Airman Gets New Face

Manawatu Times, Volume 67, Issue 276, 21 November 1942, Page 3

Airman Gets New Face

AFTER MIRACLE ESCAPE. (From “Sydney Sun.”) LONDON, Sept. 28. Sergeant Air-Gunner Keith Harrison, of Hobart, whose face, a few months ago was so disfigured by burns that he only went out after dark, has completely recovered, and is resuming operational flying. Harrison was blind for months. He fainted when he saw his face in a mirror for the first time. After three months in hospital at Gibraltar he was sent to England, where skin-grafting specialists entirely restored his face, even grafting on new eyelids. Last January, Harrison was reargunner in a Wellington bomber, manned mainly by Australians, which unaccountably crashed near Gibraltar. “We were flying at a thousand feet near Spanish territory in pitch darkness, when the plane became sluggish, he said, “The pilot said, ‘Stand by; we’ve got to go down.’ I was scrambling from the tail into the fuselage when the bomber rolled over and went down like a. brick. It hit the sea with tremendous impact and a part blew up. I was badly hurt, with my nose and shoulder broken, and head split from car to ear. After sinking about 20 feet I was sucked out through a hole in the plane’s side. As I was surfacing and struggling from my parachute harness, I saw the water above me blazing with burning oil and petrol. J As I swam through the flames the skin | was burnt completely from my face i and hands. I swam and floated, calling out the other chaps’ names, but no one answered. They must have been killed instantly when the plane crashed. I was about ready to give up the ghost when the flames attracted a rescuo boat. I was taken to Gibraltar \ treatment for burns introduced by the ! ed were treated here during tlie Spanish civil war.”