#145 went into a dive following the second collision, but now the ship was lost.  Harper issued the order to bail out, and Scully left his seat and made his way to the forward escape hatch. As he pushed his way out the hatch, a pant leg of his flight suit caught the handle of the hatch and he failed to fall free. The ship now entered a spin. Scully was swung outward. He was near the #2 engine, but the airflow helped keep him away from the propeller. The forces also kept him from working himself free. The ship threatened to drag him to his doom. Fortunately, the strain on the pant leg caused it to tear and Scully was flung away from the aircraft.

Shortly after Scully left, Harper left his seat to follow Scully out of the forward hatch. The aircraft went into the spin before he could and trapped him on the flight deck along with the flight engineer and the rest of the crew. Fortunately, for Harper, the dynamic forces as the ship plummeted toward the ground built up until the port wing tore off. When the port wing failed, it pulled a section of the fuselage covering the flight deck and Harper was sucked out of the aircraft. Harper and Scully would survive the war, while the rest of the crew perished.

LT Scully landed hard on the roof of a building and his continued fall to the ground broke three ribs. LT Harper landed without injury.

SGT Rachak landed near the town of Fischerhude. The landing was hard and an ankle was injured.  He hid his chute and tried to flee the landing area by walking through a creek, his injured ankle making progress slow. Before he got too far, he ran into a shotgun-toting member of the Volksturm, who took Rachak into custody. As his captor and he approached a small bridge crossing the creek, the guard had Rachak kneel while he checked the path ahead. Rachak felt he was about to be executed. Much to his relief the guard prodded him to move on.

The Volksturmer took SGT Rachak to the town of Fischerhude after his capture. The guard stood him against a shop wall. As he waited for his next move, some local ladies admired his silk parachute that the guard had him collect and hold onto. Then a teen-ager came to his attention; a kid curious to see the face of the enemy. The lad was not much younger than Rachak. As they stood there facing each other, Rachak offered the teen a stick of gum, but the boy didn’t approach close enough to take it, so Rachak tossed it to him. The boy let it fall to the ground, and eyed it suspiciously. An older German cursed SGT Rachak and ground the gum into the ground then admonished the boy. SGT Rachak put a stick into his mouth proving it not to be poisoned.

LT Harper and LT Scully were rounded up and joined SGT Rachak later in the afternoon. The three airmen were taken to the local jail for processing. SGT Rachak received medical treatment for his injured ankle by a local doctor, who applied a flimsy cast made from very thin sheets of fabric.  It's assumed that Scully was also tended to.  Eventually, SGT Rachak and the two officers went separate ways. During his transfer to the processing center, a bomb raid forced SGT Rachak and his escort to seek shelter.  Initially, the two sat with the locals, but the guard then sought a separate area for them to wait out the raid.  The guard spoke some English and asked Rachak if he knew why he had moved?  Naturally, SGT Rachak did not know, and the guard informed him that the civilians wanted to hang the "terrorflieger."

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