LANDING IN GARDEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 March 1943, Page 4

LANDING IN GARDEN

STRICKEN FLYING FORTRESS. PARACHUTISTS TAKEN FOR NAZIS. LONDON, February 2. A flak-riddled Flying Fortress, one engine of which was “blown dead” over Brest on January 23, struggled to the English coast on three engines, then on two, and finally landed on one in a garden after the pilot had ordered the crew to bail out. The pilot, First-Lieutenant George Oxrider, of Dayton, Ohio, passed word for the crew to jump when the third motor stopped, but the members of the crew demurred until Oxrider made it an order. Even then Sergeant Theodore Heaps, of Duquestaue, Pennsylvania, paused at the escape hatch, hoping the skipper would change his mind, but the navigator, Second-Lieutenant Donald Grant, gave Heaps a shove, sending him somersaulting into the blue, after which the other members of the crew quickly followed. All landed safely. Oxrider remained at the controls. He saw a field, for which he headed, only to discover as he was preparing to land that it was a Soccer field, un which scores of children were playing. He skimmed over* the field and managed to get the Fortress down in such a small garden that mechanics had to dismantle it to get it out. > Sergeant Frederick Zeimer, from Illinois, parachuted into a farmer’s arms. The farmer was convinced he was 'a German parachutist, and handed him over to a policeman. Sergeant Everett Dasher, of Marlow, Georgia, landed near a small boy, who drew a pocket knife, and asked: “Are you a German? If you are I am going to stick you.”