done 385 miles an hour in a dive to get out of searchlight coning, when the aircraft was one of the huge four-engine ones. And certainly I couldn't have visualised myself going twice into a burning aircraft, particularly when two others of the crew were killed in their effort to rescue the rear gunner. But these things all happened, wrote Pilot-Officer R. Jenner in the Christian Science Monitor.
I was wireless operator, air gunner in a Stirling squadron of the R.A.F. This trip to Dusseldorf was my nineteenth operation, he wrote. It was a quiet trip but, before we got there, it seemed as if all the searchlights in Dusseldorf had coned us, Off to starboard we could see a dark spot and our skipper, Pilot Officer Paddy Trench, headed for that, and put the aircraft into a vertical dive at 385 miles an hour. Just as we started to climb we were coned again and the flak was coming up in buckets.
Machine Hit
Our main petrol tank on the starboard side was hit, and so was our port inner engine. The prop flew loose and came smashing back on the mid-turret, where I was stationed. Then the port outer engine dropped loose from the frame, and we were left with just the two starboard engines operating. Even that wasn't too happy, for the starboard inner kept cutting in and out.
The skipper ordered us to bail out but we sold him the idea of staying with the kite as long as possible. The engineer did an amazing job, switching from tank to tank.
The wireless had gone unserviceable and our return back to base was strictly up to the navigator, Pilot Officer Selman, an English lad.
With the engines the way they were, the aircraft was setting up a terrific vibration. But Paddy, our skipper, kept her flying. We got through and out to sea. How we maintained flying speed I'll never know. But we had an engineer who was a wizard and a skipper who could keep anything flying that was capable of being airborne, and somehow or other they got us across the Channel and over the coast of England.
We were unable to send out recognition signals or to contact our base. The next thing we knew British searchlights started looking for us, and we barely managed to gain enough altitude to fire our colours of the day with Verey lights. That got us past the British defences.
When the starboard inner engine finally quit, there was nothing to do but land. "Belly landings," even under the most favourable circumstances, are no picnic. The skipper dropped the flaps, but only the starboard one came down. That threw us off level once more, but somehow or other, just before we hit, Trench managed to get her levelled off and we came crashing in. We slid for about 25 feet and the aircraft came to rest bent almost into the shape of a boomerang.
Inner Engine Dropped
The starboard inner engine ripped out and dropped to the ground, where it lay burning, right beside the break. With, the fuselage filled with petrol fumes a real fire and an explosion was inevitable. Everybody got out with the exception of the rear gunner.
When he didn't show up I started back in with the engineer, Sergeant "Spud" Mallett, an English lad, and the bomb aimer, Sergeant Fred Thorpe, of London. They went in through the escape hatch I climbed through the break in the fuselage. We had just got in, when a huge tongue of blue flame ran through, and then the explosion came.
Mallett and Thorpe were killed instantly. I was blown right out of the aircraft and landed on my feet about 20 yards away from it. I was dazed, I guess but was not hurt and started back in after the rear gunner, Bill Glendenning; Somehow I got through to the rear turret.
Glendenning had been trapped in there by pieces of his harness which had caught on broken struts and spars. His flying clothes were on fire but I was able to jerk him loose and carry him out I ripped off as many of his clothes as I could and managed to beat out the rest of the flames, but not until he had been pretty badly burned. I came through it without even being singed. Glendenning was rushed to hospital and has made a remarkable recovery.
Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LXIV, Issue 44, 4 June 1943, Page 2
AMAZING THINGS HAPPENED
BOMBER'S RAID ON DUSSELDORF
BATTERED PLANE KEPT IN THE AIR
If anybody had told me that night of September 10, as we waited to take off for Dusseldorf, the things which were ahead of us, I'd frankly have refused to believe them. It would have been incredible to me that any skipper in the world could bring a home all that distance on only two engines, and with one of those cutting out spasmodically. I'd have disbelieved anybody who claimed to have done 385 miles an hour in a dive to get out of searchlight coning, when the aircraft was one of the huge four-engine ones. And certainly I couldn't have visualised myself going twice into a burning aircraft, particularly when two others of the crew were killed in their effort to rescue the rear gunner. But these things all happened, wrote Pilot-Officer R. Jenner in the Christian Science Monitor.
I was wireless operator, air gunner in a Stirling squadron of the R.A.F. This trip to Dusseldorf was my nineteenth operation, he wrote. It was a quiet trip but, before we got there, it seemed as if all the searchlights in Dusseldorf had coned us, Off to starboard we could see a dark spot and our skipper, Pilot Officer Paddy Trench, headed for that, and put the aircraft into a vertical dive at 385 miles an hour. Just as we started to climb we were coned again and the flak was coming up in buckets.
Machine Hit
Our main petrol tank on the starboard side was hit, and so was our port inner engine. The prop flew loose and came smashing back on the mid-turret, where I was stationed. Then the port outer engine dropped loose from the frame, and we were left with just the two starboard engines operating. Even that wasn't too happy, for the starboard inner kept cutting in and out.
The skipper ordered us to bail out but we sold him the idea of staying with the kite as long as possible. The engineer did an amazing job, switching from tank to tank.
The wireless had gone unserviceable and our return back to base was strictly up to the navigator, Pilot Officer Selman, an English lad.
With the engines the way they were, the aircraft was setting up a terrific vibration. But Paddy, our skipper, kept her flying. We got through and out to sea. How we maintained flying speed I'll never know. But we had an engineer who was a wizard and a skipper who could keep anything flying that was capable of being airborne, and somehow or other they got us across the Channel and over the coast of England.
We were unable to send out recognition signals or to contact our base. The next thing we knew British searchlights started looking for us, and we barely managed to gain enough altitude to fire our colours of the day with Verey lights. That got us past the British defences.
When the starboard inner engine finally quit, there was nothing to do but land. "Belly landings," even under the most favourable circumstances, are no picnic. The skipper dropped the flaps, but only the starboard one came down. That threw us off level once more, but somehow or other, just before we hit, Trench managed to get her levelled off and we came crashing in. We slid for about 25 feet and the aircraft came to rest bent almost into the shape of a boomerang.
Inner Engine Dropped
The starboard inner engine ripped out and dropped to the ground, where it lay burning, right beside the break. With, the fuselage filled with petrol fumes a real fire and an explosion was inevitable. Everybody got out with the exception of the rear gunner.
When he didn't show up I started back in with the engineer, Sergeant "Spud" Mallett, an English lad, and the bomb aimer, Sergeant Fred Thorpe, of London. They went in through the escape hatch I climbed through the break in the fuselage. We had just got in, when a huge tongue of blue flame ran through, and then the explosion came.
Mallett and Thorpe were killed instantly. I was blown right out of the aircraft and landed on my feet about 20 yards away from it. I was dazed, I guess but was not hurt and started back in after the rear gunner, Bill Glendenning; Somehow I got through to the rear turret.
Glendenning had been trapped in there by pieces of his harness which had caught on broken struts and spars. His flying clothes were on fire but I was able to jerk him loose and carry him out I ripped off as many of his clothes as I could and managed to beat out the rest of the flames, but not until he had been pretty badly burned. I came through it without even being singed. Glendenning was rushed to hospital and has made a remarkable recovery.
