I missed it but saw the blurb in the paper, it had a pic of one of the Grandsons, surname
Alkemade - is his Grandad the same airgunner Alkemade who escaped from a burning aircraft
without parachute fell something like 20000ft and survived by decelerating through a pine tree into a snowdrift - doubly lucky as the forest floor away from the protection of the trees was snow free.
It was in a book I read ages ago "Hitting the silk" or some such title.
Russell
Edited with the results of 10 seconds research on google:
In March of 1944, Nicholas Alkemade was the tail gunner in a British Lancaster bomber on a night mission to Berlin when his plane was attacked by German fighters. When the captain ordered the crew to bail out, Alkemade looked back into the plane and discovered that his parachute was in flames. He chose to jump without a parachute rather than to stay in the burning plane. He fell 18,000 feet, landing in trees, underbrush, and drifted snow. He twisted his knee and had some cuts, but was otherwise alright.
and there are two others!
Alan Magee, a gunner on a B-17 with the 303rd Bomb Group of the U.S. 8th Air Force, was on a mission to St. Nazaire, France in January of 1943, when his bomber was set aflame by enemy fire. He was thrown from the plane before he had a chance to put on his parachute. He fell 20,000 feet and crashed through the skylight of the St. Nazaire train station. His arm was badly injured, but he recovered from that and other injuries.
Lt. I.M. Chisov was a Russian airman whose Ilyushin IL-4 bomber was attacked by German fighters in January of 1942. Falling nearly 22,000 feet, he hit the edge of a snow-covered ravine and rolled to the bottom. He was badly hurt but survived.
all from
The Freefall Research Page
