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WW2 airman who fell 18,000ft remembered at museum

John Devinein Ely
RAF Witchford and Mepal museum A photo of a mostly brown display board, which features the black-and-white profile of a man with dark hair and a moustache.RAF Witchford and Mepal museum
Nicholas Alkemade had to make a split-second decision whether to burn in the plane or jump to his almost-certain death without a parachute

An airman who is believed to have survived an 18,000ft (5,486m) fall from a burning plane without a parachute is being remembered with a new museum display.

Flt Sgt Nicholas Alkemade was 21 years old when he was in a Lancaster bomber flying over Germany, in March 1944, when he fell to the woodland below.

Miraculously, he said fir trees and the deep snow cushioned his fall.

The new RAF Witchford and Mepal Museum, near Ely in Cambridgeshire, is displaying items he used including his distress whistle.

"He was unconscious when he landed and hadn't broken any bones - it was a miracle," said Nicola Tuck, who is managing director of the company which built the museum.

The air gunner, who was born in North Walsham in Norfolk, died in June 1987.

John Devine/BBC A woman with shoulder length blonde hair in a dark woollen dress. Behind her are display boards at a museum.John Devine/BBC
Nicola Tuck said the museum was built to "keep the stories alive for future generations"

Grovemere Property owns the Lancaster Way business park and built the museum, which opened last month.

It was once home to RAF Witchford, which is where Alkemade's Avro Lancaster took off from on 24 March 1944, heading to Berlin.

Flt Sgt Alkemade was the rear gunner, and when the aircraft was shot and badly damaged, the flames took hold too quickly for him to retrieve a parachute.

"He had to choose whether to burn to death inside the plane or jump," said Tuck.

Alkemade said he blew his distress whistle and was found by German soldiers, who at first did not believe his story, assuming he was a spy - until they later found the wreckage.

John Devine/BBC A small, referee type silver whistle with an information board next to it displayed in a glass case in a museum.John Devine/BBC
Tuck says the whistle was donated by a German family who had kept it as a trophy of World War Two

Alkemade was sent to Stalag Luft III; a prisoner‑of‑war camp in Poland.

After discharge from the RAF in 1946, he returned to Loughborough where he lived before the war, finding work in a chemical plant.

His story has been well documented in various publications - and he retold his account as part of BBC One panel show I've Got a Secret in 1984.

According to further research by the RAF Museum in 2014, British and German armed forces corroborated and verified his story at the time.

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