SAFE 'BELLY-LANDING
MARTON FLIGHT LIEUTENANT
(Rec. 9 a.m.) LONDON, May 4. Flight Lieutenant Brian Wheeler, of Marton, piloted a Boston bomber in a daylight attack against Le Havre on April 30. Flak which was coming up from near the target hit the Boston, and two minutes after the plane had .dropped its bombs one seized up. The flak did other damage, and the Boston lost height at the rate of between 300 and 400 feet a minute. Wheeler crossed the English coast at a height just safe enough for the crew to make a parachute, jump. Wheeler said: "I couldn't bring down the under-carriage, and because 1 would have "to' make a nelly-landing in the damaged plane I asked the crew whether they would like to bail out. All answered: 'If you are sticking it, so are we.' The belly-landing turned out well. It-.was more like beaching a yacht in surf than a crashlanding. Ido not think the plane was much damaged." Flight Lieutenant Wheeler, although a New Zealander, is a member of the Royal Canadian Air *:• cc, and has the Australian nickname of "Digger,"
ese casualties in the Burma campaign so far total 14,000, and the Chinese only 4000. '
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Bibliographic details
Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 104, 5 May 1942, Page 5
Word Count
200SAFE 'BELLY-LANDING Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 104, 5 May 1942, Page 5
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