My First Accidental Forced Landing

Heroes Remember

My First Accidental Forced Landing

Transcript

We ended up at the OTU flying Hurricanes. And the Hurricane was a fighter air plane and it was operational. We somehow knew it wasn’t a Spitfire but it was at least an operational air plane. These were air planes that had been in the Battle of Britain and they’d, back at the OTU. They had, at that time, some problems with the fuel and you took off on the auxiliary tank and switched over in the air. And it was a problem that... Anyway, I mention this because after I had about ten or twelve hours, I was flying in a formation with my instructor in the cloud with two other fellows when my engine cut out, see. And we’d taken off on, I’d taken off on auxiliary tank and the leader, if you’re with a leader, is supposed to tell you to switch over, see. Or if you’re alone, you do it, you see. Well, I never had the word to switch over so I ran dry on that tank and I fell out of the formation. I had to force land in a field, see, and the fields weren’t very big there. They’re little fields with wooden railing all around it, you see. I just managed to get this thing down and over the one railing and sit it down in the middle of the field. With the Tiger Moth’s, we practised them all the time. This is part of your curriculum, and the instructors were forever cutting your throttle and saying “now, do a forced landing.” see. And there was a certain procedure you followed so that the landing part was the last thing you do. You had to pick a pretty good field, though, from the start. And then when we had Harvards we did the same thing again. On the Tiger Moth’s sometimes they’d land right in the field, you see, but not with the Harvard. It would go up on its nose too quick. But they did a lot of practice forced landings so that I had to do a force landing, I just did it, see. My concern was getting in to that small field and I was quite happy that I had. I hadn’t (inaudible)...I hardly flying this air plane, see. In fact, they couldn’t fly it out of there, it was too small, but they put it up and brought it back to the...they put it up on a carrier and brought it back. But it had just damaged the panels underneath, that’s all. So, I was lucky. But I didn’t think of anything. I just was hoping that they wouldn’t take it too serious, and ground me or wash me out or something. My flight commander said to me, I had to go see him of course, and he said, “Well, young man,” he said, “ now that you’ve had experience, you’re ahead of those guys over there that haven’t force landed.” He said, “Don’t forget that. Remember the good things about it. Ok, go fly.” So, I went up immediately. I thought that was the best thing he could ever do. He didn’t chide me or anything. He obviously was a man with...had been through the battle and he knew all the big things, see. And as long as you don’t make a practice of being stupid, it’s alright.

Description

Mr. Edwards makes us understand the importance of learning from our mistakes, through the telling of a story that could easily have ended in death.

James Francis Edwards

Mr. Edwards was born on a farm near Lockwood, Saskatchewan on June 5th 1921. His father, a First World War Veteran, kept horses until the depression forced him to move the family to Battleford where he became an insurance salesman. His mother had been a nurse during the First World War. In June 1940, Mr. Edwards enlisted in the Air Force. He was sent to the Brandon, Manitoba to do his Initial Training, then to Edmonton, Alberta for Flying School. After completing Flying School, Mr. Edwards was sent to overseas. He was assigned to 55 Operational Training Unit in Osworth, England where he flew Hurricanes. From there he was posted to Africa to take part in the Desert Campaign. Among many battles and operations, he took part in the El Alamein Battle (Egypt) and the Tunisian Campaign. In Egypt, he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant. After a period in Cairo running a gunnery school, he was called back to combat in Italy. There he fought in the Battle of Ortona and Anzio and he was given his own squadron, the RAF 274. He was shot down on his first flight as squadron commander. Surviving, he and his crew were sent back to England to take part in D-Day. He would also fight in Holland and Germany. In total, Mr. Edwards served two tours of duty, flying over 360 missions. He had more than 19 confirmed kills. After the war was over he returned to Canada and continued service with the air force retiring as a wing commander.

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