· RUEL SK

78 CRUEL SKY
couple of thousand feet above his burning ship, Lt. Miner saw an element of three planes
heading west, with the No.2 plane trailing vapor or smoke from its No.4 engine. "Our No.
I and NO.3 engines were out, windmilling, and would not feather, there was a fire on each
wing, the intercom was out. An FW-190 came over our left wing, upside down, close
enough for me to clearly see the pilot. He split essed out just in front of us with our
gunners firing at him all the way. I thought: 'It's crazy. Here we are trying to kill one
another while under different circumstances we'd probably be friends. '"
"The lead squadron had been largely destroyed as I initially looked down at them
with B-24s burning, breaking up, blowing up, going down. I had sounded the bailout
signal hoping that those in the waist would get the message and my copilot, 1st Lt. Virgil
Chima and I seemed to be alone in the plane. He checked with me to see if it was OK for
him to bailout and I said 'Yes' and he left."
"I kept flying west to give anyone that hadn't gotten out more time and to get as far
as possible less distance to walk. I saw three fighters coming down toward me from 9
o'clock not much above my altitude and was seriously concerned until I identified them as
P-51s. I checked the altitude about then, found that I was down to about 10,000 feet and,
with the wing fires still burning, I decided that it was time to get out, thinking that by now I
was alone in the plane, although I wasn't sure, an uncomfortable feeling."
"I glanced back at the bomb bay doors through which I had expected to leave and
found them to be closed. I assumed they couldn't be opened because of battle damage.
That means that I would have to get out the nose wheel doors and I hoped they were open."
As soon as I left my seat, released the control column, whipped off the flak suit,
oxygen mask, helmet, goggles, earphones and headed toward the bomb bay, the nose started
straight up. I dropped into the tunnel under the flight deck and made tracks up to the nose
wheel doors which were open. I grabbed the edge of the opening as the plane fell off in a
spin, and pulled myself out."
The lead ship of the high-right squadron crashed at Grebenau, at the northern border
of the town towards Wallersdorf.
The BRULAND crew
Copilot Lt. Peter Belitsos: "The No.3 engine fire would not go out. I went back to