The Great Escape: A Canadian Story - Plot & Excerpts
Pilot Tony Pengelly had practised it often enough with the other four members of his crew, although they had only done it when the Whitley was stationary and sitting on the ground. When the bail-out order comes and the Whitley is flying straight and level, the Royal Air Force (RAF) manual said, Pengelly’s co-pilot, seated behind him in the cockpit, had to move quickly down a couple of steps to the cabin escape hatch below and to the right of the pilot. By the time he got there, the observer-bombardier, positioned below the pilot in the nose of the Whitley, would have opened the escape hatch door on the floor next to him, and the door would have dropped open with gravity. That would allow Pengelly’s co-pilot to be the first to crouch, fall backwards through the escape hatch and free of the aircraft, open his parachute, and descend safely to the ground. He would be followed by the observer-bombardier, next by the wireless radio operator-gunner, and finally by the pilot himself. The manual stipulated that the tail gunner had to extricate himself from the rear turret, fit on his parachute, and climb to the escape hatch in the roof of the rear of the fuselage.
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