大象传媒

This story was contributed by Flt Lieutenant John Petrie-Andrews DFC DFM

It was Armistice day - 11th November 1943. The operation was to bomb the marshalling yards at Cannes in the South of France. On the way we lost one of our engines, but we'd already crossed the Pyranees, so we continued and marked the target. Having dropped the markers we circled to drop our bombs, but over the sea we were shot at by a ship and lost a second engine and with it all our blind flying instruments. We had been told that Sardinia was a possible diversion, as it was in our hands though with pockets of resistance, so we set course.
Without instruments we had to descend below cloud. Heavily loaded with fuel we had to run the two remaining engines until they glowed red hot. After 50 minutes one engine died and we were descending fast. The crew adopted positions for ditching and we went in with a bang. It was chaotic! I had great difficulty in opening my escape hatch over the pilot position, but eventually made it. The big dingy hadn't deployed, so one of the crew was trying to hack it out of its position in the wing, which was underwater. Eventually he got it free. One of the crew was unconscious and had to be hauled out of the aircraft and dragged into the dingy. He revived when we loosened his collar.

Adrift with no food, not that much water and a radio that wouldn't work, we took turns to hold up a parachute as a sail. Eventually, having been capsized twice, we could see land - Sardinia. We'd been at sea for 70 hours. It took forever to cover the last few miles, but we eventually made it to land - and safety.

To read more about F/Lt Petrie-Andrews please see the story entitled "F/Lt J.R.Petrie-Andrews DFC DCM 155220"

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.