Lucky bastards

[A2Keltainen]

I start with a Swedish aviation example from March 1959, and hope that additional ones will be added by others.

 

En J33 "Venom" ur F1 skulle skjuta mot markmål på Kärnskogenmålet i norra Östergötland. Fältflygare Ingemar Persson hade värnpliktige Nils Borg med sig. Det var den senares första flygning i ett jetplan. Plötsligt exploderade flygplanet mitt över skjutmålet. Persson mindes inget men något (eventuellt han själv) har tydligen utlöst hans fallskärm. Borg minns heller ingenting annat än att han hängde i en skärm och dalade mot marken. Ganska enkelt tyckte han kanske. Det vara bara så att hans fallskärm hängde outlöst under honom. Bägge hade dalat ned i Perssons skärm. Borg hade medelst en skrotbit från flygplanet varit fasthakad vid Persson.

Att flyga är att leva - Flygvapnet 1926-1976

Gösta Norrbohm och Bertil Skogsberg

Bokförlaget bra böcker

1975

 

My translation:

 

A J33 "Venom" from F1 was going to shoot against ground targets at the Kärnskogen target in northen Östergötland. Field flier Ingemar Persson had conscript Nils Borg with him. It was the latter ones first fly in a jet aircraft. Suddenly the aircraft exploded right over the shooting target. Persson didn't remember anything, but something (eventually he himself) had evidently released his parachute. Borg didn't remember anything either, other than him hanging in a chute and descending towards the ground. Relatively simple he may have thought. It was just that his parachute hang unreleased beneath him. Both had descended down in Persson's chute. Borg had, through a piece of metal from the aircraft, been attached to Persson.

[Special-K]

I don't know if this qualifies, but a family friend has told me stories about his time in Vietnam. He told me that he was often the driver for his M-113 APC. Mines were a huge problem for them and would result in a catastrophic kill with very messy consequences - especially if the vehicle was buttoned up. He would drive with the hatch open, standing if at all possible. He said that he hit three seperate mines when he was there. Each time he was shot out of the drivers hatch like a pilot ejecting from an aircraft. The first two times he was uninjured. The third time he messed up his ankle upon landing.

 

Looking back on it, I think it's amazing he survived at all, let alone relatively uninjured. I'm pretty sure he was being serious and not BS'ing - he's not that type and has some pretty 'heavy' stories to told too.

 

 

 

-K

[capt_starlight]

How about these three:

 

Lieutenant I. M. Chisov

January 1942: Russian Lieutenant I. M. Chisov flew his Ilyushin 4 on a bitter cold day in January 1942. He was attacked by 12 German Messerschmitts.

 

Chisov bailed out at 21,980 ft. because he thought that was his best survival option. He free fell to escape the German fire. His plan was to open at 1000 ft.

 

He lost consciousness during his freefall. He landed on a steep ravine with 3 ft. of snow and plowed through the snow until coming to rest at the bottom.

 

He awoke 20 minutes later. He 'only' had a concussion of his spine and a fractured pelvis.

 

He recovered quickly and was back on duty as a flight instructor 3.5 months later.

 

Nick Alkemade

March 23, 1944: Nick Alkemade of the Royal Air Force survived a chuteless jump. He was a tail gunner in an AVRO Lancaster bomber. While returning from a bombing mission the aircraft was attacked by German Junkers JU-88. Alkemade was trapped in the turret after the bomber caught fire. His parachute was in the cabin area. Alkemade jumped from the aircraft, preferring a quick death to being burned.

 

He fell from 18,000 ft, all the while thinking of his ultimate death. He relaxed his body and fell in a slightly head down position.

 

His next recollection was looking up at the stars through some pine trees. He could not believe he was okay. He moved each arm and leg and soon realized he was not even hurt badly.

 

Completely grateful of being alive he smoked a cigarette, before even getting up. He thought about what had just happened to him.

 

He realized that the pine trees, with their pliable branches, slowly reduced his descent rate to one that was survivable. In addition, the soft snow cover reduced the landing forces even more.

 

He finally stood up. His leg was sprained and would not support his weight.

 

A short time later, the Germans captured Alkemade. The Gestapo did not believe his story of jumping without a parachute. They thought he was a spy. Finally, after inspecting the parachute harness and finding the burned parachute at the crash site they believe him.

 

Alkemade died on Jun. 22, 1987.

 

Vesna Vulovic

Jan. 26, 1972: Twenty-two year old, Vesna Vulovic, was a flight attendant on Yugoslav Airlines DC-9 enroute from Stockholm to Belgrade. A bomb, planted by Croatian terrorists, exploded onboard when the aircraft was at 33,330 ft. Vulovic was in the tail section that fell to Earth. It landed at just the right angle on a slope of snow covered mountains.

 

Rescue operations commenced immediately. Vulovic was severely injured. She broke both her legs and was paralyzed from the waist down. She was in a coma for 27 days. Her recovery took 17 months. She continued to fly with Yugoslav Airlines for 20 more years.

 

Vulovic returned to the accident scene on Jan 27, 1997. She met her rescuers and placed memorial flowers at the monument for the others that died.

 

All others on board perished.

 

From => http://www.parachutehistory.com/other/bonusday.html

[Brian Kennedy]

Trying and failing to dig up an apparently-true story about a tail gunner in a B-17 whose tail got knocked off by enemy fire... reportedly the tail section glided gracefully down to earth and he was completely unscathed.

[KingSargent]

I read an even scarier story about a Bomber Command Lancaster tail gunner. He spotted a German night fighter and swung his turret hard to the left stop to engage. The fighter shot first and the Lanc went down in flames.

 

The kid is trapped in the turret, the door won't open in the position it is jammed in. His parachute wouldn't fit in the turret anyway; bail-out doctrine was to exit turret into fuselage, buckle parachute on, and go out the crew door.

 

So the plane is going down, he is trapped in the turret watching the flames work up the fuselage, eventually burning his parachute up.

 

The Lanc hits the ground, the fuselage whips, his turret pops open, and he sails out to land in a haystack.

 

Not a scratch, but when he took his flight helmet off all his hair came with it.

[History Buff]

Trying and failing to dig up an apparently-true story about a tail gunner in a B-17 whose tail got knocked off by enemy fire... reportedly the tail section glided gracefully down to earth and he was completely unscathed.

 

http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/wreckage.html

[KingSargent]

http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/wreckage.html

The "William Stannard" story in that link has a probem. The Ventura did not have a tail gunner......

[Yama]

The "William Stannard" story in that link has a probem. The Ventura did not have a tail gunner......

 

It did, however, have a dorsal gunner. IIRC, the story goes that he was blown into tail section by explosion, which then floated to the ground like a feather.

[Rich]

There was also another story I read somewhere of a Lancaster crewmember who had to bail out over the Uk after his aircaft had suffered battle damage. The unfortunate landed on a railway line, where his parachute was snagged by a passing train. He was dragged for some distance before the chute ripped and he fell free. Doubtless the driver was overjoyed at all the money he could make out the parachute silk on the black market.

 

My all time favorite has got to be a Kiwi, Flight Lieutenant A. C. "Al" Deere.

 

1). He was shot down over Dunkirk on 28 May 1940, crashing onto the beach and being knocked unconcious, but rescued by a soldier who helped him get to Dunkirk, where he managed to get back to Dover on one of the last ships out.

 

2). On 9 July 1940 he collided head on with a Bf-109, but managed to make a forced landing near Manston.

 

3). On 15 August 1940 he was mouse-trapped by Bf-109s over the Channel, but managed to breakoff but ran out of fuel just over the coast and bailed out.

 

4). The next day he attempted to scramble in his Spitfire from Hornchurch when it was raided, but was blown up by German bombs (along with three others) while taking off and was trapped upside down in the remnants of his cockpit, but was rescued by one of the other badly injured pilots that had been blown up, who Deer thereupon carried to hospital.

 

5). After his squadron was withdrawn he was training new pilots in January, when one of his students collided with, tearing his aircraft apart and throwing him out of his cockpit with a damaged chute that refused to open. But with typical Deere luck he managed to "splash down" safely....into a cesspool.

 

6). On 7 May 1941 his Spitfire suffered an engine failure and he made another forced landing, again being trapped in his smashed cockpit for some time before he could extricate himself.

 

Note that he was never actually shot down.

 

Another candidate for amazing luck would have to be my girlfiends late stepfather, Peter Cope, who flew low-level photo-reconnaissance missions in P-51s prior to D-Day and then to nearly the end of the war over Europe, Although at least a half dozen aircraft he flew were so badly damaged by Flak as to be written off, he himself was never scratched, shot down, forced to bail out, or force landed, he managed to nurse every aircraft back to base and land it. Then after the war he emigrated from England to Canada and worked for Avro Canada as a test pilot (he was one of the few men to fly the Arrow) but nearly managed to shoot himself down while test firing a new 30mm installation in the CF-100. But again, despite a test pilot career of over 10 years in highly experimental aircraft (he also flew the super-secret Avrocar ) he never bailed out or forced landed in his entire career.

 

The reason? He told me he never trusted parachutes, so always figured it was safer trying to land and that it always seemed that he managed to get back to base, so he always decided that landing was safer than crashing.

[KingSargent]

Another tale is that of Mike Gladych, a Polish pilot who flew with the PAF, FAF, RAF, and USAAC 1939-45. According to Bob Johnson's Thunderbolt Gladych was flying Spits with the RAF over Holland when he got into bad trouble with three Bf109s. Thoroughly shot up, Gladych rammed one of the 109s, pointed his propellorless plane west, and passed out.

 

He woke up in a hospital in central England. His Spit had glided out of Holland, across the North Sea (or North Channel, whatever), halfway across England, and delivered him gently to the front lawn of the hospital.

[Special-K]

These are some of the most amaizing stories I have ever heard. I guess when it's your time it's your time, and when it's not - it's not.

 

 

 

 

-K

[KingSargent]

Im sure I read somewhere (it may have been Alan Clarkes aces high book) that on one occasion a RFC pilot was trying hard to removed a jammed magazine from his top wing mounted lewis gun. Unfortunately a gust of wind toppled the aircraft over, and he found himself at 10 thousand feet hanging onto the jammed magazine, hoping that this time the damned thing didnt come loose. Somehow he managed to get a leg back in the cockpit and managed to move the stick to get the aircraft upright. I once saw an authentic WW1 flying jacket (Burberry?) at Middle Wallop some years ago. Considering how bulky the damn things were, this was some remarkable effort.

The pilot's name was Strange and he was flying a Martinsyde. While the plane was inverted his seat fell out. When he got back to base his CO made him pay for the seat.

 

Strange made it through WW1 and in WW2 was instrumental in the early development of British Airborne.

[History Buff]

There was a US test pilot, I think his name was Bob Hooper who one day was flying a P51 in a air display. In a low level pass while flying inverted his safety straps broke. Pinned in the aircrafts canopy he realised he was in a bit of a sticky situation. Fortunately he was able to push the stick forward to get the aircraft in a climb, and was then able to climb back in his seat. He said later that he had to get out of it, since if he had died 'they would have said that old fart was too old and too blind to fly'. He had previously as a test pilot bailed out of numerous aircraft, and proudly claimed that no piece of wreckage was larger than a fridge door.

 

Bob Hoover. And the FAA , some 50 years later, told him just that. Eventually he got his pilots license back. I think he's still alive. Here's a wiki article on him; be sure to check out the video at the bottom of the page:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Hoover

[Ivanjoe]

There is also that Kiwi Wellington copilot (sadly his name escapes me) who climbed out on the wing and smothed a fire in a battle damaged engine with an engine cover. Whilst the fabric covered geodetics of the welly made it a bit easier to do that it would with an aluminum skinned aircraft, he still had to climb out the astrodome and down the fuselage before he got to the engine. He was wearing a parachute, but potentially the fire could have ignited it.

 

He got a VC for his efforts, got a Wellington of his own, and then later died on operations.

 

James Allen Ward

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Allen_Ward