Runway Accident

Heroes Remember

Runway Accident

Transcript

We were, we were getting ready to take off. We had, we were told, "You have to leave your Libs." Brand new Libs, we thought we had it made, and they said, "No, there is another group going to take those Libs." Because, I guess the, the Americans when they were doing that, oh trying to devastate the oil reserves there in Romania, and what not, lost an awful lot of air craft, and this was replacement. So they ended up with eight or nine new, brand new air craft. So there were, we broke up into crews and we were, we were taking off in a Dak and all at once, there was a lot of jet fire, or some damn thing, and we flipped over and ended up in a, in a ditch, so I don't know exactly, but we were trying to pull, pull ourselves together and so on, and we weren't in, we weren't strapped in or anything, we were just falling all over one another. We were in the back of, of a Liberator, or of a, a Dakota and finally someone, the door blew off, and there was smoke and all the rest and we got out, crawled out, basically and there was some bodies that couldn't get out and we went back and then the pilot and co, and co-pilot and pilot they, it blew up then. So, we were, we were, that was, that was a bit of a shake up, you know. And then we were taking into a, for a medical check and this was French territory and the doctor, he just looked at us and everyone was ok, you know, get the hell out of here. That was all.

Description

Shortly after reaching Southeast Asia Mr. Fitzmaurice was involved in an accident on the runway. A couple of airmen lost their lives in the accident. Mr. Fitzmaurice speaks about the impact this had on him.

Anthony Fitzmaurice

Mr. Fitzmaurice was born on a farm in Mount Carmel, Ontario. He grew up in London, Ontario, where he attended school. After graduating from college in 1943 he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force and received his training in Mitchells and then Liberators in Calgary, Alberta. After training he flew from Dorval, Quebec, to Algiers. Mr. Fitzmaurice flew in a Liberator with 357 squadron flying guerillas in to Burma, China and Thailand. He returned to Canada on the Aquitania in March of 1946.

Meta Data