Kick the Bomb Away From the Plane

One time we were bombing this oil field Zeitz. I still remember that name Zeitz and oil fields were really heavily defended. So our flight engineer he counted ninety search lights over this oil field and there was flak all over the place and so the bomb aimer says, "Bombs gone." Okay. "Oh", he says, "The cookie's hung up." The light didn't go out, the cookie, the two tonne bomb was still hung up. So it was my job, there's a little trap door in the floor halfway back in the Lancaster I lifted that little trap door and there was a, there was a lever there, and ya pull that lever, and away she went. Okay, so I get a little oxygen mask a portable oxygen mask and we're at about 23,000, went back, and in the meantime the Lancaster's bouncing, bouncing. So I reach down and I let the...and then I see this big, big casing falling. And you know what? It wasn't the slip screen that was bouncing us around it was flak. And here's this bomb of course it's, now it's going our speed, and it's starting to fall. Oh no, I felt like getting my foot and kicking it, you know, get away, get away, get away. Cause here it's following through all this flak, and, I kept looking through that hole, and I said, "Oh no no." The funny part was I felt like getting my leg and kicking it. But I was, you know a couple hundred feet below by now but there she fell right through all that flak. It just takes one piece of flak and it's gone. Cause it wasn't a very thick drum to...full of TNT and explosives, it was called a blockbuster.