Around 01:08 a.m. it was Hptm Walter Milius of the III./NJG 3 who claimed a Halifax southeast of Leopoldsburg, his tenth victory. This can only be the JB913 'EQ-F' of 408 Squadron. This Halifax was at 10.50 pm. ascended from Leeming. An engine did not work properly and as a result the aircraft could not keep up with the time schedule. After crossing the coast, an enemy aircraft was sighted, but it did not attack. Fifteen minutes later a "Ju 88" emerged from the darkness - we now know it was a Bf 110, but most British crews believed the night yacht was equipped with only Ju 88. The bomber made a slight turn. The shells hit the charge of incendiary bombs that instantly transformed the Halifax into a blazing torch. Despite everything, the crew tried to save the aircraft by going into a steep dive. The bomb aimer, F/O Thomas Lowrey, was wounded in the face and lost consciousness. He woke up just in time to hear the evacuation order. The entire crew was able to jump before the plane hit the ground at Tessenderlo-Schoot.
The pilot, Sgt Elmer Dungey, a Canadian baker, reported in October 1943:
"I ended up in a bush near Tessenderlo and became unconscious on landing. My parachute was hanging in a tree. When I came to I heard someone screaming about 25 meters from me. He came to me and took me to a farm His wife gave me something warm to drink and eat.My host managed to pull my parachute from the branches and brought it into the house.
After resting for about half an hour, I was taken to a barn about fifty meters away. There were hiding some men who claimed to be escaped Russians. One of them was undoubtedly a fighter pilot. About 4 o'clock a number of persons arrived and they hid me in the woods between the ferns, where I hid until 10 o'clock in the morning. The man returned with a Belgian who spoke broken English and made me understand that I would have to stay here until about 10 o'clock in the evening. That evening another man came and provided me with civilian clothes, and from here my escape was arranged for me."
His tail gunner, Sgt Arthur Bowlby, had just left school before joining the RCAF. He stated in an October 1943 interview:
"I reached the ground about three miles from Tessenderlo. After resting for about ten minutes I buried my parachute, mae west, aviator boots and gear and decided to get as far from the crash site as possible. Until then I had I made no plans to escape I marched for about eight hours and although I saw several people no one noticed me I passed through some woods north of Diest and when I got out I saw three farms I threw a coin to decide which door to knock on. I made my way to the middle one and was let in by a man and a woman who gave me food and drink. The man hid me in a haystack about fifty yards from the house and I fell asleep."Arthur Bowlby was escorted by bicycle to Beringen where he also ended up in a more structured organization. Both airmen arrived in Brussels about the end of August, and on 11 October they were in Gibraltar.
The rest of the crew were captured: the navigator F/O Victor Foster; the radio operator Sgt Ronald Evans; the meccano Sgt Thomas Brown; the wounded bomb aimer F/O Thomas Lowrey and the dorsal turret gunner Sgt Randall Speller.
