Crashsite Lancaster I ME846

Using strong search lights, the German anti-aircraft unit on the ground searched the dark skies. The area of Postel - Balen was right underneath a much used allied plane route. Suddenly, the Lancaster 1C-ME846 was hit by an anti-aircraft grenade. The starboard engine caught fire. Closing down the fuel supply proved ineffective and the fire spread very rapidly. Captain Davis had to act very quickly and used the intercom to order his crew to evacuate the plane. Meanwhile, the plane had already descended from 6,000 to 5,000 metres, on the borderline of being able to bail out without oxygen. Four of the crew left the plane. Two others stayed on board, one of whom may already have been dead. While his mates were trying to find an exit to the burning plane, Captain Mark Davis tried to keep the plane steady in order to facilitate the evacuation. Four crew members floated to the ground in the dark, using their parachutes. They saw the Lancaster crash into the ground in a fireball. Two dead crew members were recovered later by the Germans. Captain Davis was never found. Of the four crew members who reached the ground safely, three were taken by the Germans and led away as prisoners of war. Only the Australian Peter Knox was able to stay out of the hands of the enemy. He was discovered near Balen by thirteen-year-old Fonske Vermierdt who was taking his dog for a walk. The dog alerted Fonske by sniffing and barking. Knox was lucky, he was taken in by sympathetic residents of Balen, who kept him in hiding for weeks and put him into contact with the Belgian resistance. Peter Knox was there at the start of September when Brussels is liberated. After the war, Knox wrote a letter of thanks to the Kempen inhabitants who helped him.