BUNDOCK, William Henry

Stats:

rank: F/Sgt
status: survived
airforce: RAF
born: Colchester United Kingdom

added by: Justin

Arrived at 87 Squadron, Foggia main around the 20th July. The squadron moved to Perguia on the 23rd July.

From the memoirs of the Pilot William "Bill" Bundock, kindly shared here by his son Robert,
"It was while we were at Florence that I was coming back from a sortie, when just before coming back across the front line my engine decided to stop. We were at about ten thousand feet and because I didn’t fancy becoming a prisoner of war, didn’t bail out but decided to glide the aircraft back to our side of things. Having crossed the front line the next thing was to find a decent field in which to land. I eventually found something which looked acceptable, and came in for a wheels up landing. It seemed to go alright but just after touchdown my starboard wing hit something, the aircraft swung around and finished in a bit of a heap.
After managing to extricate myself from the wreckage, I heard some shouting and looked up to see lots of Americans waving furiously but not deigning to come anywhere near me. I couldn’t make out what they were saying at first but managed to gather that they didn’t want me to move. After a few minutes I saw several soldiers coming towards me wielding mine detectors, it then came to me why I was standing there in isolation, I was in the middle of a minefield! Anyway they eventually escorted me out of my predicament and into the clutches of an Army Medic who checked me over and finally told me that I didn’t have any broken bones. He sprinkled about a pound of Sulphanilamide powder on a small cut that I had on my hand, and I was taken back to their Company Headquarters. This all happened in the morning and I began to realise how lucky I had been. I had landed with them on Thanksgiving Day.
I was later confronted by an irate American who told me of his experiences at my hand, apparently the reason that my aircraft had slowed on landing was that my starboard wing had hit a telegraph pole, this had jerked the wires and he was up a pole doing some repairs a bit along the wire and was flung off, he suffered some bruising but was otherwise OK. I also found out that the reason my engine had stopped was that I had received a German bullet in the engine which had severed an oil line, causing the engine to seize.
The British forces were at this time existing on dehydrated meat dehydrated potatoes and dehydrated carrots for meals and ships biscuits contained in tins marked “not to be consumed after 1933”. The Americans were looked after slightly better, so the lunch I was offered consisted of roast turkey, fresh vegetables and fresh white bread, the like of which we hadn’t seen since the war started. Apparently the American people had sent over to Italy two liberty ships fully loaded with food for their Thanksgiving Day celebrations. After I had eaten my fill, I was whisked away to 5th Army Headquarters because their Intelligence corps wanted to talk to me. Having had a chat with them I was led to their Mess where I found out that they were having their special meal in the evening, so I finished up rather full and was put to bed to sleep it off.
I was driven back to the Squadron the next day and having related my experiences to the rest of the pilots they were all resolved to force land with the Americans the next day."