A REAR GUNNER’S STORY

By Jim MacNeill

Bill “Jacko” Jackson, World War II rear gunner in a Stirling bomber shot from his turret when the mine they were carrying exploded in the low flying plane’s bomb bay. He spun head over heels and seemed to drop from a great height. The rest of the crew were killed. They were just kids. The pilot and bomb aimer were just 20. The pilot, flying a four engine bomber, had not yet learned to drive a car. Jackson was 22. The wireless
operator was an ancient 31.

Over 55,000 aircrew died in the raids over Europe between 1939 and 1945. Jackson’s survival was pure luck.

And his luck held. He tumbled to the ground only to be picked up by German soldiers and sent to a prisoner of war camp. His story is one of the cruelty of war for he participated in the famous death march, the march the prisoners made with their German captors to escape the oncoming Russians. He writes of hunger, privation, danger and fear.

His two books, Three Stripes and Four Brownings and Lone Survivor take the reader back into the smoke of battle and the horror of
an enemy prison camp. Remembrance Day is not just November 11, but the day you begin your reading.