By the time LT Ingerson bailed out, #909 was approaching the town of Quelkhorn. He could see an armored unit in the field below him as he descended. As he neared the ground, he noted the barrel of a tank tracking him during his descent. He was catpured and placed in solitary confinement for several days before his interrogation began. The interrogating officer informed LT Ingerson of the fate of his crew (but not the details), and he learned more about his unit from the interrogator than he had been able to learn in the short time he had been at Station #174. As the men floated to Earth on their parachutes, they watched as their respective aircraft flew on, one to crash and burn between the towns of Fischerhude and Quelkhorn, while the other continued on to the northwest. The war had come to a violent end for seven members of the Harper crew. The seven members of the Walthall crew who remained aboard their Fortress, the battle was far from over even though the mission was. Without their navigator, or his charts, Walthall and Myers had to make a best guess as to their course back to England. Graham could have helped, but laccked the skills necessary to take over as the navigator. The bomber stream entered German airspace northerly of Bremen and Walthall knew that a northwesterly course would cut the corner and get them home sooner. Sudbury was effectively due west, but going that route would have taken extended their stay in German airspace. He chose to fly 291° true, perhaps, to minimize his time over Germany, and get him home sooner. Once the aircraft was under control, the next order of business was to do the best to keep the ship in the air long enough to get back to base. With two bad engines and a damaged hull, maintaining airspeed and altitude became a problem. Since they were still over Germany, and unescorted, the guns would stay, but the bombs had to go. It’s presumed they were salvoed. Engines #3 and #4 were running rough and the blades of the propellers were damaged. Engines #1 and #2 were doing the bulk of the work, but were not sufficient to keep the ship in the air during the trip across the North Sea. Walthall made the decision, upon reaching the coast, to abort an attempt to cross the sea and to follow the coast westward hoping to reach allied occupied territory less than two dozen miles away. Before getting too far, they were now forced to make an emergency landing and chose the closest island along their flight path. That island was Borkum in the East Frisian archaplego, near the border with the Netherlands, which was still occupied by the Germans. The currents and storms of the North Sea constantly sculpt the shape of the islands. Borkum had two main lobes separated by mudflats that were joined by an isthmus of land, and their northwestern beaches were joined by a dike that formed a mudflat in the interior. The mud flats made for a poor landing zone. A beach on the north side would be better, so Walthall flew up the eastern side of the island then turned parallel to the beach. Walthall directed the crew to assume crash landing positions, which would have been in the radio room for the men aft. The pilots put the ship down wheels up expertly on the beach. Whether intentional, or a miscalculation, the aircraft slid up onto the dike, over the top, and settled on its nose and left wing tip on the other side. Eyewitnesses say the aircraft came straight in from the NE and momentarily disappeared below the dike from where they were standing. Damage reports from eyewitnesses were mixed, and cannot give an idea of the damage to the aircraft not related to the belly landing, but reports did say the aircraft engines did not sound like they worked optimally. |