FELL NEAR PARENTS’ HOME

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 80, 28 December 1940, Page 10

FELL NEAR PARENTS’ HOME

Thrilling Parachute Drop By R.A.F. Pilot (British Official Wireless.) RL'GBY. December 26. A thrilling story of a parachute escape from a Spitfire was told by a sergeant pilot who is a member of the first Royal Air Force Squadron to have shot down 100 aircraft while operating from one station. “We had attacked a formation of Messerschmitt 109’s about lunch time one day,” he said. “We peeled, off down about 2000 feet one after another, and made our attacks. Then there was a dogfight and I was hit by cannon shell as I was about to set on to a Messerschmitt below me. “Immediately, my Spitfire went into a steep dive. Flames appeared all round, so I threw the hood back ami kicked myself out of the machine. 1 had been hit in the leg and fainted almost immediately.

“I came to pretty soon afterward, and found that I was falling fast. I was very comfortable but, at 14,000 feet or so, pulled my parachute rip cord. When coming down slowly, I took my wireless lead, which was still attached, and tied it tight round my leg to staunch the flow of blood. Then I realized that my tunic was on fire so I beat out the flames with my hands. I singed my moustache, too.

“A Spitfire from another squadron came round me and gave me protection from machine-gunning by enemy fighters, but no enemy appeared. I thought once while I was coming down that I was going to hit telegraph wires or a high-tension cable, but missed them both and landed in an orchard. “The aircraft crashed about three miles from my home in Kent, and when inv parents came to see me in hospital the following day they told me that they watched me coming down, though at the time they did not know who it was.” •