VICTORIA CROSS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 252, 6 August 1941, Page 5

VICTORIA CROSS

SERGEANT WARD’S GALLANTRY.

A THRILLING STORY TOLD.

PERSONAL NARRATIVE,

(United Press Association— Copyright.) LONDON, August 4.

In connection with the award of the Victoria Cross to Sergeant-Pilot James Allen Ward, of Wanganui, the thrilling story of his successful exploit in helping to bring home a burning bomber was told recently by the Air Ministry. A Wellington bomber, returning with the crew well satisfied from a raid on M'uenster, had reached the Zuider Zee when suddenly, a Messerschmitt 110 came up from underneath and raked the bomber from end to end.

The front gunner was wounded in a foot, the bomber’s starboard engine was badly damaged, the hydraulic system and wireless were put out of action, the undercarriage fell down, the bomb doors fell open, and the in-ter-communication set failed.

The pilot’s cockpit was filled with smoke fumes and, worst of all, a sheet of flame four or five feet long gushed out where one of the petrol feed pipes in the wing was split open by a cannon shell. It must have seemed to the German pilot that the bomber’s end had come, for he closed in recklessly, and then turned, and exposed the belly of his aircraft, and as he did so the reargunner sent 200 rounds crashing into it. The Messerschmitt rolled over on its back and, apparently out of control, went down in a steep spiral dive, smoke pouring from the por't engine. Climb Along Wing. When all attempts to extinguish the fire from the leaking petrol pipe had failed, Sergeant Pilot Ward, the second pilot, decided to climb out along the wing and try to smother the fire with a cockpit cover which he had brought as a cushion. At first he was going without a parachute, as he thought this would lessen the wind resistance, and the rest of the crew insisted that he should wear it. They tied a rope from the dinghy round his waist, and, with the navigator holding the end of the rope, he climbed out of the astro-hatch. He had to get down about three feet from the hatch to the wing, and then another three feet along the wing. “First I had to hang on to the astrohatch , while I worked out how I was going to do it,” he said. “Then I hopped out on to the wing. I kicked holes down the side of the fuselage, which exposed the geodetics and gave me a foothold. I held on with one hand until I; had got two footholds on the wing.

“The fire and the blast from the Messersehmitt’s cannon shells had stripped part of the wing covering, and that helped. Then I caught hold of some of the sections of wing with the other hand and managed to get down flat on to the wing, my feet well dug in, and hanging on with both hands.

“Once I could not get enough hold and the wind lifted me partly off the Aving and sent me against the fuselage again. But I still had my feet twisted in, and I managed to get hold of the edge of the astro-hatch and worked myself back on to the wing again. It was just a matter of getting something to hang on to. It Avas like being in a terrific gale, only much worse than any gale I have ever known. As I got along the Aving, I Avas behind the airscrew, so I Avas in the slipstream as Avell. “Thought I Was Going” “Once or twice I thought I was going. I had the cockpit cover tucked underneath me as I lay flat on the wing. I tried to push the cover dOAvn through the hole in the Aving on to the leaking pipe, Avhei’e the fire Avas coming from, but the parachute on my chest prevented me from getting close enough to the wing, and the Avind kept on lifting me.

“The cover nearly dragged me off. I stuffed it down through the hole, but as soon as I took my hand away the terrific Avind blew it out again. My arms Avere getting tired, and I had to try a neAV hold. H Avas hanging on with my left arm. As soon as I moved my right hand, the cover blew out of the hole again and it was gone before I could grab it. After that, there Avas nothing to do but get back again. “The navigator kept a strain on the rope, and I pulled myself back along the wing and up to the side of the fuselage to the astro-hatch, holding on as tight as I could. Getting back was worse than going out and by this time I Avas pretty Avell all in. The hardest of the lot was getting my right leg in. In the end, the navigator reached out and pulled it iin.” * Over the North Sea, the crew jettisoned the front guns, ammunition, and flares. They Avere 10 miles off the coast of England Avhen petrol, which made a pool inside the Aving, blazed up furiously and burned more holes in the fabric, but then as suddenly the fire died doAvn and at the same time the flames from the petrol pipe Avent out. The pilot flew inland and, with no flaps and no brakes, circled a strange aerodrome, which he had chosen because it had a larger landing ground than his OAvn base. He called up the flare path: “We have been badly shot up. I hope we don’t mess up your flare path too badly Avhen Ave land.” He landed safely.