Magdeburg - A Fatal Mission

The following story of Edward Stoy’s bail out and survival is an excerpt from his complete story written in 1950.  His story is very interesting and informative but too long to consider publishing in one issue.  We will try and excerpt for our readers his POW experience in the next issue: Edward was the flight engineer on his third mission, target  Magdeburg, 28 May 1944 when the incident occurred:                  Editor

There was no anti-aircraft fire and everything seemed to be o.k. but at this time someone called over the intercom enemy planes at twelve o’clock in the distance I could see a lot of small spots straight ahead. Within a few seconds the German fighters were all over us up and down right and left. Just like in the movies, but for real.

At this time our plane was hit with twenty millimeter cannon fire which shot off part of the vertical stabilizer and set the front of the plane on fire. I dropped down from the turret but the plane tried to recover for a few seconds and then went into a dive. I had trouble getting loose from my equipment but finally got my chute on.

The pilot and copilot were both down in the passageway to the escape door and the front of the plane. Smoke was coming out around them and I could not get in there with them which left me nowhere to get out except the bomb bay.

With the plane in a dive I had trouble pushing the bulkhead door open. I had put on my chest pack parachute and with the plane in a spiral dive I knew that there was not enough room between the bombs and the bulkhead for me to jump, so I crouched low and took a dive head first between the bombs and the bulkhead. It did not work. The bottom of my jacket caught on the arming prop on the lower bomb and left me hanging upside down on the bomb with no way to get loose. I was thinking of my wife and my mother and how they would feel when they learned of my death. Everything was very quiet I have to tell you now that the only way the bombs could be released was either by the bombardier or by a lever next to the catwalk in the bomb bay.

I was the only one in there. Every thing was very quiet when all of a sudden all of the bombs were released with me on the bottom bomb upside down. I was thrown head first into the corner of the fuselage and the bulkhead. The bombs were hitting me in the head, the left arm and the left side of my back as they tore out the bomb bay door and the side of the fuselage next to me. The plane was on its side and I found myself on the side of the plane. God was looking out for me. I checked my chute for damage and it was all right. I did not want to dive out over the jagged edges of the fuselage so I turned around and put my feet on the side of the plane and rolled out backwards.

As soon as I left the plane I straightened out and looking up I could see the plane just above me.  It was burning completely from one end to the other. It was so close I thought it was falling on me. I pulled up my knees and rolled into a ball to fall faster and get away from it. While we were in training we were instructed to delay opening our chutes to minimize our being shot at from the ground by the Germans. They said to watch for the ground coming up fast and then pull the ripcord. I turned on my stomach to watch for the ground but the wind was so strong in my face I could not see anything. I rolled over and watched over my shoulder for the ground to come up fast. It did and I pulled the ripcord.

Nothing happened for a few seconds and then I thought I had hit the ground. It was a violent unexpected shock. It had opened about 800 feet above a super highway. I hit the ground so hard that my right knee came up and hit me in the chin. My injuries so far were cuts on the top of my head, cut on the left side of my face near the eye, cuts on the left side of my arm and back. The cartilage in my right knee had been torn. I had landed about 100 feet from the super highway in an open field.

There were no trees or buildings anywhere to be seen. It was very quiet and alone in enemy territory. I felt like I was the only person in this world, not knowing what to do or where to go. I then realized that I had to find a place to hide until I made up my mind what to do. In the distance I could see a bunch of trees near an overpass of the highway. I hid my chute in the weeds and walked up to the trees which I found were about 10 feet apart and impossible to hide in.

At this time I heard a shout and looking around I saw a young German soldier on the highway about 50 feet away with a rifle trained on me. He walked me to an airfield about a half mile away. It was a very painful walk with my injured knee. When we arrived at the airport I was turned over to an older soldier who took me to an entrance to an underground air raid shelter. He kicked me down about fifteen steps. At the bottom he put his gun to my head and said, I’m going to kill you, you fxxx bastard. At this time a shout was heard from upstairs and he pushed me back up.

I was loaded into a small car and taken to a large building where I was taken downstairs and locked in a four by six closet with only a board to sleep on for two days. After interrogation I was taken out to a small car. Waiting outside was some civilians who tried to attack me with knives. They were stopped by the soldiers.

I was taken back to the airfield and put in a room where I was reunited with two of my crew members. I learned a little more of the mission from them. The waist gunner told me that he and my hero Robert Smart were at the door ready to bail out when Smart went back in to wind up the ball turret gunner Richard Reed and get him out. Neither Smart nor Reed survived which I did not know at the time. The right waist gunner was not injured but the tail gunner had a very large lump on the front of his forehead and I hardly recognized him. We did not know at this time that we were the only three crew members who survived this mission. Seven were lost.

Edward Stoy
Flight Engineer/Top Turret
571^st Bomb Squadron

Email: POW1825@aol.com

To be continued next issue