大象传媒

Prologue
This story takes place on the night of 14/15 October 1941, on board a Wellington 5571 with a crew of six. Target: Nuremberg.

-- Read more about the subject of this story, Alexander James Heyworth

The flight to the target was uneventful and the Nuremberg area was mostly in cloud. We could not locate the target until we saw a river and railway line glinting through a gap in the clouds. We dropped our bombs over a marshalling yard, and then the whole sky lit up with flak bursts. We escaped and were headed for home when one of the two engines started to overheat.

Loss of coolant probably, a pipe holed by shrapnel? The navigator said it was five hours to the English coast at 100 mph, our single engine cruise speed. I headed slightly south of our track whilst we debated baling out over Switzerland where there was no cloud - the lakes and mountains clear in the moonlight. The crew left the decision to me, so I said I was going to my wedding in six weeks' time and was not going to be late.

We flogged our way back on one engine avoiding the defences in Germany by flying west of track over France and avoiding Paris, all the time losing power because I had to use full power to keep as much height as possible.

With one engine shut down the windmilling propellor produced drag on one side and this could not be counteracted unless the rudder was used by pushing on the pedal. In this way the aircraft could be kept straight. After half an hour my right leg was getting very painful and it was not possible to hold it straight because the pressure on the rudder was too great. The crew found some rope and lashed the pedal to a stay, thus relieving the amount of pressure I had to exert. I then used the other leg to rest the right one.

Dawn broke as we flew by mistake over Dieppe at 800 ft; no-one shot at us. Over the sea we could not keep height, so at 500ft I told the crew to throw every single loose item out of the door - even parachutes - because they weigh a good few pounds and we were below our minimum bale out height. They stripped everything bare and this kept them busy and full of fight. We rehearsed our dingy drill and with the reduction in weight stabilised our altitude at about 400 ft.

It was a long time before we saw what we assumed was Dungeness point from reading our map. We also knew that Lydd airfield was there but a Morse code signal said we were not under any circumstances to land. We did have short range R/T speech and on the emergency frequency gave a 'May Day' call. However we were so low there was only a faint reply. The radio operator had previously contacted a base and we were told to head over the hills to an airfield in Kent.

The good engine then began to show signs of packing up, the hills too high to get over, and the valleys too steep for a belly landing. The bad engine started up and gave us 1000ft before it spewed smoke and fire. So that was it: a controlled crash landing was essential and it was up to the pilot. The crew moved to their crash positions and I saw some flat marshland, selected the fields on the edge to avoid drainage ditches and touched down gently. We slid to a stop, the crew drill worked well and we all got out - myself with the hand fire extinguisher as the engine was still smoking, stuffed it in the cowling and hoped - no further fire.

After a few minutes discussion the navigator started to doubt both his and my map reading and wondered if we had slipped into France over to the east - the French coast goes nearly North from Dieppe. Personally I was 99% sure that we had identified Dungeness correctly on our port side even though we were only 400ft high - it is such on obvious landmark. To play safe three of the crew agreed to stay with the aircraft to spray petrol on the grass to burn the aircraft on a signal from me - a red verey light.

Three of us walked towards a farm a mile away. It was 6am and dawn. We met some people with red scarves and they fled jabbering away, not in English. We chased them, but they disappeared. We came to the farm, and crept around to the front and looked in the window to see The Times strewn on an armchair. We ran around the back to the other two in the yard - shouted 'Hooray for the Times' and fired off the green verey with the signal pistol. A voice from a bedroom window shouted 'hands up!' and there was the farmer with a shot gun about 40ft away. He thought that we were Germans. After a short dialogue with our hands up (I dropped the pistol on the ground) we made peace, collected the crew and all our belongings and sat down to a huge farm breakfast. The army arrived quickly to guard the aircraft - presumably from the Gypsies - the jabberers!

What is interesting on reflection, none of the crew suffered from shock - the word was not used, it never occurred to the crew that they should have any emotion except sheer elation at having survived and we had better get on with the next task.

We were processed through an Airforce station at Lympne and found ourselves eventually at Kings Cross, London about 6pm getting dusk. I had my parachute because it was part of the aircraft seat and we looked a typical crew dressed to go on a mission, which we were. The stationmaster - top hat, morning coat - met us with a porter towing a trolley on which we placed our stuff. He asked if we were the crew whose story was on the front page of the Evening Standard - we stopped - surprised - read it, said 'yes' and a great cheer went up from a few passengers nearby. Bomber Command PR somewhere in the system must have got hold of our report and made capital news out of it.

We walked to a reserved carriage, the porter picked up my chute release handle, out sprang the drogue chute, followed by 70ft of silk right over the carriage. Everyone roared with laughter, the Stationmaster shouted 'Fool!' to the porter. I said, 'Right fellas,' to the crew, 'undrape it.' They skimmed up on top, collected it while I calmed down the Stationmaster explaining that the porter took hold of the shiny rip cord handle - easily done.

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Epilogue
At that time an engine failure well inside Germany normally meant that the crew baled out.

This was a record for a single-engined flight, over five hours on one engine, and hopefully others would not give up thereafter. We were in the air nearly eight hours. I got a black mark from the engineer officer for throwing everything into the sea, but it must have given us 200ft, it certainly entertained the crew and kept morale up. (I was awarded the DFC later).

It was good to know that our Wellington was repaired and back in service six weeks later, minor damage to the belly and propellors only. There was no flak damage to the radiator system of the engine. The loss of coolant was due to a material failure of the radiator itself, so it was important to have brought the aircraft back so the engine could be investigated. Rolls Royce took immediate action and had all engines in service checked, found others were faulty and consequently the radiator manufacturer modified all new ones and those in service.

Two days after this epic flight we were given a new Wellington on which the engines could be stopped in flight (propellor feathered at right angles to airflow) thus reducing the drag enormously. This made single engine flying easy and you could maintain height at 3,000ft at less than full power.

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