A bit of thread drift, but a still a tenuous link to ‘Eject Eject’. Many (many) years ago whilst at a 12(B) Sqn ‘Old Boys’ Reunion’(the Wickenby Register) I had the privilege of meeting, Jim D*****, a Wireless Operator (WOp), late of 550 Sqn - the guest of a 12 (B) Sqn Lancaster WOp - who flew Lancasters from North Killingholme. Jim was ‘ejected’ from his Lanc…totally without his say so, I have to add, and survived to tell the tale!
On one of the Berlin raids in Jan 44 (I forget the exact date) en route to the target Jim was sitting happily (
sic 
) tapping away on his T1154/R1155…and, in an instant, he found himself dangling on his parachute, with no recollection of what had happened! After trying (unsuccessfully) to evade for two days in the winter on the North German Plain, suffering from severe frostbite (he had lost his left flying boot), and no doubt in severe shock, he knocked on the door of a farmhouse and gave himself up! After being interrogated at Dulag Luft near Frankfurt he discovered what had occurred, and that, unfortunately, he was the only survivor of his crew!
What had happened was this…unbeknown to the crew, a Ju 88, fitted with
Schrage Musik 20mm MGs, had slipped below their ac, and had pumped a number of rounds into the bomb bay! These had detonated the 4000lb ‘Cookie’ that was fitted in the bomb bay below Jim’s station! The ensuing explosion destroyed both the Lanc, and also the Ju 88 itself. This was maybe a novice JU 88 crew, as I believe that the SOP for
Schrage Musik was to aim at the fuel tanks between the engines, thus enabling the night fighter to get clear before the fire in the bomber took hold.
Fortuitously for Jim, the detonation of the Cookie ‘ejected’ him out of the ac, with the blast, by chance, forcing his parachute open!!!
This may seem absolutely incredible, but this wasn’t Jim ‘shooting a line’. He showed me press cuttings of when he and his son visited (in the early 90s) the village in Germany that he had landed close to! The Burger Meister took them to the farmhouse where he had surrendered and the (now) elderly farmer remembered Jim chapping on his Grandfather’s door in 1944. They also visited the site of where his ac had crashed and Jim was presented with a piece of a bomb splinter recovered from the wreckage of his aircraft!!!
Jim lived the rest of his life as a school teacher (I think) and his experiences, as far as I know, had little PTSD-type ramifications…at least that’s what his wife told my wife when they were talking about it! However, if it had been me I think that I would have become a missionary or a Minister of Religion, as obviously ‘the Man Above’ had things planned for him.
Just one amazing story, out of a plethora of amazing stories.