Evening star., 1943-02-05

GeorQe Crosses, lrdS G1U0rded IN
the i'elU gears honor list to Pilot
OfICer RGoul DEF. Jenner OF Ot-
toDd, Canada. for his heroiSm in
raid oper Dusseldorf. Only one
other Canadian. ro7D q prisoner
IN Germany, euer tOon the George
Medal. Here Mr.. Jerner tells the
story OF the night Which brought
him the GDGrd.j
BY r. O. r. DEF. JENNER, G.. NJ.
FS the Associated Press
OTTAWA, Feb. 5.-If ANYBODY
had told me that night Of September
Der 10, as we waited to take off for
Dusseldorf, the things which were
ahead of us. I'd frankly have re-
fused to believe them.
1t would have been incredible to
me that any skipper in the world
could bring Stirling home all that
distance on only two engines, and
with one Of those cutting out spas
modlCallY. I'd have diSbelieved any
body who claimed to have done 385
miles an hour in a dive to get out
of searchhght coming, when the air
craft was one Of the huge four-en-
gine ones. And Certanlv I couldn't
have viSualZcd myself going twice
into a burning aircraft, particularly
when two others Of the crew were
killed in their effort to rescue the
rear gunner
But these things all happened
7
In a Stirling squadron Of the RAF
This trip to Dusseldorf was my 18th
operation.
Before We cot there, we could see
Jerry was ready for us. The long
fingers of the searchlights were ter
rife. They were playing all over
the sky. There must have been at
least 500 in action.
We went in weaving, doing our
best to dodge them, and dropped our
flares and incendiarieS without any
trouble Then we went in again to
take photographs and they really
got us
Knew Flax Would Follow.
It seemed like all the searchhghts
In Dusseldorf had coned lis and
we knew that it wouldn't be long
until the Flax was coming up to
plaster US. Of to starbOard we
could see dark spot and our skip
per, P. O. Paddy Trench, headed for
that, and as soon as we got there he
put the aircraft into a vertical dive.
The rest of us just hung on.
Trench and the second pilot said
later that we reached 385 miles an
hour on the clock. Certainly we
lost an awful lot of altitude.
When we leveled off and started to
climb again, we were out of the cone
and thought we had foXed the Jer-
we were coned again and this time
the anti-aircraft batteries really had
us where they wanted us. The fax
was coming up in buckets.
Our main petrol tank on the star
board side was hit and the petrol
started to seep out into the fuSelage.
The next thing our port inner en-
CINE was hit. The prop flew loose
and came smashing back on the
mid-turret, where I was stationed.
We'd just recovered from that when
the port outer engine got it. The
whole engine dropped loose from
the frame, and we were left with
just the two starboard engines oper-
ating Even that wasn't too happy,
for the starboard inner had devel-
oped what the engineer called air.
locks. 1t kept cutting in and out.
Bailing Out Unhealthy.
The skipper. when he saw the sit
uation. ordered us to bail out but
right then Dusseldorf didn't look
like a healthy spot to bail out over
so we sold the skipper the idea Of
staying with the kite as long as he
could keep it flying.
He ordered us to jettison every
thing we could, so. to make sure we
wouldn't have to bail out, the first
thing we all tossed out was our para
Chutes. Then the front and mid
upper guns went and everything else
that was loose in the kite. We kept