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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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It Will Never Get in Here: B17 Forced Landings in Ipswich

by rafBookman

Contributed by听
rafBookman
People in story:听
Les Osman
Location of story:听
Royal Air Force Ipswich
Background to story:听
Royal Air Force
Article ID:听
A2790209
Contributed on:听
28 June 2004

As I have already told you I was serving as a lowly ACH/GD at the above station where one of my duties was serving certain shifts with the Fire Section.
One day we received a call from Air Trafic Control informing us that a B17 was approaching for a wheels-up landing.A B17 Flying Fortress!There was only just enough space for the single engined Miles Masters that we had,let alone a four engined bomber.

'It will never get in here' said the Corporal,but we started the fire engine anyway and drove out onto the airfield.On the way we watched the stricken aircraft as it ploughed through the grass towards a ratherlarge petrol dump on the far side!

Fortunately it ground to a halt before it reached the fuel but so did we!The fire engine broke down about halfway across the field ,but a second one was on the way.

Naturally, the American aircrew found this highly amusing and ,I must confess , so did we.Our laughter soon stopped though when we saw a second B17 approaching with its wheels down.The Corporal spoke once again,'He will certainly never get in here'.
The pilot managed it somehow and ended up against the airfield fence.

There was nobody hurt at all, they had both run out of fuel and came down on the nearest airfield they could find.It was an exciting day even though we on the Fire Section felt a little foolish.

Next day, a huge American Army Air Force repair vehicle arrived along with a tanker.One Fort was taken away in pieces and the other one managed to take off, but only just.

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