Failed To Return

摘要

Nineteen-year-old Sergeant Len Titmus sat beside the Elsan, trying desperately to adjust one of the loops of his parachute pack onto the safety hook of his harness. He had calmly disconnected his intercom lead and vacated the rear turret only moments before as flames, streaming hack from the ruptured fuel tanks, had started to set the rear of the aircraft alight. It was while sitting by the Elsan that Len noticed the mid-upper gunner, Sgt Eric Wilkie lying prone by the rear exit hatch of the Avro Lancaster. "...I saw that one of the crew was lying by the door, knocked out by something", Len wrote shortly after the war, "I went forward to help him when the aircraft gave a lurch, and I was Halfway out of the door..." As he fell through the air, Len had just enough time to open his parachute before, losing consciousness. Just after 9pm on March 16, 1945 Lancaster III PB153 'AS-J2' of 166 Squadron, RAF, crashed to the ground in the Haid Forest, about a quarter of a mile (400m) south of the village of Waeschenbeuren in Germany. Five men were still onboard, including Sgt Eric Wilkie. At Bomber Command, the machinery would be brought into place to declare men and machine as FTR - failed to return.