Description
Mr. Tarling describes the Wellington crash and his escape.
Raymond Tarling
Mr. Raymond Tarling was born May 19, 1920 in Vancouver, British Columbia. After his schooling, Mr. Tarling decided to join the Air Force. He trained at the Calgary Wireless School and Lethbridge Gunnery School choosing an occupation of Wireless Air Gunner. After receiving this training, Mr. Tarling attended a year’s service of Instructing in London, Ontario, and was then posted overseas. Once in Nottinghamshire, Scotland, Mr. Tarling was assigned an instructor position and eagerness to participate in active service, he volunteered on the Wellington mission dropping leaflets over Northern France. During this time in Mr. Tarling’s career, he experienced a crash flight and was severely disfurged by the impact. Mr. Tarling was taken to East Grinstead Hospital in Enlgand where many surgeries and repairs to his face, hands and leg were performed. It was because of this tragedy, Mr. Tarling proudly became a member of the Guinea Pig Club. To this day Mr. Tarling takes great pride in his service and experiences at East Grinstead Hospital. After recovery from his injuries, Mr. Tarling returned to Canada married his long time sweetheart, Elsie, and raised a family.
Transcript
At that time they were knocking us out of the sky right and left I'll tell ya that, that was 1943, ya. So we got hit, knocked out our starboard engine, which was good for me because I, me and the navigator were right over the port engine, port wing. And when we landed the starboard engine went on fire like that, the port engine was still there but all of a sudden I said, "Jeez, I gotta get out of here!" and how am I gonna get out, I couldn’t see anywhere to get out, the navigator, everything was broken here at the back of me and then I look and I says, "I see a house out there." So then I realized there was this great big hole right beside my chair. And one of the propellers broke off from the port engine and went down the side of the plane, they told me all of this later, like this and made this big hole right beside my chair and I still don’t know how I got by there without getting hit, we figured there was only inches from my shoulder, I mean I had to go right in and I'm sitting right beside it. So I went to get up and just kept falling back, because I was supposed to go over in the crash position which was out of my office and up a couple of feet, so to put my back against the pilot, with my one leg on the side of the plane and the bars of my transmitter. So I said, "What the heck’s the matter with me? " So I went to get up again, I just kept falling back and that’s when the pilot yelled, “Get in crash position! We haven't much time!" That's one thing about the Wellington, it will not fly on one engine. It would keep us kind of but it kept going down and down. So I went and sat down and put my arms up like this, on my transmitter, receivers only like this, the transmitter was like this. And I put my arms like this and I never even thought, bang! But naturally I went back, and then forward again and when I went forward again I took my hands off and my face was a hell of a mess. Second degree burns and I couldn’t see very good for two or three weeks.