Originally Posted by
Archimedes
I could swear that I have read somewhere about a pilot crawling to a farmhouse after baling out and being injured, but I'm darned if I can recall where I saw it.
Are you thinking of RAFVR Sgt (later WO) Norman Cyril Jackson VC, 106 Sqn?
I felt stabbing pains in my back, the engine exploded into flames and I slipped off the wing. A violent jerk told me I was still attached to the Lancaster by my parachute. I was being pulled downwards in a spiralling arc. The other crew members paid out the rest of my canopy before bailing out themselves. I was unable to control the descent of my slashed and torn parachute, and I landed heavily in a forest. After regaining consciousness I checked my injuries. Both ankles seemed broken, my legs and back ached from shell splinters and shrapnel; both my hands and face were severely burned and my right eye was completed closed up.
At daybreak I managed to crawl to a nearby cottage, but was welcomed by a tirade of insults: ‘Churchill gangster!’ ‘Terror Flieger!’. After being paraded through town for more jeers I was joined by my fellow crew members – happily all intact – for a 12 hour journey to Dulag Laft. Crippled and temporarily blind, I spent 10 months in a German hospital before being moved to a P.O.W. camp, where I saw out the war.
Part of his account of the shooting down of Lancaster ME669, ZN-0 on 26 April 1944. He was the AE, he climbed out of the cockpit and crawled along the fuselage in an attempt to put out a fire on the starboard wing with a hand held exrtinguisher.
Thread drift but I think it worth repeating.
Lord Ashcroft bought the resultant VC which is on display at the IWM. The family had intended to give it to the RAFM but his widow's will prevented them.