FLYING HELPLESSLY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25173, 13 March 1943, Page 6

FLYING HELPLESSLY

PLANE OVER COLOGNE A REMARKABLE ESCAPE RUGBY, Mar. 10. A remarkable story of almost unbelievable damage suffered by a Halifax of a Canadian bomber squadron which took part in the last raid on Cologne, illustrates the ability of British aircraft and air crews to stand up to punishment and survive. The Halifax returned safely to its base after flying helplessly over Cologne with all its lights on. One propeller was completely shot off and the four engines all stopped at once and the machine was thrown on its back. Three engines picked up, but one barely worked, another had been hit and damaged, and the third had the cowling shot off. The wing fuselage was shot full of holes, the astrodome was shot away, and the bomb doors would not close. A parachute broke loose and rolled against the control panel and turned on all the lights. The flight engineer almost fell through the shattered astrodome when the Halifax turned upside down. He hung head down in the slipstream and was kept from falling only because his shoulders were too broad to go through the cowling. The door of the rear turret got jammed and the gunner was trapped. When the pilot gave the order to bale out he hacked his way out with an axe, to find that the pilot had cancelled the order while he was hacking at the doors. The aircraft had dived 14,000 feet and the navigator was almost out of the escape hatch when the pilot regained control and set a course for home.