COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CHAPTER SIX DYING REICH
were producing some excellent results. Bill Hurst in particular had
proved an apt pupil. But it was just as well that the forward facing
camera would soon be available. His low obliques of a bridge near
Emmerich were an example of sheer perfectionism and considerable
hazard. The flak guns could be clearly seen, following him round as he
circled his objective three times with the camera running!
Bill's superb photographs of a church and seminary south of Goch
- which had been used by the Wehrmacht for more secular purposes
until destroyed in another attack - and my less elegant close ups of
Castel Bijen Beek were given VIP treatment. Both were displayed in
the Prime Minister's entrance to the Air Ministry as examples of
'Classic attacks of the week'. Excellent publicity for the Wing!
One day Toddy and I were watching B Flight about to set course
on a late afternoon show. Suddenly one of the aircraft dropped out,
with its engine cutting, and swung into the circuit. We could see that
he was going to undershoot and ran for the Bren carrier. Below 500
feet and he had forgotten his bombs. Without a wireless it was
impossible to warn him. Then he realised, jettisoning them live in his
haste, and they exploded on impact. Moments later he dropped out of
sight, wheels and flaps down, into a thick plantation short of the
runway.
The carrier got there, in a flurry of mud and spinning tracks, and
we were looking at the Typhoon flown by Jock Ewans. Inverted,
where it had come to rest, after cutting a swathe through the saplings.
And we were afraid for him because of what might happen before we
could get him out.
The ground was soft, the inevitable sand and peat, and access to
the site was obstructed by ditches - so that the only possible route for
the crane was a long way round. In the meantime the canopy had gone,
the top of the fuselage, windscreen, armour plate and pilot's head were
buried in the topsoil. The hot engine creaked and sizzled gently as
liquid seeped from inverted tanks and broken pipes.
We dug at the soft earth around the cockpit walls with our bare
hands, and then remembered the shovels in the Bren carrier and
managed rather better:
"Jock are you there?"
Of course he was - but somehow it seemed wrong to ask a man in
his position if he was still alive. There came an answer too - through
a mouthful of mud - full of apologies. For bending the aircraft. For
being so much trouble. We dug some more, until the trim moustache
83