Language selection

Government of Canada / Gouvernement du Canada

Search veterans.gc.ca

Shot Down!

Heroes Remember

Shot Down!

Transcript
And the battle of Normandy was still going and on our last flight we flew this Whitley. And we were to take photographs of some German anti-air craft guns. No, not anti-air craft guns, Howitzer and these Howitzers were harassing the Canadians in Normandy at the time. So this was upon the battlefield where the Canadians were and we were supposed to go and take pictures at night of the flashes of the guns, right. Turn around, come back, get the films developed by someone second taff and then the second taff would go in the next day, second tactical air force would go in the next morning and shoot the hell out of these gun emplacements, all these gun batteries. Well, nobody had told us that they'd switched the Howitzer's to 88's. Well the 88 is an anti-tank gun, an anti-aircraft gun, it's a Howitzer, it's everything you would ever want it to be. And so we get there, we could see the guns firing over to the Canadian side and the bomb-aimer starts up with his lovely Cockney accent, with a, "Ten, nine, eight," you know, and you go right down... photograph's gone. You know, you had ten seconds to run this film and take so many shots. So he gots to ten, nine, eight... and I yells out, "Port engine's on fire!" And oh, the flames were coming back from this thing, and the plane was shaking and rattling and rolling and the skipper said, "Is it bad?" I said, "It's real bad!" Something like that. And I spun the gun turret the other way and just as I spun the other turret, the shell blew up in the other engine. Exploded right underneath the air craft, of course we tip up and we're wobbling and we're in a mess. And so he got it turned around somehow, we were at ten thousand feet and he got it turned around. We started back home and then he shut off one engine and killed the flames, then flew for a few minutes, shot that one back on and shut the other one off. And went backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards all the way back... until we were crossing the coast of England and at that time we were down pretty low and the skipper suggested we bail out, and of course mouthy one here says, "Yeah it'll be cold down there in the water though, and who's going to find us in the dark?" Well, we'll hang on a few minutes. So fine, in this time I had gone and sat in the crash position and Reg, my other buddy, was in the turret. Because we were only two gunners, there were two gunners but only one turret at the back, right? We didn't have mid-upper turrets at that time, on Whitleys. So anyway, I was sitting in the crash position and we called up Darky, as we hit the coast and Darky came on immediately and you just call "Darky, darky, darky," on a special line and he came on immediately. And they said, "Your position is 9 miles from the drome, the emergency drome and we'll put the lights on." And the skipper said, "Oh, I see the lights, I see the lights!" And just then, the plane just went like that, shing... straight down... and I said goodbye to everybody. That was quite an experience. Like going down a high-speed elevator. And apparently what happened then was, the bomb-aimer was beside the pilot and he moved over behind the pilot and got his hands in the straps, on the pilot's harness and started pulling back and the navigator hooked around a post and got his hand into the parachute harness of the bomb aimer and the wireless operator was hanging onto the bomb aimer, alright? And at the last minute, the plane came up enough that we flattened out across an orchard and we went right through the orchard, distributing apples all over the place and as we went across, it slowed down the air plane and of course the trees broke off the wings and the engines and everything and then the fuselage just tipped down, hit the ground, snapped in two, the rear end stayed in the ground, tilted back into an apple tree, and the rear-gunner's up in the turret, in the apple tree, and the front went, took off again and went over the top of the orchard hedge and landed across the roadway. You could walk underneath it, because of the embankments, but the plane was sitting across the roadway and the smell of gasoline was all over the place, of course. I wasn't in the air plane, all the others were, I wasn't. I got thrown out sideways, which probably saved my life anyway. I was in exactly the point where the plane split in two. And I went out sideways and I landed in a ditch full of water. And those ditches in England, in those countries are used for all kinds of things and it was full of water and apparently I landed in there. And I was floating when they found me because I had the Mae West on. And the rest of the crew, the bomb aimer went over top of the pilot and went halfway through the windshield, they had to pull him out of that. Skipper broke his nose and cuts on the face. The wireless operator hit the radio, and the sextant, in the astrodome, came down and flattened the navigator. We were a mess. And Reg of course had cuts and bruises back in the back turret and he's shouting, "Help!" And he thought the place was on fire, he could hear, he could hear fire and what it was, was rescuers in the leaves trying to find, trying to find the plane. Apparently there were a lot of leaves, he said it sounded just like crackling. He said, "I was petrified." But they did manage to get him out.
Description

On one of his missions Mr. Western’s plane was shot down by a German 88. He tells us what happened in the air and on the ground.

Rev Jack Western

Mr. Western was born on July 20, 1923, in Bradford, England. His father, a businessman, sold coal but due to the UK General Strike of 1926 switched to selling fresh vegetables. Mr. Western joined the Royal Air Force with the intention of becoming a pilot partially because of the stories he had heard from First World War pilots. Unfortunately, he was unable to become a pilot due to the requirement for a high level of mathematical skills. As a result he became a tail gunner and flew 22 missions before the war ended. After the war Mr. Western became a police officer. He lost his leg while he was the police chief and went on to serve as a civilian in police services for a total of 20 years. For the next 28 years he worked as a court administrator and also as a Justice of the Peace for the Province of Ontario. When he retired in 1995 he became a pastor. He currently resides in Sarnia, Ontario.

Meta Data
Medium:
Video
Owner:
Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:
06:39
Person Interviewed:
Rev Jack Western
War, Conflict or Mission:
Second World War
Location/Theatre:
France
Battle/Campaign:
Normandy
Branch:
Air Force
Units/Ship:
153 Squadron
Rank:
AC2
Occupation:
Tail Gunner

Copyright / Permission to Reproduce

Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Youtube

Related Videos

War Is Declared

War Is Declared

Mr. Western recalls going for a bike ride with his father in England and being in a little town the day war was declared.

Vaccine Flu

Vaccine Flu

Mr. Western talks about being in the hospital one night when London was being bombed. They could not be moved to the bomb shelter so he and another soldier were left in their beds with only one very brave nurse to stay with them.

Getting Crewed Up

Getting Crewed Up

After graduating from training each member has to be crewed up. Mr. Western tells us about the process they used to select their crew.

Heavy Fighting

Heavy Fighting

Mr. Western talks about one night of heavy fighting , when another air plane was shot down and the radio from the plane was on. Everyone heard the tail gunner and pilot plunging to their death.

Caught in the Search Lights

Caught in the Search Lights

Mr. Western tells us what it’s like to get caught in a spotlight and how hard it was to get out of the cone of lights.

Close Call During A Daylight Run

Close Call During A Daylight Run

During a daylight run Mr. Western and the crew had a very close call when another bomber was flying at the wrong bombing height and dropped their bombs directly above Mr. Western's plane.

Flying as a Spare

Flying as a Spare

One day Mr. Western was called in to the gunnery office and told he was to fly as a spare for another crew but luckily for him it never happened.

Fighter Training

Fighter Training

Mr. Western talks about how they were going through training over Scotland and how this fighter pilot did not pull out of his dive.

Lone Gun

Lone Gun

While on their way to the bombing target, Hamburg, Germany, the planes flew over an empty air field , but their was one gun who shot down the plane that was beside him in the air.

Bombing Hamburg

Bombing Hamburg

While approaching Hamburg, their bombing site, they where called off as the Canadian troops pushed into the city.

Date modified: