大象传媒

Although this is a story about my dad it is told by a Lance corparal Grantham to a radio station in Africa
This it how it goes.
NARRATOR: You can now hear the story of one of the young men of the RASC who have been taking supplies to the airborne troops in Holland.
GRANTHAM: My job is to pack and store supplies of all kinds into special cintainers and baskets to be dicharged from aircraft over the dropping zone. This is a small area of ground marked out by the airborne troops, the R.A.F.pilot selects the course and flys his aircraft at the lowest possible speed ,often at great risk,without this we would not be able to do our part. He then gives us a signal and we discharge our cargo.We have to get out about two tons of containers fitted with parachutes in such a way that they fall in a cluster. We have got to do it in less than 8 seconds so work is pretty concentrated. In fact we are working as a team with the R.A.F. crew.
NARRATOR: And so he went to Holland straighr from a job, but,eventful as you will see.
GRANTHAM:The journey over was quite uneventful, but when we started to approach the dropping zone, flak started comingup.First they got the starboard engine. We got over the dropping zone then they got the other starboard engine, just after we started pushing out the supplies. The flak tore holes into our aircraft, we were to low to bail out by now, so we just sat tight waiting for more instructions from the skipper. The rear gunner then joined us in the waist,(this was my dad)a good job he didso, because an ack ack shell went right through his seat and tore it up. We took up crash landing postions and a few secondslater we hit. Then the dutch villagers ran out towards us. We found we had landed right in the middle of the German lines.
NARRTOR:That was not the end of the story, these villagers do not run towards them only to run away again.
GRANTHAM: Hans, head of the underground movement took us to his home where he told us to hide as the German troops had already reached the aircraft and were looking for us. Eventually the Dutch patriots captured those Germans, so that worry was removed. Just before dusk, our Dutch friends took us by car to a nearby town where we were given a tremendous welcome. We were the first British troops they had seen since 1940. After giving us a first class meal, the underground leader took us in his car towards the Belgian frontier to another town where we met the first British l;and forces we had seen. They were busy mopping up snipers, we slept the night wrapped in parachutes and the following (now this is where i have lost some of the paper, so will just finish with what i have).A vegetable cart in which we
our journey. We then trans
German prisioners back to Belguiem
were the most hair-raising i
The R.A.F/ crew were
PILOT. E.
NAVIGATOR. R.L. HOCKFILED F/SGT.
B/A H. FLETCHER. F/SGT.
W/OP J.P. SMITH. F/SGT.
F/E L.C. BAKER. SGT.
A/G N.J. GARNHAM. F/SGT.
NARRTOR; This is surley something to remeber.
As i have said a bit of the paper had been lost so i dont know the Pilots name. And i would love to know how the got home, and did they have to hide in a vegatable cart?
This was boardcast on RADIO NEWS REEL, 26TH SEPTEMBER 1949 AFRICAN EDITION.1073. MUSIC WE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM.

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