“Imagine plummeting from an airplane at a height of several thousand feet or more.

By Robert Schreiner

IMAGINE accidentally falling from the roof of your house or the upstairs balcony of an apartment building. Chances are that you’d be injured – probably severely. Such a fall could also easily be fatal. Now imagine plummeting from an airplane at a height of several thousand feet or more. A fall from such an altitude would certainly result in death. However, during the Second World War, three Allied airmen – a Ukrainian, an American, and an Englishman – each fell from such a height without a parachute and lived to tell the tale.

In January 1942, navigator Ivan Chisov was aboard a Soviet Ilyushin Il-4 bomber in the skies over the eastern front, when his formation was attacked by a swarm of German Luftwaffe fighters. The bomber was critically damaged by the incoming fire, and the crew began to bail out. Chisov jumped from the plane at an estimated altitude of 23,000 feet (4.4 miles). Although he was wearing a parachute, the sky around him was thick with enemy fighters, and he was concerned that if he deployed the chute too soon, he would be an easy target. Chisov decided to freefall to a lower altitude, well below the battle, before deploying his chute. Unfortunately, the lack of oxygen caused Chisov to black out, and he plummeted earthward, unconscious, unable to pull the ripcord.

Chisov struck the ground at an estimated speed of more than 120 miles per hour. Fortunately for the young aviator, the ground was blanketed with heavy snow, and he hit the steep wall of a ravine at an oblique angle. He tumbled, rolled, and slid down the face of the snowy ravine until he came to a stop, still unconscious. Amazingly, a Soviet cavalry unit happened to see Chisov’s impact, and they rushed to his body. They were shocked to find him critically injured, but miraculously still alive. 

The Soviet airman was rushed into emergency surgery, where he was treated for multiple spinal injuries, a broken pelvis, and a broken leg. He spent three months in the hospital before being released, at which time he requested a return to active duty. His request was denied, and he spent the remainder of the war as a trainer for bombing navigators.

Almost exactly a year after Chisov’s fall, on January 3, 1943, American ball turret gunner Alan Magee was aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress nicknamed “Snap! Crackle! Pop!” on a daylight bombing mission over the western French port city of Saint-Nazaire – home to a substantial Kriegsmarine naval base and fortified U-boat pens. As the flight of B-17s approached their target at an altitude of 22,000 feet (4.2 miles), they encountered heavy flak from German anti-aircraft batteries below.

Shrapnel from a flak explosion beneath the bomber rendered Magee’s ball turret inoperable. Wounded and bleeding, he clambered out of the turret. Magee realized that the flak had also shredded his parachute pack, destroying it. As he was attempting to maneuver within the plane, a direct hit to the aircraft blew off a section of the right wing, sending the bomber into an uncontrolled spin. Magee was thrown from the aircraft and lost consciousness.

More than four miles below, in the heart of the French city, Magee’s body crashed through the glass roof of the Saint-Nazaire train station. The slope of the roof and the shattering glass somehow broke Magee’s fall enough that when rescuers found him, he was still alive – although gravely injured. In addition to multiple shrapnel wounds, the fall had broken multiple bones, damaged his lungs and kidneys, caused severe facial injuries, and nearly severed his right arm. German soldiers rushed Magee to a hospital where a surgeon was able to treat his injuries and successfully repair his arm. Later, Magee credited the German military doctor with saving his life. “We are enemies, but I am first a doctor and I will do my best to save your arm,” he remembered the surgeon telling him. Magee spent the remainder of the war in German POW hospitals and POW camps, before being liberated in May 1945.

The year after Magee’s fall, on the night of March 24, 1944, the RAF No. 115 squadron was returning to England after a bombing raid on Berlin. Nicholas Alkemade was the tail gunner on a British Avro Lancaster heavy bomber, nicknamed “Werewolf.” Over the Ruhr region of Germany, the squadron was set upon by German Junkers JU-88 night fighters. Incoming rounds tore up the wings and fuselage and started an uncontrollable fire aboard Werewolf. 

As the crew began to bail out of the burning aircraft, Alkemade left his tail gunner station. To his dismay, he found that his parachute pack was already consumed by the flames. He was faced with a terrible choice – remain in the inferno as it spiraled earthward, or leap without a parachute. Alkemade determined that death by falling would be preferable to burning alive, so he chose to jump from an altitude of 18,000 feet (3.4 miles).

The unconscious British airman plummeted into a pine forest, crashing through the boughs of a tree before hitting a deep snowbank. Alkemade awoke in the snow to find that somehow he was still alive. He had suffered several burns from the fire, but astonishingly his only injury from the fall was a badly sprained knee. German civilians found the wounded airman and he was transported to a local hospital.

The Gestapo interrogated Alkemade, dismissing his tale of the freefall as a lie. The Germans were convinced he was a spy who had buried his parachute somewhere. After inspecting the wreckage of Werewolf, they discovered the burned remains of Alkemade’s parachute within, confirming his story. Alkemade’s astonishing survival briefly made him a celebrity prisoner of war. He spent the rest of the war in POW camps, before being repatriated in 1945.

Each of these miraculous survivors had long careers after the war. Ivan Chisov received multiple awards from the Soviet military, including the Order of the Red Banner. After the war, he graduated from the Military-Political Academy and worked as a political officer for the Soviet army. He retired with the rank of lieutenant-colonel and died in 1986 at the age of 70.

Alan Magee was awarded the Air Medal for meritorious conduct and the Purple Heart for his injuries. After the war, he got his pilot’s license and worked in the airline industry. On the 50th anniversary of the attack, he and his wife traveled to Saint-Nazaire for the dedication of a memorial to him and the crew of his plane. Magee died in 2003 at the age of 84.

Nicholas Alkemade worked in the U.K. chemical industry after the war. His amazing story attracted the attention of television producers, and he made appearances on two different British television programs. Alkemade died in Cornwall in 1987, at the age of 64. In 2020, No. 115 Squadron renamed a building at RAF Wittering “The Alkemade Building” in his honor.

ROBERT SCHREINER is the author of The Wolves and the Greyhounds: A Novel of the Great War. He is a former CIA Intelligence Officer, a consultant and executive in the global private security industry and an amateur military historian who has traveled the world, routinely sneaking in side-trips to visit ancient fortifications and battlefields. He lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Tennessee with his wife, two spoiled cocker spaniels, and an amusingly musical cockatiel.