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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Julia Shuvalova on behalf of Mr Jim Cameron and Mr Pat Kearne, and has been added to the site with their permission. The authors are fully aware of the terms and conditions of the site.

An hour into the flight back after the bombing marshalling yards at Mandalay on the night of 14/15 January 1944 pilot Jim Cameron, in need of a bit of ‘light relief’, handed over to bomb aimer Alec Smith for a brief spell of straight and level and made his way aft.

Suddenly the Wellington lurched, yawed to port and when into a steep dive. There was some kind of interruption to the normal healthy growing beat of the twin Hercules engines — and almighty yell from the hapless bomb aimer, confronted with this emergency.

Jim hurried back to the cockpit, hurled himself at the bomb aimer who — understandably — had frozen at the controls and tore him from his seat with such force that he broke the almost unbreakable webbing straps of the parachute harness.

As he was haling the aircraft of the dive Jim found himself looking up at the trees covering a hillside to the left. One thing was clear — the port engine was dead.

Jim, thinking fast, feathered the port propeller, re-set the revolutions on the starboard engine and corrected the aircraft’s trim before telling the crew we had lost 2,000 feet. What, he wanted to know, were the chances of avoiding the highest hills (hills — they went up to 8,000 — 9,000 and even 10,000 feet) if we maintained out course and hold our height on one engine.

The maps could not be relied on for fine detail. Apart from their sixteen-miles-to-the-inch scale there were areas printed with the word ‘unsurveyed’. Much would depend on our having moonlight and, what little we had, was glinting coldly on the three stationary blades of the port propeller. By now our altitude had fallen another 400 feet.

A flare was dropped to see if it would give us a look at the terrain below. It’s four-million candlepower light give us an eerie, heart-stopping view that we would rather not have had. Not far below and sloping up ahead of us was a mass of densely forested hillside. The flare went out but we knew that the wall of the Chin Hills reared up ahead.

The most easterly ridge of the hills is separated from the loftier western ridges — all running north and south — by the ten-mile width of the Kabaw-Myitha valley. I suggested going back to the valley and flying up and down it until dawn when, I hoped, the rising sun would enable us to pick out and bypass the peaks ahead.

We flew up and down the valley half a dozen times when we saw the first indication of the approaching sunrise. We were at 6,500 feet, which Jim thought he could maintain.

At first we could cleared see the gaps between the mountains through which we might creep — then, quite suddenly, the mountains started making cloud. At first, these were mere cotton-wool puffs on the summits but the rapidly warming air coupled with the forest’s humidity produced an effect that dismayed us. The clouds piled up before our eyes, appeared to detach themselves and charge at us, at times disconcertingly engulfing us.

Sometimes we would burst out into the clear, but what we saw was no reassuring. Some of the bright clouds hurrying towards us had mountains in them. The way out was barred.

If getting over the Chin Hills was impossible we would have to try to get round them which meant going far south over occupied territory in the full glare of the day. We hoped that at some point we could through and two to three thousand feet — and this would depend on Jim being able to keep us in the air at that altitude. It was a tall order.

When we left 10,000-fot Mount Victoria on our starboard beam we were below half that height.

Jim trimmed and re-trimmed the aircraft, gently nursed the starboard engine and got Bill (Paddy) Benson the WOP/AG, to scour the fuselage for anything that could be jettisoned. At 4,200 feet he told us to get rid of the read and side guns and ammunition, then the two Browning guns in the front turret had to be sacrificed.

It had been a long, long time since the engine had failed. Below, in the sunlight, there must have been many eyes staring at the strange sight of a crippled aircraft flying inexplicably further and further south, its markings clearly visible. Magwe airfield was on my mind. Would there be any Japanese fighters there or had our frequent bombing put them out of action?

We had been nearly two and a half hours staggering about on the wrong side of the hills mostly in broad daylight. It would be as long again before we could reach some friendly spot. We had plenty of time to think about the other aspect of our predicament.

Jim Cameron’s overriding preoccupation was to husband the Wellington’s resources of power as best he could, balancing the need to conserve fuel with the desirability of losing as little height as possible. Mine was to scrutinise the quite inadequate representation of the landscape which was spread out on my knee while searching the wall of the mountainside for an opening that would not only correspond with a similar one on the map but would look as if it might go somewhere that anyone in his sane senses would not want to go.

Paddy was transmitting frequent distress calls although the reception of these would be unlikely at our altitude far below high mountains. It mattered no longer that the enemy could pick up our distress messages — they could see us.

There seemed to be two possible routes left, each long, winding valleys, with the slightly more promising one further south, which would take longer to reach. We elected to go for the first one. Two or three miles ahead, the map and the terrain showed a sharp curve to the left. A bend to the starboard would have suited Jim better but he eased the Wellington gently round the corner. It was a cul-de-sac.

Jim had neither time nor room to do other than turn to port, towards the dead engine. We had to go back out of that valley the way we had come in, having lost several hundred feet in that last steep turn to port. I think I closed my eyes as we scraped over the trees.

It now had to be the other valley, further south. We entered it and followed its twisting course, I with my map in my hand and my heart in my mouth. The valley broadened and the mountains on either side and ahead fell away, dwindling into folds and ridges five hundred, seven hundred and eight hundred feet lower than we were. Suddenly it was a beautiful day and we were flying up the Arakan with the sea on our left, not much caring if the Japanese forward units in their fox-holes could hit us with small arms fire. We were flying north, towards Chittagong and safety.

Now, Paddy was overwhelmed with offers of help and bearings and courses to steer, from Comilla, from Fenny, from Argatala and from Chittagong itself. They heard us when we could not hear them.

Our rear gunner, Don Impey and bomb aimer had largely suffered in silence. With a limited role in helping it could not have been easy for them. At least the rest of us had something to keep our minds occupied.

Soon we could see the airfield at Chittagong. It struck us as curious that it was ringed by barrage balloons. Could they be expecting other visitors?

Jim’s sole thought was that the balloon barrage would only further complicate a landing which was going to involve an awkward right-hand circuit. But it was a perfect touch-down.

Four hours and ten minutes had passed since the engine died on us.

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