During the 1943 Dams raid, the Lancaster piloted by "Hoppy" Hopgood was hit by antiaircraf fire and the bouncing bomb was released too late, leaping over the dam's parapet and exploding on the power station below, just as Hopgood's plane was over it. The crws in the rest of the planes watched in horror as the Lanc struggled to gain height, streaming a plume of flame behind it. As it went lower and lower, the rear gunner, Tony Burcher, saw the ground approaching and heard Hopgood scream "For Christ's sake get out!" and immediately after this the plane blew up. Burcher was flung out of the plane, and woke up under a starry night, the sole survivor.
Taken to a local police station by the Germans, he asked for water. "You want water?" asked a captain. "You English bastards, because of you there is no drinking water." Burcher slipped into unconsciousness with a smile, knowing that at least the Mohne dam had been breached.
For some riveting accounts of aircrew who have been blown out of, or jumped from stricken planes at altitude, without parachutes (often to escape death by fire) and survived by landing in thick fir trees, deep snow banks etc., read Escape to Danger by Paul Brickhill (the same author who wrote The Dam Busters)
