War story

 

 

24/25 march 1944 sometime after midnight

BERLIN

The HALIFAX MK 3 was hit pretty bad, the engines where on fire
and all the crew except one had bailed out, 18000 ft and dropping,
the gun pillar in the rear had been damaged so bad it had pinned the gunner against the turret and he couldn’t get out, trying with all his might in the panic stricken moments to release himself, he managed to get free but had to pull his foot from his boot to release his leg, he managed to turn the turret into position for bailing out, perching on the edge getting ready to jump.
A young man in his early twenties daring to jump out over the fire lit blackness. But he was frozen in place and could not force himself out, the aircraft gathering momentum as it was plummeting out of the sky. Finally the decision was made for him, as one of the engines broke loose and passed him it was now or never, remembering what he was told during parachute training” you will only do it once” he was heading for terra firma and the rest of the war as a p.o.w.

 

16 aircraft took part in that raid 2 failed to return

LW 539                                                                MZ507

F/O MC PHERSON              P                            F/L  CURTIS                    P
F/O GILLESPIE                    N                            SGT WILLSON               N
F/O NELSON                        B                            F/S SOOT                        B
SGT BOWTHORPE          W                            SGT SIDEBOTTOM      W
SGT HERBERT                    E                             SGT HEPWORTH          E
SGT CLOUTER                    MUG                     SGT MIDLINE                MUG
SGT DAVIES                      RG                         SGT TAYLOR                 RG

 

" I COULD OF DONE WITH THAT BOOT BECAUSE IT WAS BLOODY FREEZING"

"NO ONE REMEMBERS JUMPING"

"IT WAS A JU88 THAT GOT US"

  K DAVIES 20/9/99

 

The main reason for creating this site is the above story, SGT  KEN DAVIES is my uncle and CURLY BOWTHORPE
was his best friend in the force. Sadly curly was the only crewmember to die after bailing out over Berlin.
      There is speculation(alleged)that he died at the hands of the town’s people.....
The rest of the crew were captured .Uncle ken was found near the wreckage indicating how long he left it before bailing out. He was lucky in the fact that the farmer who found him was going to hand him over to an SS PATROL but managed to persuade him not to. He was handed over to regular forces, which followed..
      They were all told under interrogation that the remainder of the crews were killed so after the war no one tried to contact each other for a while, it was only later when things became clearer ,there were survivors except curly. Ken tried for fifty years to find records of curly’s death/grave and I eventually found these details via the web.

The funniest thing is that when uncle ken was pinned against turret the gun mount was pressed into his cigarette case,
how’s that for an uncanny  " this cigarette case saved my life????????"