Fight for the Air: Aviation Adventures from the Second World War by John Frayn Turner

Author:John Frayn Turner [Turner, John Frayn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HISTORY / Military / Aviation, Bisac Code 1: HIS027140
ISBN: 9781473839885
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2014-07-02T07:00:00+00:00

Sunderland sinking U boat in the Bay of Biscay in 1943

On its third attack the Liberator had been hit full and square by a shell, but continuing on its course it dropped its bombs near the hull of the submarine, damaging the vessel so severely that the batteries began to release chlorine gas. The aircraft flew on at over 200 miles an hour, hit the sea, and sank in a few seconds …

Half the German crew were overcome by gas, but twenty-four survivors were left in the water when the U boat sank. One German sighted the Liberator’s rubber dinghy, and it was this man who reached it half an hour after the U boat disappeared. He then paddled in the direction of his companions. But only six men, including the captain, were able to reach the dinghy, and although they paddled round the spot for a long time they found no further trace of their companions.

Next day an RAF aircraft circled them and dropped supplies. At that time the Germans were thought to be survivors of the Liberator, for which a search had been made as soon as it had been posted overdue. When the Clark finally found the U boat survivors, the Germans were generous in their praise of the captain and crew of the Liberator, for the daring and courage which had brought them victory at the cost of their lives. Lloyd Trigg and his crew were ‘expendable’ in the ceaseless Battle of the Atlantic, but without them and all the other Coastal Command crews it could not have been won.

Flying Officer John ‘Joe’ Cruickshank was struck in seventy-two places by pieces of flak while piloting a Catalina flying boat. It seems incredible that a man could survive such injuries, but he did. A staunch-looking Scot with a dark moustache, Cruickshank started flying with Coastal Command in 1943. On 17 July 1944 he was piloting his Catalina between 69 and 70° NW of the Lofoten Islands on a normal anti-submarine patrol, when his navigator on the radar roused him with a shout of ‘Blip up, about sixteen miles away’. They were now inside the Arctic Circle: no place to be ditched even in mid-summer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.