On 18 May 1942, a young airman was thrown out of a Stirling bomber as it crashed into a Danish forest following a one-sided altercation with several anti-aircraft guns and the massive firepower of the battle cruiser Prinz Eugen. The remarkable escape of Sgt Don Jeffs (shown opposite) from the wreckage that claimed the lives of his fellow crewmen, and his subsequent incarceration by the Germans in a Stalag POW camp, would normally be the stuff of fiction - except in his case all you are about to read is true!

This is the first of a series of pages on the site that will be dedicated to the mission that the MacRobert's Reply was on when it crashed, and the subsequent events that lead to Don's survival, his capture, and subsequent imprisonment. Although some of the bare facts are told on other pages, I have never before dedicated a section of the site to him specifically. It is intended that, in the near future, this information will be contained within another dedicated website (now under construction), and then the MacRobert's Reply site will concentrate on the aircraft with this famous name (including the post WW2 aircraft).

So here is the start of Don's remarkable story as it unfolded that early summer night 60 years ago, and told in a style that the new site will have. I hope my regular visitors will accept the story being told in a slightly more dramatic way ....

The evening of May 17th 1942 was clear and cloudless, but with no moon to speak of. That was why it had been chosen, less chance of being seen. The nine airmen walked over to the huge aircraft that would shortly be their only friend over enemy skies; a role it had served many times and with distinction. They had just completed their pre-flight briefing, the officers going over the mission details and maps of the target area, the enlisted men smoking and chatting about the forthcoming evening. As usual the crew were well aware of both the target and the outline flight plan before the skipper had briefed them. Such was the way in squadron's all over England in 1942.

The crew climbed aboard using their various entry doors, and quietly and efficiently moved to their assigned takeoff positions. Jokes were exchanged, the recognised method of ignoring what was shortly to come. The second pilot answered an unheard message from the control tower and a few glances were exchanged. The voice was a new one to them, and any change in routine on a mission always caused some concerns for the highly superstitious bomber crews. Flight Lieutenant Neville Booth was a friend of the skipper, and therefore made welcome by the crew, but he had been added at the last minute as an RAF observer for the mission, and no-one liked last minute changes. They often meant trouble.

The two pilots began their pre-flight instrument checks, and the wireless operator Don Jeffs contacted the tower to check his radio. The navigator John Ryan, with the new rookie Ronnie Maycock alongside him, opened his leather case and took out his maps while the gunners Butterworth, Nicholson, and Sharpe, silently prepared the massive machine guns for the evening's mission. All round the aircraft airmen were preparing for their next mission. It was 21.40 hrs as the four massive Hercules engines started up, each producing nearly 1600 horsepower. The vibrations ran the length of the Stirling, call sign LS-F (for Freddie) and through the men inside it's belly. 'Men' was perhaps too easy a term to use given the times they were in. The Skipper, John Hall, who was a veritable twenty-four would have been considered old by the standards of warfare. So many proud young sons had perished long before reaching their twenties.

Squadron Leader John Hall came over the intercom, 'crew get ready for takeoff'. Apart from the co-pilot alongside him, his friend Neville Booth, there were smiles all round from the rest of the established Reply crew. They were already veterans of many flights and had been 'ready' from well before the engines were fired up, but the skipper liked to be thorough which was why he was so liked and admired by the men who flew with him. This was a friendly crew, well used to living in close company both on and off the big bomber. All the crew had long since checked and rechecked their instruments and guns, knowing they would need the former to get where they were going, and in all probability the latter to be able to get home safely. The skipper and his co-pilot ran over the final instrument checks, while Tony Spriggs the engineer confirmed the bomber had all necessary oil and hydraulic pressures. Soon after they received their clearance from the tower, and started their slow approach to the runway.

The pilot lined the aircraft up along the designated strip, its huge engines throbbing with urgency. The two young men in the cockpit looked at each other and gave a simple nod, it was enough. They opened the throttles and W7531 began it's long deliberate lope up the runway at RAF Wyton fifty miles north of London. The huge aircraft gained speed at an impossibly slow rate and inside everything was vibrating and shrieking in protest, but as the Stirling's ground speed increased and Squadron Leader Hall pulled back on his stick, the huge beast lifted it's nose and rose slowly skywards. The fully laden takeoff weight of some 32 tons required maximum thrust from the engines, and vast plumes of black smoke accompanied the roar bellowing from the exhausts as the famous 'MacRobert's Reply' went to war.

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