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Highlights during WWII and Other Lesser Known Historical Facts

Khalid Elhassan April 27, 2020 34 min

Junkers Ju 88 - Aviation — A Junkers Ju 88. World Warbird News

39. The Indestructible Alkemade

Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade. Super Curioso

It’s not the falling from high up that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end that does you in. The preceding is a good rule of thumb, but like most rules, it has some exceptions. One such was RAF Flight Sergeant Nicholas Stephen Alkemade (1922 – 1987), who on the night of March 24^th, 1944, was serving as a rear gunner in an Avro Lancaster heavy bomber.

Part of No. 115 Squadron RAF, Alkemade’s Lancaster was returning from a nighttime bomber raid that had plastered Berlin, when it was attacked by a Ju 88 configured as a night fighter. The attack set Alkemade’s plane aflame, and it began to spiral out of control. Alkemade’s parachute was burned in the fire. With the flames licking towards him, he jumped out of bomber, preferring to die by impact rather than get burned to death. He fell 18,000 feet to the ground, but as seen below, survived.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.