"On the night of 7 July 1941, Sergeant Ward was second pilot of a
Wellington bomber returning from an attack on Munster. While flying over
the Zuider Zee at 13,000 feet his aircraft was attacked from beneath by
a German Bf 110, which secured hits with cannon-shell and incendiary
bullets. The rear gunner was wounded in the foot but delivered a burst
of fire sending the enemy fighter down, apparently out of control. Fire
then broke out in the Wellington's near-starboard engine and, fed by
petrol from a split pipe, quickly gained an alarming hold and threatened
to spread to the entire wing. The crew forced a hole in the fuselage
and made strenuous efforts to reduce the fire with extinguishers, and
even coffee from their flasks, without success. They were then warned to
be ready to abandon the aircraft. As a last resort Sergeant Ward
volunteered to make an attempt to smother the fire with an engine cover
which happened to be in use as a cushion. At first he proposed
discarding his parachute to reduce wind resistance, but was finally
persuaded to take it. A rope from the aircraft dingy was tied to him,
though this was of little help and might have become a danger had he
been blown off the aircraft.
With the help of his navigator he then climbed through the narrow
astrodome and put on his parachute. The bomber was flying at a reduced
speed but the wind pressure must have been sufficient to render the
operation one of extreme difficulty. Breaking the fabric to make hand
and foot holds where necessary and also taking advantage of existing
holes in the fabric, Sergeant Ward succeeded in descending three feet to
the wing and proceeding another three feet to a position behind the
engine, despite the slipstream from the airscrew which nearly blew him
off the wing. Lying in this precarious position he smothered the fire in
the wing fabric and tried to push the engine cover into the hole in the
wing and on the leaking pipe from which the fire came. As soon as he
had removed his hand, however, a terrific wind blew the cover out and
when he tried again it was lost. Tired as he was, he was able, with the
navigator's assistance, to make a successful but perilous journey back
into the aircraft. There was now no danger of fire spreading from the
petrol pipe as there was no fabric left near it and in due course it
burned itself out. When the aircraft was nearly home, some petrol which
had collected in the wing blazed up furiously but died down quite
suddenly. A safe landing was made despite the damage sustained to the
aircraft. The flight home had been made possible by the gallantry of
Sergeant Ward in extinguishing the fire on the wing in circumstances of
the greatest difficulty and at the risk of his life."
An amazing man in every right!
Brian
Painting of Ward's amazing endeavor.
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