Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Hortlund on March 04, 2002, 07:59:53 AM
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I love these...
(disclaimer: To my knowledge they are true)
In Ernie Pyle's book, he relates an unfortunate (and dang miraculous) incident about how an American spotter plane was hit in the air by an American artillery shell.
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A German U-boat surfaced after working clear of an intense depth-charging. The Captain let his men go topside to get a little R & R... and the very first thing they found was a hedgehog stuck between the wooden slats (walkway) on the deck. One INCH left or right, and they all would have died.
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An American para officer on D-Day came upon one of his men sitting on the side of the road, holding his helmet in his hands and crying "I'm dead, I'm dead" with tears running down his face. The officer shook him by the shoulder and said "If you're dead, could I do this" and thought he was suffering a bit of shell shock because they had taken fire coming down.
The private showed his helmet to the officer and said, "see, I'm dead". There were two bullet holes in the helmet. One in the front, an entry hole, and one in the back, directly opposite, and exit hole. Turning the helmet over the officer found that the entire lining of the helmet had been torn out. As far as he could work out the bullet had entered slightly off square, done a couple of laps of the inside of the helmet, and then exited the back.
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Flt-Sgt Nicholas Steven Alkemade survived falling 18,000 feet without a parachute. He landed in a hilly forested area in winter and between the branches, snow, and (most important) not hitting the ground square on but landing on a slope and tumbling down it he survived.
UK: Flt-Sgt Nicholas Steven Alkemade (d. 22 Jun 1987) from a blazing Lancaster bomber at 5485m 18000ft over Germany (near Oberkuerchen) on 23 Mar 1944.
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A tailgunner in a B-17 (this is from the book, "The Caterpillar Club") was pinned in the tail that got blown off at 30,000 feet.
He was pinned there from centrifugal force, because the tail was spinning like crazy. In fact, because of its wild spinning, the tail section fell very slowly. When it hit the ground, the tailgunner was totally unharmed. But sick as a dog for three days. The Germans had to carry him to the Stalag...
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A fighter pilot in was shot down by an ME-109. He bailed out at about 5,000 feet, but his chute would not fill. He pulled out his service revolver, and aimed it at his head. He pulled the trigger and it misfired. This happened several more times, until he hit the field feet first. The field had been freshly plowed, and muddy from recent rains. His net injuries were two broken ankles.
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"I was forced to abandon my ship, a heavy four-engined bomber. We had just come through our bomb run and was very heavily hit and set afire by the german AAA. I pulled my rip chord and felt a heavy jerk. I discovered that I was caught onto the tail of my aircraft by my parachute. I was pulled to the earth to crash with my ship. After several months in a german hospital, I was sent to a german POW camp, stalag Luft III"
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"I am a tail turret operater on a B-17 and had quite an experience. On the way back from the target over Germany, I noticed that the ship was unstable and gradually losing altitude. Receiving no answer to my calls on the intercom system, I supposed it out of order. Since we were still over enemy territory, I had to remain at my battle station. We crossed the English Channel exceedingly low and reached the coast at treetop level. We approached the a field and made a pretty smoothing landing, wheels up it felt like for we sort of bounced along the way. Upon stopping, I got out as fast as I could, for I knew there was something wrong. Looking around I was shocked to find there were no other crew members around. I was the only one left in the crew. All others, including both pilots, had bailed out over france and had first set the aircraft on automatic pilot. The ship came back on its own."
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"Engaged in aerial combat over Germany in my P-47 (Jug) fighter at 12,000 feet, I was hit hard by cannon fire from an ME-109. My oxygen mask was filling up with blodd from my face and head wods as I attempted to dive it nearly vertical in order to both get away from the ME-109, and also get down to where I could take off my mask and breathe. The last thign I remembered was that I was at about 9,000 feet just before passing out from lack of oxygen and loss of blood. I woke up in a german hospital. I was told that I was dug out of the hole my aircraft made in the ground when it hit. They said it was about 10 feet deep and that it took quite a number of hours to free me from my plane." This person was Lt. Colonel Melvin F McNickle. When he arrived at the POW camp, the lower part of his body was 90 degrees from the upper part as he walked into the compound. AKA he was faceing forward, but his legs and waist were pointing to the sides. His shoulder strap kept him in his seat, while his sternum pushed forward several inches and the lower part of his body twisted with the airframe of the plane. After the war he was reinstated flight status at the rank of Lt. General
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"I jumped out of my P-51 aircraft while at 500 feet, to escape a fire. I had no chute on for it was far too low to use one. I landed feet first and ended up waist deep in mud. I suffered no injuries"
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"We were in the lead element of B-24 bombers on the first all american raid on the European Continent, 9 October 1942. Upon crossing the coast of France, over teh city of Dunkirk, there was a terrific explosion. We must have taken a direct hit to the bomb bay"
Two people were thrown clear, as the entire aircraft literally disentegrated. They both survived.
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Stories from, "Always fighting the enemy" by Luther C. Cox
Modern:
An Israeli A-4 collided with an F-15. The A-4 was basically vaporized, and it sheared off the right wing of the F-15. Totally sheared it off, nothing left except the engine pod. The Pilot flew the aircraft home, not knowing his wing was missing.
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A malfunction in an ejection seat sent the co-pilot of an A-6 Intruder into a partial ejection. He was hanging halfway out of the canopy, and his chute wound around the tail. The pilot landed the aircraft. The chute was loose enough around the tail so the co-pilot had control and could land the aircraft, however it was tight enough around the tail that the shock from the landing didn't send the pilot through the sharp canopy he was hanging halfway out of (which would have probably cut him in two)
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On a Circus or Rodeo sweep a Spitfire on the way home is struck by a cannon shell on the cockpit hood pilot killed instantly however the trim is set and aircraft is on correct heading for base probably Biggin or Kenley. The plane continues on its way nothing on the R/T , passes within in sight of its own base and then disapears.Six months later an Anson on a training flight overflies a forest not to far further on and spots a Spitfire resting in treetops without having fallen to the ground.
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A Canadian CF-18 (F/A-18A equivilent) lost a vertical stabalizer, and the pilot didn't notice till he landed. The flight computer for the hornet had automatically compensated without the pilot noticing.
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"One night in early 45 a BC crew were briefed for a mission over northern Germany, Hamburg, I think. So they bombed up and their pilots blasted off down the strip at 90mph to reach the marshalling area and hold for take off. As this was happening the weather started to turn bad, so they were ordered to hold. And so they waited and they waited, and eventually the mission was bagged due to lack of visibility over the target. During the long wait on the ground their tail gunner had nodded of in the back, and didn't wake up until the planes had returned to their hardstands. Waking up all was dark outside, it was dead quiet, and he couldn't raise anybody on the intercom. Still loggy with sleep he assumed that they had taken off, been hit, and everybody else had bailed out. So he opened the back of his turret, grabbed his shoot, put it on, cranked his turret around and bailed out backwards, to fall about 2 and half feet and land on his back on the concrete.
The rest of his crew, and those of a couple of other planes were standing under the wing of K King and watched with utter amazement, before walking over, standing around him, and pissing themselves laughing. It has to be the lowest level bail out in history."
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Why would the position of the hedgehog caused deaths? Am I missing something?
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The hedgehog was a type of depth charge used by the allies.
Instead of dumping barrels from the aft of the escort (normal depth charge) the hedgehog was something that could best be described as a forward facing multi barreled mortar which shot off something like 16 depth charges into two large 8 bomb patterns. The hedgehog detonated on impact while the "normal" depth charge was set to detonate on a certain depth. In short, had that hedgehog landed on any other part of the German sub rather than on the wooden walkway, it would have exploded and killed everyone aboard that sub.