[Ex Shack]

Alkemade's survival was documented by the German's who suspected that he was not Aircrew until one of them noticed that the hooks on his parachute harness, to which the chute would have been attached for use, were still fastened in place by the loops of cotton that prevented them coming out of their stowage until the parachute opened. They then went to the wreckage of the a/c and found the metal parts of a parachute where he had told them they would. He left the a/c deliberately because ihe rear fuselage was on fire and he preferred to fall to his death rather than be burned, the Germans issued him with a document confirming his story. The story is told in a book by Paul Brickhill and Conrad Norton, "Escape to Danger", published in 1946. The publication was allowed that early,I suspect, because the book also included the first telling of the incident that we now call "The Great Escape" which Brickhill, on his own, wrote more fully later.
Regards
Dick