Norman Jackson VC

[Judge Rembrandt]

I see that the new NCA ITC accomodation at Cranwell is to be named the 'Jackson Block' in memory of the VC winner. A nice touch, me thinks. A fitting acknowledgement of a remarkable man.
JR :ok:

[mystic_meg]

More info here:

http://www.victoriacross.org.uk/bbjackso.htm

[A2QFI]

I would not drean of hi-jacking anyones thread and, when one is talking about extreme bravery, it is so far beyond what most of us would be able to do it isn't possible or necessary to determine which VC winner was braver or more deserving than another. This citation also makes amazing reading! He has a VC10 named after him, but not for much longer I guess! After the events which won him a VC, and later during the war, his Lancaster was hit by a Tallboy bomb during a raid on V3 sites at Mimoyeques. He survived this and was a prisoner of war for some time.

http://www.victoriacross.org.uk/bbreidw.htm

[Zoom]

Remarkable stuff. I seem to remember the Jackson incident being recounted in pictorial form in a boys' magazine circa 1960, and I'm sure that the cartoonist used the wrong wing. Another incident so depicted was the one where a tailgunner fell 18,000 ft from a Lanc and landed in a Norwegian forest. I think I picked up a lot of my war history from comics and 'war mags'. They may not have been terribly accurate but they made me ask questions.

[Hot Charlie]

Sir Peter de la Billiere certainly agrees that it was one of the most remarkable VCs awarded in his book "Supreme Courage: Heroic Stories from 150 Years of the VC". Probably the closest VC to Cranditz too, Jackson having been based up the road at RAF Metheringham...

[BossEyed]

a tailgunner fell 18,000 ft from a Lanc and landed in a Norwegian forest.

Flt Sgt Nicholas Alkemade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Alkemade)

"Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade jumped from his Lancaster at 18,000 feet to escape the holocaust of his blazing bomber, leaving behind his useless parachute that had been torn to shreds by shrapnel. His headlong fall was broken by a fir tree and he finally landed in an eighteen inch snow-drift, without a single fracture. Naturally, the Luftwaffe authorities were highly suspicious of his story of falling from such a height without a parachute, but on investigation they found his shredded and unused ‘chute in the crashed remains of the aircraft. Tail gunners had to stash their 'chutes inside the fuselage, and when Alkemade opened the rear hatch of his turret, he found flames raging inside the plane and his only means of escape a blazing mass of silk. Faced with the choice of falling to his death or burning to a crisp, he rotated the turret and did a back somersault into space, 18,000 feet above Germany. Falling at speeds of up to 120mph, it would have taken him about two minutes to hit the ground. He was fantastically lucky. First, he blacked out during the fall, ensuring his body would not be dangerously rigid and tense on impact. Second, he fell into a dense pine forest, whose branches broke his fall, and then into a deep snowdrift. He survived with nothing worse than a somewhat twisted ankle. Alkemade's case is particularly well-researched because the Germans who found him discovered that his parachute harness had not been used and suspected him of being a spy. A Luftwaffe probe, involving an investigation of the crashed bomber, proved the airman's story, and Alkemade was shipped off into captivity. He survived the war and eventually passed away on 22 June 1987."


I blame the Reader's Digest for me remembering Alkemade's name. Amazing story, but the VC ones surpass amazing.

[Trumpet_trousers]

This site:
http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffallers.html
gives details of the Lancaster bailout at 18,000'

(ISTR a young relation of his - [grandson?] was involved in the bomber crew series on C4 relatively recently)

[An Teallach]

While we're at it, don't forget the amazing John Cruickshank VC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Alexander_Cruickshank). His survival alone was a miracle of dogged determination to help his mates.

I was privileged to meet him and the late Bill Reid VC 10 years ago, both amazing men and absolute gents.