[Orla Kragh Jensen]

Hi,

Found this

I was making my third pass against the airfield when my machine shuddered and my left engine stopped. A second later I got a kick in the best part of my anatomy so hard that it threw me against the top of my greenhouse - I was hit. I had heard that the first minutes after being hit you felt no pain, only numbness. I felt the needle pricks of numbness in my buttocks and thighs. I don’t think I can make the long flight over enemy territory to Aalborg, so I turn over command to one of my staffelkapitäns and decide to fly south so I can at least crash land behind German lines. I fly along the main road on one engine, hoping to see German tanks. I know I must be hit bad, since I still can’t feel anything and I’m probably losing a lot of blood. I raise up trying to feel for the wound, but with my flying suit and parachute in the way I can’t find anything wet. I decide I’ll be the hero, so I strike out across the sea toward Barth. I can fly from ship to ship in case I have to ditch in the water. I’m feeling weak from the loss of blood, but I’m responsible for my back seater, so I keep pushing myself on, getting weaker and weaker. At last I see Barth ahead and come in to land on one engine. As we roll to a stop, I unbuckle and open the greenhouse hood. Shakily I stand up, I can’t see any blood on the seat and my gunner says he can’t see any blood on my flying suit. I climb out on the wing and lower myself to the ground. Looking under the aircraft, I find a hole that shouldn’t be there Just under the cockpit. I climb back on the wing and look into the cockpit. The leather gasket around the control stick was torn away - a bullet had come into the cockpit. I take off my parachute and open it up. There are 54 folds in a parachute, and there, in the last fold, is the bullet that knocked me against the roof of the cockpit. Without acknowledging the grins on the faces surrounding me, I commandeer another machine and head back into the battle. Using the same flight pattern, I again pop up from the ground and come out of the sun over the Danish airfield. The ground is littered with smoking skeletons of burned out aircraft. The soldiers run like mad when they see me, but there is no fire from the ground, even so, I decide not to land and be welcomed’. Turning toward the northwest, I head for Aalborg where my unit should be waiting. On the way, I see one of my Bf 110’s that has force-landed in a meadow. Banking around, I can see the pilot standing on the wing surrounded by a mob of Danish soldiers. “A bad situation! What do I do?” I decided to take a chance and land, as I taxi over to the downed aircraft, there is no overt hostility from the Danish troops. The pilot explains that he was hit by ground fire and had been treated very well by the Danes who were under the command of a young captain to whom he introduces me. The pilot has already been in touch with Aalborg, which was in our hands after a paratroop drop of only a platoon. Aalborg was already sending a replacement engine. I thanked the Danish captain for the treatment of my pilot, got back in my aircraft and continued on to Aalborg.

Presumingly a translate from Wolfgang Falck's diaries.


Orla