In one of World War II’s most amazing survival accounts, an American airman fell more than twenty two thousand feet from a burning bomber, without a parachute, and lived. Below are some interesting facts about that miraculous survival.
A Ball Gunner in Snap! Crackle! Pop!
Alan Eugene Magee was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, in 1919. Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor thrust America into World War II, he joined the millions of indignant young men who clamored to serve their country, and enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). Upon completion of aerial gunnery training, he was certified as a ball turret gunner in a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and sent overseas to serve in the Eighth Air Force in Britain.
Magee was assigned as ball gunner in the crew of a B-17 nicknamed Snap! Crackle! Pop!that was part of the 360th Bomb Squadron of the 303rd Bomb Group. His first six missions were relatively unremarkable. Then came his seventh mission, on January 3rd, 1943, when the Eighth Air Force carried out a daylight bomber raid against German U-boat pens in Saint-Nazaire, France. As seen below, it ended for Magee with him falling over 22,000 feet from his Flying Fortress, without a parachute.
A Twenty Two Thousand Foot Fall Without a Parachute
German antiaircraft fire struck and damaged Magee’s ball turret, and he was forced to get out. When he exited, he discovered that the hit that had wrecked his turret had also shredded his parachute. He did not have long time to contemplate the implications: another antiaircraft shell exploded in the bomber’s right wing, destroyed it, ignited an uncontrollable fire, and sent the stricken B-17 spiraling towards earth. The only part of the plane not yet on fire was the front, so Magee crawled in that direction.
Before he reached the front – not that he had any idea what he would do once he got there – Magee passed out from lack of oxygen. In that unconscious state, he somehow fell out of the burning bomber. He plummeted from a height of twenty two thousand feet – about four miles – and crashed through the glass roof of Saint-Nazaire railroad station. The glass shattered and absorbed some of the impact’s energy, before Magee passed through to slam into the station’s floor.
A Miraculous Survival
The fall left Magee a bloody mess, and he was severely injured. However, he was alive. While still in his bomber, Magee had suffered twenty eight shrapnel wounds from German flak. The fall compounded that, and added injuries to his lungs, kidney, nose, and eye, numerous broken bones, and a nearly severed right arm. He spent the rest of the war as a German prisoner of war, until liberated towards war’s end. Back home after the war, he got certified as a pilot.
Magee worked in the airline industry for decades, before he retired in 1979 and moved to New Mexico. In 1993, on the fiftieth anniversary of his fall, Saint-Nazaire erected a monument in honor of Magee and the crew of Snap! Crackle! Pop! He visited the memorial along with his wife in 1995, and stopped by the railway station he had crashed into. He remarked: “I thought it was much smaller”. Alan Eugene Magee passed away in 2003, aged eighty four.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
303rd Bomb Group History – 20,000 Feet Without a Parachute: The Alan Magee Story
Check Six – The Free Fall of Sergeant Magee
Historic Wings – The Miracle of Saint Nazaire
