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This story starts on April 15th 1945, I was a radio operator on 37 squadron based in Foggia, Italy. On this particular day, we had been briefed to bomb the marshalling yards at Villach in Austria. Our crew stood around under a wing of the giant Liberator waiting for instructions, then along came ‘Dickie’ Dyer, our flight Commander….‘OK lads’ he said, ‘make a good prang of it and good luck’. That night, we were flying his usual aircraft. Within a few minutes, we were all at our stations and the four giant engines were turning. Already, the rest of the squadron was rolling along the perimeter track towards the runway. We were third in line for take-off. Our aircraft ‘B’ for Baker was on the runway now, gathering speed every second — we were airborne. Pilot to navigator…. ‘How long before we set course?’ … ‘Nine minutes’, replied Harry. Before the nine minutes were up, the sky around the Foggia ‘dust bowl’ was full of Liberators. Zero hour now and looking through the cockpit I could see all the other aircraft in view, setting the same course. Over the Adriatic, I opened the bomb doors every now and then to prevent them freezing up. Somewhere over Yugoslavia, Harry called up ‘Half an hour to the target skipper’. ‘Roger’ answered Joe, ‘I can see some light flack about 10 minutes ahead, watch it lads’. This was at 9.10pm, at 15 minutes past 9 I was receiving a broadcast from base when an explosion shook the aircraft. I looked around and saw a ball of fire at the base of the cockpit. The air rushing through the gaping hole created by the A.A. shell, was driving the flames through to my position on the flight deck, it was obvious we would have to abandon the aircraft and I opened the bomb bays. My clothes were already alight, and through the flames and smoke I could see Joe signalling me to jump. The others also had their parachutes on and were ready to jump.

As I jumped through the bomb bays, my head struck a bomb hanging in the rack and I was temporarily knocked unconscious. The rush of cold air revived me and I grasped for the ripcord and found the parachute pack had left the clips on my chest and was following me around on the harness as I rolled through the sky. After what seemed hours, I managed to pull the pack down and reach the ripcord. The giant canopy opened and as I floated to earth the aircraft was already a mass of flames below me. Fortunately for me, I landed in a small clearing entirely circled by pine trees. Quickly, gathering the chute together, I rushed to the shadows in case the Germans were close by. By a stroke of bad luck, my flying boots had fallen off during the descent, taking my socks with them. Hastily, I tore my Mac West up and improvised some foot covering. I also cut the parachute away from the harness and buried the harness under some bushes. Whilst I was doing this, a terrific explosion came from the direction of the wreckage and I gathered the bombs had exploded. Carrying the chute in a bundle I made towards the blaze, about half a mile away. As I got to within about 500 yards, I could see that a small village had borne the brunt of the crash, mingling with the crackling of the flames were the cries of women and children. Another 100 yards and I saw a woman sitting on a small hillock and crying. In sign language, and by saying ‘Partisan’, I formed the opinion that this was a friendly village and continued towards it. On entering the only track through the village, I passed an elderly couple carrying a bed with a bundle on it, they were crying. When they saw me, they both started shouting and through the glare of the fire, I could see a number of people rushing towards me. From the attitude they adopted, it was plain to see this was a pro Nazi village. I turned on my heels and started to run for dear life, stumbling over rough ground through pine forests and up and down rocky inclines, after about 3 hours I was dead beat and decided to sleep in a forest. The parachute came in very useful now; I lay down, wrapped the silk around me and covered it with leaves and branches to form a camouflage.

I was awake very early and aware of sharp pains in my feet. On examining them, I saw dozens of thorns and small flints embedded in the skin. I removed as many as could be seen, and then set about cutting some strips off the parachute to make bandages. In the distance, I could hear heavy gunfire. I learnt afterwards, that this came from the Soviet lines, away to the east. At about 7.30am, I decided it was time to start moving, so I gathered up the rest of the parachute and started to walk. After about 3 hours plodding through dense undergrowth, I reached the edge of the forest, and before me were a few green fields, with about half a dozen farmhouses visible. In the nearest field, I saw a young girl of about sixteen grazing a cow on rope. I crawled under a hedgerow and to within about 20 yards of her and whistled softly. She looked up surprised and same over to me. After a while, I got her to understand that I was hungry and wanted water to bathe my feet, I also asked if there were any partisans in the area, to which she replied ‘no’. I gathered there were allot of ‘Jerries’ around. By now, she was satisfied that I was a British evader and took me to her cottage. Wooden seats cut into the walls formed the seating accommodation. Marie, as that was the girl’s name, fetched her mother, who at once fried me four eggs and gave me about 3 pints of hot milk. In return, I gave them half of the parachute material I was carrying around. After the meal, Marie fetched a bowl of hot water to bathe my very sore feet, and with the aid of needle, extracted a number of small flints and stones.

Early in the afternoon, she put some heavy boots on and made me follow her. We went through some fields, being careful to keep to the shadows, and then over a rough track through the same forest I had hidden in. At the end of the path, we came to a small clearing and Marie signalled me to stop, she gave a short whistle. We waited about 10 minutes and then I heard a rustling in the bushes, ahead of me a soldier in British battledress appeared. He saluted and said ‘Tito’, the red star in his hat also told me he was a Partisan. By luck I had contacted his daughter; he had received word of our plane crash and had been out looking for survivors. Marie left us and in simple Italian, Andrej explained that we would lay low until sunset and then he would take me to partisan HQ. Just before sunset, Marie brought us a jug of hot milk and also a large can of potato soup, also a rucksack with black bread and potatoes, and a bottle of cognac for the journey. We finished the meal and then set forth, keeping to the edge of the forest until it was dark, and then by way of the fields over the mountains. For six hours, our progress was good, when the dew started to settle I found it difficult with the silk around my feet, to climb the grassy inclines. Andrej solved the problem by pulling me up each one, holding the end of his rifle.

By dawn, we had covered about 25 miles and stopped for a slice of bread and potato, and drank water from a mountain stream. We rested for two or three hours, and then started again, keeping to the shadows. During the day, we saw a number of German mule teams and hid until they passed. An hour before sunset, we decided to sleep awhile, each doing a 2 hour watch. The moon was high when we started on the journey again, the going was more difficult, being truly mountain country. About daybreak on the outskirts of a village, we roused some dogs and in matter of minutes, ‘Jerries’ were out searching for us. Andrej knew the area well and after about 2 hours the search party gave up the hunt. By now, both of us were extremely tired and we hid in some undergrowth to rest, we both fell asleep almost straight away.

At noon on the fourth day, we contacted the partisan HQ close to Brod and were given a decent meal by their standards. Later, I was taken to the Commandant and learned that I was with the 4th Liberation Army and would stay with them until we reached Predgrad . I left Andrej at this point, and he started the journey back home. That night, I slept on the floor of the HQ, my feet were very bad and prevented me from sleeping. Early next morning, we were disturbed by rifle fire and mortars, a few ‘jerry’ snipers had managed to locate the HQ and we evacuated to a nearby building. All was quiet after 2 hours and we discovered that patrols had silenced the enemy. That same afternoon we moved from the village as an army. It was a long straggling line of partisans with about 6 wagons drawn by horses and oxen, carrying the field kitchens and stores. A few pigs and cows were mixed in the procession, as reserve meat supplies. Two Partisan girls helped me along, each wearing captured German field uniforms, and carried 3 grenades clipped on a belt which already housed 3 revolvers and a shoulder strap with ammunition attached.

After 2 days of travelling with this procession which included crossing a floating bridge, across a lake, and then climbing a very steep hill, we stopped. The commandant asked me to follow him into a tall building I could see ahead of us. We entered a dark corridor and he took me through a door to a brightly lit room. Two officers and a partisan typist sat at a desk and one of the officers said in English ‘This is a Russian military mission, you will sleep here tonight’. The commandant left after I’d thanked him for all he had done, and I was shown to a room with a bed in it. I was soon asleep. I was wakened early and told to go downstairs, where I met a British Major paratrooper. He congratulated me on my escape and showed me to a jeep outside flying the Union Jack. We drove to a secluded farmhouse a few miles away, this was the British military Mission. After having breakfast, the Major drove me to a field some distance from the mission, marked out with flags. This was an emergency airstrip and within 30 minutes, a Dakota had landed and I was on my way back to Italy. This story ended happily for me. Harry the navigator was captured, the rest of the crew — Joe, Johnny, Alan, Ken, Reg and Johnny the bomb aimer, all perished in the crash….. I will remember them.

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