A World War II Story by Tuck Belton

"Anyhow, about that time, why whatever happened and things flew apart. The next thing I know, I was floating around out in the sky. And of course, there was a heavy undercast, which was only about - as I learned when I came down about 400 feet off the ground - a lot of snow on the ground."

"In the meantime, I had (trails off). The day before, a friend of mine had told me how to rig my parachute up by cutting the [stitching on the] straps on the right shoulder and making a little harness to hang it on the side of the seat so that I wouldn't have any weight, you know, on my shoulder. We used chest packs, and it was impossible to wear chest packs while flying the aircraft. So luckily, when I went out, and I came to, my chute was dangling above my head five feet probably, roughly four or five feet. And, my first instinct, of course, was to get the chute open. Well, I had to get a hold of the chute first, so I pulled the chute down and tried to engage the second "D" ring. The first "D" ring - the one on my right side - was engaged, and I never did get the left "D" ring engaged. And I didn't know how high up or - any, you know - what I was - of course, there was a lot of trauma and shock involved and trying to put your head. One together and everything, but, anyhow, I finally pulled the ripcord. And I remember seeing the chute come out."

"The next thing I know, I went through the undercast, which was below me, of course. When I went through that undercast, I was practically on the ground. It was maybe two, three, four hundred feet high, no higher than that. And, of course, it was all snow-covered. [I] hit the ground spinning. I remember the wind was blowing and, on the one strap, of course, I was spinning around and around. I tried to stop the spinning so that I could fall like we were taught in a parachute, which I couldn't control at all. When I hit the ground, the chute was inflated...”

“... and it kept pulling me in the snow probably, oh I don't know, maybe thirty, forty, maybe fifty feet before it collapsed. I couldn't get on my feet to get it collapsed or anything. While I'm there laying on the snow, why - it was just a very few minutes it seemed like - here come a bunch of people. And I was trying to put two and two together, where am I at, where am I, where, you know. And they're all chattering away, and I'm trying to figure out what they're saying. Of course, I couldn't understand anything. It happened that I was in friendly territory, … in Holland, North Holland, up close to a town called Midwoud, and these are citizens of this little village that had seen the plane coming down and scattered parts and so forth. And they came.”

The View from the Ground

In a copyrighted monograph from "child underground: memories of a boy who lived in hiding during the Nazi occupation of Holland," Max Cardozo describes seeing an out-of-control B-17 narrowly missing their house with parachutes snagged on the aircraft pulling the crew members helplessly behind. He learned years later that a flyer named Cecil Belton had survived the crash and that eight others had perished.

"A child underground: memories of a boy who lived in hiding during the Nazi occupation of Holland by Max Cardozo," version 3.0, page 89:

“I was running out into the field to help me. They got my parachute off and drug me through the snow, helped me up - I couldn't get around very well. They took me into a farmhouse, real close, oh, about a quarter-mile away, I'll say."

"The lady there in the farmhouse was raising cane and hollering. I didn't know what she was talking about or what was going on, but she was telling those guys that the Germans were close by and they were coming and she didn't want me in her house when they got there, thinking that they would think that she was sheltering me, you know, which would put her in serious trouble."