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I Was There! - I Saw an Air-Liner Passenger Shot

The War Illustrated, Volume 1, No. 6, Page 188, October 21, 1939.

On September 26 a Dutch air-liner flying from Malmo to Amsterdam was attacked in error by a German seaplane, and one of the passengers, Mr. Gustave Lamm, a Swedish engineer, was killed by machine-gun fire. The heroine of the incident was the Dutch stewardess, Anny Wynoldt, whose story is reprinted here by the courtesy of the "Daily Express".

I heard rattling on the 'plane, and I hurried to Pilot Moll to ask him what was wrong.

The rattling was caused by German bullets. More came as I was on my way to the pilot, and on of these hit Mr. Lamm.

I pretended he was ill, laid him back in his seat, and covered him with a rug. Then I tended the dead man as though he had fainted.

I gave the other passengers papers and books, and talked to them about everyday things with a smile on my face, but with death in my heart, because I was the only one who knew what had happened.

When passengers asked me about the rattling, I said the aerials had got loose.

I had a terrible moment when I went into the pantry. There was another burst of rattling, and bullets flew round me. Some of the passengers smelled burning. I said it was a small defect in the machine.

Nobody else knew that the machine had been struck by fifty bullets. The passengers knew nothing of the attack until we landed.

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