Close Call During A Daylight Run

We went daylight to, I forget where it was, went to a daylight anyway and as we ran to do the bombing run in, I suddenly. You never came on the intercom unless it was an emergency once you started the bomb run. It had to be a real emergency. And I said "Corkscrew, corkscrew, starboard, starboard, go, go, go!" And he immediately started to go. He was just in time. This other bomber had come across with his bomb bay open and let go. Now, you were given a bombing height, each plane was given a bombing height. Our bombing height was 25, 000 that day, right. Anybody above us was out of line. That was the maximum bombing height. That was so that, you know, set up the bombing run and everything was calculated at 25, 000. This plane came right over with his bomb bay open and he was way above us and his bomb bay opened, bombs started coming down. And I yelled and we went. Unfortunately he was still going and the bomb landed between the front office and the mid-upper turret. And fortunately his bombs had gone, so the only thing that happened was that bomb blew and the plane blew. And that was from my own squadron. I was one of the... we knew the guys. And we, we just went down and the plane... you're not supposed to roll a Lancaster on its back, it's been done once I believe, but we went past the upright. We didn't roll over but we, you're not supposed to take it past a certain point, we went past and he still got it back. I had so much faith in my skipper he was just... he was from Kitchener, Ontario. Vern Martin and he was just a fantastic pilot.