A memior story I very much enjoyed listening to. More snippets to follow...
~W~

The explosion blew me through the cockpit roof so I was disoriented for a few seconds. I didn't black out, but I wasn't quite all there either. The impact of the explosion blew my boots completly off and I knew my feet were cold. I reached for my ripcord and it wasn't in it's normal place. It took a a moment of thought, but I remembered that we had just changed parachute type and found the cord and pulled. After my chute opened and a couple minutes passed, I really knew I was cold.

When I landed all I could think about was how cold my feet were, It was winter in Germany and they had a foot or two of snow. I wrapped my feet up with my parachute and headed out.

I came upon a train with lots of civillian types. I got on and closed the door, but some of my parachute was hanging out and was seen by a German soldiers at the next station.

They stopped the train and collected me. When a brief period of very humane medical treatment was over, I was sent to the stalag made famous by the movie, "The Great Escape".
After brief introductions, the escape committee officers put me immediately to work on one of the tunnels.

(C)2008 Walt Hardester