WIX Archives

P38 crash site in Tunisia - where's that atlas??

Posted by Chris Hinch on Thu Apr 11, 2002 07:28:47 AM

Quote from Bryan Young's excellent book "Beckoning Skies" recounting his experiences as an RNZAF pilot from 1936-1960 - the quote is from his time in North Africa:

"The airfield at Youks Le Bain, a small farming village near Tebessa, just west of the Cassarene Pass, was often a refuelling stop while en route to Thelepte, a forward American field lying over the mountains to the east.

Directly on our course to Thelepte there was one particular mountain that had a flattened rock-strewn summit of perhaps an acre in extent. At one edge of this little plateau lay the sad remains of a twin engined Lightning fighter, it's pilot['s body] slumped in the cockpit...

...it must have been there for weeks before I spotted it....

...each time we passed it we came in low over the wreck in tribute to the folourn figure seated in it...

...the pilot had been shot down and had put his aircraft onto the only level stretch of ground within miles. He had made a successful wheels up landing that finally came to rest on the lip of the sheer mountain wall. He must have been wounded because he didn't get out of the cockpit...

...The terrain was impossible so they could not get near to effect a rescue...

...for all I know, the pilot still remains surrounded by peaks and chasms, alone in solemn splendour on top of a mountain in North Africa."

Any one know anything further about this aircraft and it's pilot?

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