It was a split-second decision that determined whether RAF gunner Albert Gunn lived or died after his Halifax bomber was strafed by German fire over Berlin during the Second World War.
Faced with going down on board the severely damaged plane, Mr Gunn reached for a parachute only for it to fall onto the floor and half open.
So he bundled the parachute up, clutched it to his chest and leapt for his life into enemy lines.
Now 93, Mr Gunn of Burntisland, Fife, one of the UK’s last surviving Bomber Command POWs, has relived the extraordinary story which showed the intensity and extreme danger of allied operational duties.
He told of the terrifying moment the crew was forced to bail out of the Handley Page Halifax over the German city in the relentless winter of 1943.
Mr Gunn said he pulled on his parachute but “to my horror the pack landed on the floor”.
He said: “I folded them as best I could, holding the lot to my chest, and then had to negotiate the main spar and climb down under the cockpit instrument panel into the nose.
“I was faced with a very draughty black hole in the floor and without hesitation sat down, made sure I had the parachute handle in one hand and, holding the pack as tightly as I could, thrust myself out.
“It only seemed seconds after my parachute opened that I heard the aircraft seemingly coming back towards me, but in actual fact it was going in a dive toward the ground, which it hit with a tremendous explosion.”
Gunn, 93, was captured and sent to a Prisoner-of War camp where he had to battl hunger and fighting to maintain hope and his sanity.
The Church of Scotland elder enlited with the Royal Air Force aged 18 as a gunner and took part in many daring bombing missions over Germany.
Mr Gunn, a member of Kinghorn Parish Church in Burntisland, said he landed with a thump at the edge of a field.
“I quickly gathered my parachute and harness together, and as I tried to hide it as best I could in some bushes and shrubs.
“I knew immediately that something was wrong, and a torch was suddenly shone in my face and a large rifle thrust against my chest.”
He was seized as a “kriegsgefangener” - prisoner-of-war in German - nicknamed “kriegie”.
He and the other prisoners – mostly Allied soldiers and airmen - were liberated by American and Russian troops in April, 1945.
He said: ““I loved my time in the RAF, apart from being shot down.
“The war happened, I wanted to do my bit and I have no regrets.
"I don’t hold a grudge against anyone involved in what happened to me while I was a POW in Germany.”
Over the course of his working life, which only concluded when he turned 85, he worked in the Naval yard in Donibristle near Rosyth in Fife, ran a family owned convenience shop in Burntisland and as an archivist for an architects firm.
Mr Gunn’s daughter, Rev Gillian Paterson, said she was immensely proud of her father, who weighed less than seven stones when he was released.
The minister of Wellesley Parish Church in Methil, Fife, said: “From when I was a small girl, I have heard the stories of his time in the RAF which he loved, and also the trials of the prison camp.
“I am humbled by his bravery, and the courage of the countless others who served in World War II and since.
“But I am also inspired by the way my Dad has lived his life following his release from the prison camp."
Mr Gunn has vividly recounted the trials and tribulations he faced during the bombing missions in his new book, the Last of the Kriegies. He is signing copies at the Chapter and Verse gift shop on Burntisland High Street on Saturday, October 14 from 10.30am.
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