SERGEANT ALKEMADE

1. Public Record

Night of 24-25 March 1944. Avro Lancaster DS664 of 115 Squadron, returning from Berlin, was hit by a Ju 88 flown by Heinz Rökker east of Schmallenberg. The aircraft caught. Flight Sergeant Nicholas Alkemade, twenty-one, tail gunner, found his parachute burning in its pack. He decided not to burn with the ship. He flipped out of the turret at about 18,000 feet without a canopy.

He woke in eighteen inches of snow under young firs, a neat hole in the branches above him, flying boots gone, one sprained leg. Twenty yards of open ground with no snow lay beside the drift that caught him. He lit a cigarette from the pack in his Irvin suit and waited. German soldiers did not believe him until they found the wreck and a burnt harness and no other body in the trees.

Four of the seven crew died in the crash. Alkemade went to Stalag Luft III with a German-signed note that the claim was true in all respects.

I decided to jump and end it all as quick and clean as I could. I rotated the turret to starboard… and did a back flip out into the night.

2. Date of Incident

24 March 1944, return from the Berlin raid. German corroboration written 25 April 1944 at the camp.

3. Location

Fall among firs near Schmallenberg / the Sauerland, Germany. Approximate 51°09 N 008°17 E. Lancaster origin: RAF Witchford.

4. Official Narrative

RAF accepted the account. The German camp paper is the stranger official document: enemy officers certifying that a captured airman had in fact fallen three and a half miles without a parachute and stood up. No mystery committee. No retraction.

5. Witness Layer

Alkemade is the only falling witness. The German search party and the senior British officer in camp are the reason it is not a pub story. He described the quiet after leaving the turret - engines in the distance, no sense of speed - then nothing until the snow. He had chosen the jump because the alternative was the fire. That sentence is not bravado. It is a man picking the quicker of two deaths and receiving neither.

It has been investigated and corroborated by the German authorities that the claim of Sergeant Alkemade… is true in all respects, namely, that he has made a descent from 18,000 feet without a parachute and made a safe landing without injuries, the parachute having been on fire in the aircraft. He landed in deep snow among fir trees.

It was very quiet, the only sound being the drumming of aircraft engines in the distance, and no sensation of falling at all.

6. Recovery Logistics

He was picked up on the forest floor. Boots missing. Harness discarded in the snow because it was useless. Wreckage of DS664 nearby, four dead. No medical miracle beyond a sprain and burns already taken in the turret.

7. Assessment

Not a paranormal file. It sits here because the archive also keeps events that should not have left a living speaker. Trees, snow, eighteen inches, twenty yards of bare ground he missed. The German signature is what stops it being folklore.

8. Materials & Remains

The 25 April certificate. Later RAF Museum write-ups. Alkemade’s own account. The Lancaster is a crash site, not a relic of the fall.

9. Key Personnel

F/Sgt Nicholas Alkemade - Tail gunner. Jumped.

Oberleutnant Heinz Rökker - The Ju 88 that set the fire.

Flt Lt H. J. Moore - Senior British officer who signed the camp note.

Crew of DS664 - Four dead in the wreck.

10. Aftermath

He survived the war, told the story when asked, died in 1987. The certificate is more interesting than the retellings.

11. Current Archive Status

Status: Documented 18,000-foot fall without a parachute. Enemy and RAF paper in agreement.

Confidence: High that Alkemade left a burning Lancaster without a usable chute and was found alive in snow under firs. High that German and British officers signed to that effect in April 1944. Low that anything non-physical is required. The file is here as an extreme of survival, not as a haunting.

Filing note

A tail gunner chose the quicker of two deaths, left a burning Lancaster without a canopy, and woke under firs with a sprain. German officers signed that it was true. The archive keeps it because some events should not have left a living speaker and did.

He lit a cigarette from the pack in his Irvin suit because he was cold and because he was surprised to be able to. Twenty yards of bare ground lay beside the drift that caught him. The smoke is the small human fact that makes the three and a half miles above it feel colder.