The man who fell to earth – and survived

HE was the man who fell from the sky and lived to tell the tale. Furniture salesman Nicholas Alkemade leapt from a blazing RAF Avro Lancaster bomber... without a parachute.

He plummeted 18,000 feet – and suffered only minor injury.

Two factors saved the flight sergeant from certain death. His fall was broken by pine trees, and he landed on a blanket of snow.

Not surprisingly, the German soldiers who found Alkemade didn’t initially believe his incredible story.

Nor did the Gestapo who interrogated the Midlands airman.

But after examining the plane’s wreckage it became apparent they had just captured the world’s luckiest man.

Quite simply, March 24, 1944, should have been the night 21-yearold Alkemade died.

Returning from a bombing raid on Berlin, the Lancaster, named Werewolf, was targeted by a Junker 88 fighter.

As the burning bomber spiralled out of control, pilot Jack Newman bellowed “Bale out!”

But Alkemade realised he had a major problem: the fire had destroyed his parachute. With flames licking his firesuit, he had to make a decision.

Years later, the Coventry Evening Telegraph vividly described the terrifying moments leading to Alkemade’s leap of faith.

It reported: “Flight Sergeant Nick Alkemade felt the whole Lancaster shudder as it was racked by cannon and machine-gun fire after a raid on Berlin.

Then there was an explosion and burning fuel lit up the sky around Alkemade’s rear turret. Seconds later, the order came: bale out!

“To get to his parachute Alkemade had to open the doors behind his turret, The sight which greeted him made him recoil. The whole of the inside of the fuselage was a tunnel of roaring flames fed by the slipstream of the stricken aircraft.

“Alkemade’s face and wrists were instantly scorched by the blowtorch intensity of the flames and even his rubber face mask began to melt.

“He could see his parachute pack was already burning. He retreated back into his turret and waited to die.

“Then Alkemade made a decision. Rather than be roasted alive he would plummet to the ground without his ‘chute.

“He went through the rear gun

ner’s bale-out drill. He rotated his turret into position and pushed himself backward through the doors into the night sky. Alkemade’s plane was flying at 18,000 feet and he survived the three-mile fall by landing in the branches of a pine tree and snow.”

Alkemade later told the press: “I had no doubts at all that this was the end of the line. The question was whether to stay in the plane and fry or jump to my death. I decided to jump and make a quick, clean end of things. I backed out of the turret and somersaulted away.”

In March 1945, he told the Birmingham Daily Post: “I lost consciousness after about 10 seconds and woke up in a snow drift after falling about three miles. A fir tree and the snow had broken my fall.

“Apart from burns, I had a scalp wound, a large bruise and a piece of Perspex in my knee.”

The pilot and three

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crew members perished in the burning Lancaster. Prone on the snow, Alkemade fumbled for his emergency whistle and blew as hard as he could – unaware that a German patrol was nearby. He was taken to notorious PoW camp Stalag Luft III, immortalised by the ‘Great Escape’.

It was only days after the escape and, under suspicion as a spy, Alkemade was initially placed in solitary confinement. He spent the next 14 months as a prisoner-of-war.

“When I first arrived, eight of us were stuck in the famous escape room,” he wrote in his PoW-issue diary. “The room from which the escape of March, 944, was carried out. Alas, they had filled in the tunnel!”

Alkemade made a decision.... Rather than be roasted alive he would plummet to the ground without his chute