February 2002 - Nr. 2
Looking Back on a
Lucky Landing
TWIG - Today, Bill Crum is a 76-year-old U.S. citizen and World War II veteran who lives in California. On the morning of January 28, 1945, he was a member of the U.S. Air Force, flying over the German town of Schwerte in a bomber called Miss America. As the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reports this week, on that day 57 years ago, the U.S. Air Force had sent 93 bombers to hit industrial targets in the Dortmund area. Five of those bombers, and 37 men, never returned to base. On the ground, 228 civilians lost their lives. Crum and eleven crew members were on their way back to England when their plane was hit. The right wing tip fell off and the aircraft dove into a tailspin. As Crum struggled to eject from his plane, he had no time to gather his shoes and socks. After ejecting, he got his parachute open about 5,000 meters above the earth. It took 20 long minutes for him to drift to the frozen ground below. He touched down unscathed, but barefoot, in a field near the Ruhr river.
Around him he saw anti-aircraft positions, a train track and an electricity line. Three young uniformed Germans, possibly anti-aircraft gunners, spotted and captured him and brought him to a wooden shelter. Despite the danger and uncertainty of his situation, Crum says he worried most about how he would warm his frostbitten feet. He was taken by train to a larger city, perhaps Wuppertal or Hagen, to a regional headquarters building of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force). There his feet were cared for – a secretary gave him sandals. Then Crum was put back on a train bound for Dortmund. When Crum and his escort, Luftwaffe staff sergeant Heinrich Fischer, changed trains at a small station, a mob of people encircled them. They wanted to lynch "the American". Fischer pulled out his pistol and shouted at the people. They pulled back. Fischer and Crum boarded the next train and continued on to their original destination. Crum remembers the moment today and says, "Henry Fischer saved my life."
Crum was lucky. According to U.S. Justice Department records, German civilians killed at least 220 U.S. airmen shot down over "enemy territory". But Crum lived to return to the U.S., to resume a regular life and to see the day when he could return to a peaceful Germany, as he did this month for the first time since his fateful fall. As Crum looks at the crash site, his eyes fill with tears. The freshly plowed field is still studded with shards of his shattered plane – bullet-proof glass and metal sheets. Crum is moved, he says, not just by what happened that day, but by what he saw while on duty in Germany. The carpet-bombing he took part yielded ruins and thousands of dead civilians, he says. Both guilt and gratitude are written on his face.
