It's the kind of story that sounds made up. A young airman is trapped in a burning bomber high over enemy territory. His parachute is destroyed. He has two choices, and both look fatal. He picks one, and somehow walks away with a sprained leg.
Here's the short answer: his name was Nicholas Alkemade, a British tail gunner in the Royal Air Force. On the night of March 24, 1944, he jumped from his burning Lancaster bomber without a parachute and fell 18,000 feet. Fir trees and a soft layer of snow on the ground broke his fall, and he survived.
A Bomber in Flames
Alkemade was 21 years old and a flight sergeant, one of seven crew members aboard an Avro Lancaster heavy bomber. They were heading home from a bombing raid on Berlin when a German night fighter attacked. The Lancaster caught fire and began spiraling out of control. The plane belonged to No. 115 Squadron and had flown out of RAF Witchford in England.
As a tail gunner, Alkemade sat in a cramped turret at the back of the plane. There was no room for him to wear his parachute there, so he climbed toward the middle of the aircraft to get it. The flames drove him back. When he finally reached it, his parachute had caught fire and was useless.
He made a grim decision. He would rather die from the fall than burn to death. So he jumped.
Saved by Trees and Snow
Alkemade fell about 18,000 feet, well over three miles. He came down into a forest, where fir trees slowed him and a soft cover of snow cushioned the final impact. When he came to his senses, he found he could move his arms and legs. His only injury was a sprained leg.
Sadly, not everyone was so lucky. The Lancaster crashed and burst into flames, and four of his crewmates were killed.
Nobody Believed Him
Alkemade was captured and questioned by the Gestapo. At first, they were suspicious of his tale about falling without a parachute. Then they examined the wreckage of the bomber and found his burned parachute, just as he had described it.
The Germans were so impressed that they gave him a certificate testifying to what had happened. He became a celebrated prisoner of war and was sent home in May 1945. After the war, he worked in the chemical industry and appeared on British television to tell his story. He died in 1987 at age 64.
He Wasn't the Only One
Incredibly, Alkemade isn't the only person to survive such a fall. In 1943, American gunner Alan Magee was thrown from his damaged B-17 over France and fell about 22,000 feet. He crashed through the glass roof of the railroad station in Saint-Nazaire, which softened the final blow.
A Soviet airman named Ivan Chisov struck the edge of a snowy ravine at somewhere between 120 and 150 miles per hour, then slid and rolled to the bottom. The record belongs to flight attendant Vesna Vulović, whom Guinness recognized in 1985 for surviving a fall of about 33,330 feet.
Stories like these are wildly rare, and no one would ever recommend testing them. But on one terrible night in 1944, a frightened young gunner made an impossible choice, and a forest full of fir trees and fresh snow gave him a second chance at life.
