The Story of Glenn's Death
Title
The Story of Glenn's Death
Description
Four crew survived the crash and the pilot and perhaps one or two of the crew visited the crash site in 1945. Glenn had made it out of the rear turret and was trying to free Jim Short who was trapped by damage to his turret. Neither Jim nor Glenn made it out.
A second incident occurred to another Canadian, Andrew Mynarski. He escaped from the mid-upper turret and tried to free a gunner trapped in a rear turret. Mynarski jumped but died of his burns two days later. The rear gunner survived the crash. Mynarski was awarded the Victoria Cross.
A second incident occurred to another Canadian, Andrew Mynarski. He escaped from the mid-upper turret and tried to free a gunner trapped in a rear turret. Mynarski jumped but died of his burns two days later. The rear gunner survived the crash. Mynarski was awarded the Victoria Cross.
Creator
Date
2020-06-11
Temporal Coverage
Language
Format
One typewritten sheet
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Contributor
Identifier
BVanNestPBrooksGWv1
Transcription
THE STORY OF GLENN’S DEATH, written by Paul Van Nest, 11 Jun 2020. What follows has been handed down by the family.
Glenn’s story could not be told until after the war because the four crewmen who survived the crash where imprisoned for the rest of the war. However, sometime in the fall of 1945, Glenn’s pilot and perhaps one or two others from Glenn’s crew visited Sam’s farm. Grant remembers the pilot and his dad talking in a field by themselves. [Ed. recollection in Feb 2020] According to family memories, as the plane was going down, the pilot saw that Glenn had made it out of the rear turret to the escape hatch mid-ships, and was trying to free P/O Jim Short who was pinned by the damage in his upper mid-gunner turret. As the pilot was the last to slide out the escape hatch near the waist of the stricken bomber, he called on Glenn to jump. As he drifted down, he watched for another parachute to exit from the plane as it plunged towards the ground but there was none.
I am led to consider another Canadian in Bomber Command, P/O Andrew Mynarski from Calgary, based in RAF Middleton St. George, in the far north of Yorkshire. He was an upper mid-gunner whose plane was on fire and plunging towards earth. Just as he was to jump, he saw through the flames that the rear gunner was stuck in his turret. The turret was partially turned so the hatch was not aligned with the fuselage and he couldn’t squeeze through. Rather than bailing out, Mynarski staggered through the flames to try to wrestle the turret into position. With his clothes on fire and unable to free the rear gunner, who was by now signalling him to save himself, he returned to the waist of the plane but before jumping, he turned and saluted his friend and then jumped. Mynarski died of his burns two days later. All this is known because, miraculously, when the plane crashed, the tail section broke away and the rear gunner lived and he told the story. Mynarski was only one of two Canadians to receive the Victoria Cross. Had Glenn’s pilot escaped capture and returned to base, maybe Glenn’s story would have gotten out and he too would have received the Victoria Cross.
Mynarski and Glenn’s roles were simply reversed.
By Paul Van Nest, 11 June 2020
Glenn’s story could not be told until after the war because the four crewmen who survived the crash where imprisoned for the rest of the war. However, sometime in the fall of 1945, Glenn’s pilot and perhaps one or two others from Glenn’s crew visited Sam’s farm. Grant remembers the pilot and his dad talking in a field by themselves. [Ed. recollection in Feb 2020] According to family memories, as the plane was going down, the pilot saw that Glenn had made it out of the rear turret to the escape hatch mid-ships, and was trying to free P/O Jim Short who was pinned by the damage in his upper mid-gunner turret. As the pilot was the last to slide out the escape hatch near the waist of the stricken bomber, he called on Glenn to jump. As he drifted down, he watched for another parachute to exit from the plane as it plunged towards the ground but there was none.
I am led to consider another Canadian in Bomber Command, P/O Andrew Mynarski from Calgary, based in RAF Middleton St. George, in the far north of Yorkshire. He was an upper mid-gunner whose plane was on fire and plunging towards earth. Just as he was to jump, he saw through the flames that the rear gunner was stuck in his turret. The turret was partially turned so the hatch was not aligned with the fuselage and he couldn’t squeeze through. Rather than bailing out, Mynarski staggered through the flames to try to wrestle the turret into position. With his clothes on fire and unable to free the rear gunner, who was by now signalling him to save himself, he returned to the waist of the plane but before jumping, he turned and saluted his friend and then jumped. Mynarski died of his burns two days later. All this is known because, miraculously, when the plane crashed, the tail section broke away and the rear gunner lived and he told the story. Mynarski was only one of two Canadians to receive the Victoria Cross. Had Glenn’s pilot escaped capture and returned to base, maybe Glenn’s story would have gotten out and he too would have received the Victoria Cross.
Mynarski and Glenn’s roles were simply reversed.
By Paul Van Nest, 11 June 2020
Collection
Citation
Paul van Nest, “The Story of Glenn's Death,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 16, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.omeka.net/collections/document/31124.