大象传媒

This story was recounted to me by my father鈥�

My Grandfather, Andies Hendrik Willim Pienaar, was born in 1917 on a farm in the Orange Free State provine in South Africa, he joined the South African African Air force in 1939 at the out break of the war, and was trained as a radio operator/air gunner. He was posted to North Africa several times during the war, his last stint being in 1944 with 17Sqd S.A.A.F at Aden. Their primary role was anti-submarine patrols and the odd attack on Axis costal facilities in the Med鈥�.

This story begins with a routine anti-submarine patrol at night in June 1944, as their flight of PV1 Ventura aircraft took off they flew into heavy weather and his aircraft got lost and ended up over Turkey. Unfortunately when they became aware of their surroundings they were low on fuel and with a range of mountains looming up in front of them which they were unable to out climb and with the lack of fuel they could not turn back, so they decided to bail out.

But a chance would have it they had a reporter along with them who had no parachute. So the 2 lightest crew members were strapped together to share one chute and the reporter given the other one. One chap decided to open the hatch but it had frozen shut, he shoulder charged it, it flew open as he hit it and he fell without a chute and landed in a river without so much as a broken bone.

One by one the all bailed out and my grandfather was about to jump when the Captain got up and his chute hooked and opened up on the controls, my grandfather helped him gather it up, let him jump first and he followed shortly after.

He landed in a tree and was knocked unconscious and with a storm raging around him, the wind bashed him against a branch, and he broke his back. In the morning a party of Turks camped under the tree saw him and cut him down. They then noticed the red sashes on his tunic and thought he was a Russian, and wanted to cut his throat, and granted him a condemned mans last wish.

He signaled a smoke and showed them where he kept his cigarettes - a pack of Lucky Strikes - When these were pulled out his would-be executors stopped and asked 鈥淎mericano?鈥� he said 鈥淣o, English鈥�. They put him on a stretched and took him back to Istanbul and he spent the rest of the war in plaster from his knees to his neck. His aircraft was the last aircraft lost on an operational sortie by 17Sqd before the end of hostilities. He passed away in 1993 at the age of 76. He still smoked a-pack-a-day right to the end.

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