Anan Anwar, a British military aviator, was hovering over Italy one night in March 1944 when plane was hit by enemy fire. Flaming gasoline shot down the whole length of the plane. Anwar reached to find it a mass of fire. What could he do? The parachute was obviously too far gone to be usable even if he could put out the rising flames. His boots were already beginning to burn. He decided to jump, preferring sudden death on the ground to being burned alive in the sky. This is the end, he thought, as he jumped into black space 18,000 feet from ground.

This is all he could remember until he awoke to see a small patch of stars overhead. Was he dead? He turned his head and moved his arm. His head ached and his back pained sharply. He felt cold damp and noticed he was lying in snow four feet deep in a thick forest. Slowly he moved his legs and tried to sit up.

His boots were gone, and his flying suit was torn to pieces. He looked up and down not believing what he saw. Large broken branches above his head showed where he had dropped into the big trees before crashing through at reduced speed to the wonderful bed of snow where he had rested deep and protected from the wind for three hours.

When he was finally carried into a village, the Italian soldiers who took him prisoner laughed at his story. But higher Italian authorities discovered that his story was true, which resulted in Anwar’s being given a paper, signed by a Italian officer, stating that he had actually fallen 18,000 feet without a parachute and lived!