Bail out

This was extremely worrisome because of the danger of spreading to a fuel tank and exploding. The waist gunner, Darrel Koll, immediately transferred fuel from the tank nearest to the fire to the opposite wing. Meanwhile I put the plane into a dive in a successful effort to blow out the fire. While all this was going on I told Lyle that he should get out of the turret, as there would be no enemy fighters in all this flak and he would be safer in the fuselage. When he operated the controls to put the turret in a position for climbing out they would not respond, so Darrel, and Matthew manually turned it around and Lyle was finally able to get out.

John feathered the prop on number four. Engines number 1 and 2 on the left wing were still operating and we were able to maintain altitude, but our air speed was inadequate to keep up with the formation, and after my fire extinguishing dive we were well separated from the rest of the group.

We soon discovered that number two engine had been hit, and as all efforts to keep it running failed it was necessary to feather that prop also. But this time the prop would not feather, so we had to let it continue to windmill. With only one engine operating we could no longer maintain altitude and began a slow but sure descent. By this time the navigator, Jack Gillick, had given us a compass heading to follow to get us over the nearest allied held territory in Belgium. I had not yet decided on what our final course of action would be, and was hoping that the clouds beneath us would dissipate so that we could possibly find a spot for an emergency landing in Belgium. At our current rate of descent it was not positively evident that we would get that far. In an effort to stretch our flight as far as possible I asked the crew to jettison anything that was loose in the airplane. Out went flak vests, machine guns, ammunition, radio equipment and all loose things with any weight. Since the ball turret created a significant drag Darrel and Matty removed a couple of bolts and the turret dropped. While this action reduced our rate of descent, and bought us a little more time aloft, the plane did not "soar upward" as later reported by the media.

We finally were over Belgium, but unfortunately the cloud cover was solid under us. There was no hope of locating a field and if the bottom of the clouds was close to the ground or on the ground it would be futile to continue our descent through them. This scenario was a textbook condition, indicating no choice but to bail out.

I instructed the crew to clip on their parachutes (some of them had already done so). We were still at a very safe altitude for jumping when I told the crew that it was necessary to bail out. The tail gunner, Jimmy Everman, had long since gotten out of the tail and was in the waist section but did not have intercom access. When Barrel and Lyle told him we were bailing out he said "Naw'' and would not believe them. They reported this to me on the intercom and I had them give Jimmy an intercom connection, so that I could convince him of the

Page 1 | Page 3