The POW Diary of John Teune. Crash Over Romania, Part Two of Three.

The Teune brothers in their Army Air Corps uniforms. John is second from right.


I awoke to find myself falling thru space, feeling as though I had nothing on. The last I remebered, I was encumbered with all my flying paraphernalia such as steel helmet, flak suit, oxygen mask. Now for some seconds I received an awful scare . . . thinking that maybe my parachute was off also. I looked and saw the rip cord handle which I immediately grabbed and jerked. I must have lost consciousness once more because I didn't feel the jar when the parachute opened. Just one week before, I changed from a chest pack which has to be flipped on to a heavy cumbersome seat pack which had to be worn all the time. The Lord took care of me all the way. When I came to, I noticed an oxygen cylinder and a few other plane parts falling past. I looked up to see if any were coming down on me, but I only noticed the lovely parachute and the smaller one flitting on top the main parachute. I felt the cold air and then a severe pain in the buttocks. I felt back there to find out the extent of the wound . . . rather gory, kicked the leg if I could still use it . . . tried to hold the wound together. Then, looking about me I saw smoke from Ploesti, planes high above it and about 150-200 feet away another parachutist to whom I waved. He did not return the greeting. Upon looking downward, I saw an anti-aircraft gun (these were 120 mm guns), directly below me, belching flame every few seconds. I reached for the shroud line and tried to guide it away . . . rather futile. I used both hands, may have moved some. I was weak and gave up . . . prayed some and remained hazy all through the descent. Getting into warm air, my pain grew.