Crashing Into the North Sea

Heroes Remember

Crashing Into the North Sea

Transcript

So I told Wilkie I knew where we were roughly. I knew we were heading out to sea and we'd be safe to go down to a lower altitude. So he went over on the intercom on the radio and told head office what we knew and we we're going to drop down because we felt it would be safe to do so. But in the midst of his, his transmission I noticed that the waves were going right by my, you know we weren't ten feet off the water. And so I wiggled the light switch to indicate to Wilkie that I wanted them to know where we were and all the rest of it. And so he came, he had been talking to the tower and he came over and he just had time to say, "Yes Keith?" and then we were in. And so that's not recommended practice. It went right to the bottom. And so after this crash, I found myself in the water and hanging onto the dingy. But it was cold, this was the 22nd of November in the North Sea and that isn't, that's a really cold time in the water. Anyway, I had a, we were all supplied with whistles and it was hanging onto the corner of my left front lapel and so I got this out and started blowing it and it wasn't very long before some boats arrived. They were a fishing fleet that had been quietly fishing away offshore and we had flown right through them and clipped off most of their, so we were down low. Anyway they came, they heard us go in and they came round looking for survivors but I was the only one available. So they helped me get ashore and I had broken my back and I... So anyway, they patched it up and six months later I was, I was allowed to go back onto flying again.

Description

Mr. Reynolds describes flying over the North Sea in the middle of November. They did not realize that the place was only about ten feet above the water and began descending. Crashing into the North Sea, he broke his back and had to hang on to a dingy and blow a whistle until being rescued by a fishing fleet.

Keith Reynolds

Mr. Reynolds was in the Air Force and served in Europe. He flew in a Boston and crashed in the North Sea in late November. He was rescued by some local fishermen and although he had broken his back he returned to flying six months later.

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