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Entered on behalf of Bob Meyer

When the war ended I was on board an American built aircraft carrier in Sydney, Australia and soon on our way home to Plymouth.
After two weeks of unloading, disarming and dispersing most of the complement, we were ordered, under the lease-lend agreement, to embark a skeleton crew — and as 1st Lieutenant it included me — and return the ship to America.

The day before we sailed we were told to expect the next morning a consignment of R.A.F redundant stores to be dumped at sea the following morning, beyond the 100 fathom line.
We were rather surprised to find the ‘stores’ consisted of six fully operational single and twin seat aircraft and six enormous crates of spares.
For easy disposal the aircraft and crates were lashed down on the flight deck.

We sailed at 3pm and within the hour the weather began to deteriorate and by midnight we were heading into the Atlantic in a force 8-9 gale. Though I was concerned about the cargo there was little one could do until morning and that brought real concern.
Two of the larger aircraft had been flipped over upside down and two others had broken loose and were locked together and sliding back and forth across the heaving deck and very dangerous to handle.

With the aid of our small fork- lift truck we first pushed the large crates to the ditching ramp and into the sea. We then started on the two flipped aircraft and with the use of block and tackle and nudges from the fork-lift we inched them over the side.
By now the conditions were too dangerous for the fork-lift so it was manpower and blocks and tackle to deal with the two locked together which we managed to pull apart and secure to deck bolts.
A 6-7 ton aircraft required careful handling in high winds and a rolling deck and it was essential to ensure one lashing was secure before releasing the others.

Unfortunately at one point this did not happen and as I was crossing the deck I suddenly realised the aircraft was coming towards me quite fast.
I started to run but then realised the tail was swinging and I was unlikely to make it outside the arc so dropped onto the deck in the hope it would pass over me.

Unfortunately I was too bulky and the tail-wheel caught me and rolled me into the 2ft wide catwalk around the flight deck. My cap and duffle coat went over the side into the boiling sea forty feet below. All I received was 3-4 stitches in my head and a scraped face embedded with pitch and wood splinters.
The weather worsened, with wind speeds in excess of 80mph and forty foot waves and the ship rolling 30 degrees side to side in 7-8 seconds.
We were practically hove-to for nearly 3 days.

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