大象传媒

Foggia, Italy

This is the 12th January 1944 and this was my 13th operational flight, as part of a squadron. I was the navigator in a MK X Wellington bomber piloted by the Flight Sergeant, St Clair, an Australian.

Our target was Piraeus, the docks area of Athens, and we were carrying a bomb load of 9 *500lb HE bombs. We took off at 19.06 hrs and it was very dark. After 10 minutes of circling to obtain height suddenly there was a bump. My little navigator light went out and the whole aircraft was shaking violently. I looked out of my small window and saw the port engine on fire. I went up to the pilot who shouted 鈥渇ire off the double red鈥�. I went back to my navigation bay and found the Verrey cartridge and fired off the double red. We landed on one engine with full bomb-load and fuel, taxied as far away as possible, got out and ran. Luckily the fire had gone out. We had lost two blades of our port engine propeller.

The Group-Captain came out in his jeep and said 鈥� well, well, fancy, a mid-air collision, a chance of one in a million, aint flying exciting!鈥�

The next day we examined the other aircraft, which was carrying a single 4000lb bomb, which occupied the whole of the fuselage. He had climbed out to sea and jettisoned the bomb and did a normal landing. In front of the bomb position was a clean cut in the geodetic construction and another clean cut behind the bomb; so the 4000lb bomb had passed between the two blades of our propeller.

Our next operational flight was on the 13th January, the next night but then they gave us a week鈥檚 leave and sent us to Sorrento.

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