His most dangerous extraction came at 16:20, when he landed to retrieve a soldier with a sucking chest wound. A German sniper hidden in a seawall had been tracking the Auster. As the wounded man was loaded, a bullet tore through the cockpit canopy, missing Halewell’s head by inches. He banked hard, climbed in a corkscrew pattern, and made it to altitude without further damage.
By 11:50, Halewell was back over the beachhead – his aircraft patched with speed tape and a new load of plasma and morphine. Over the next eight hours, he would make four more landings, extracting 17 seriously wounded men. Each trip required dodging Luftwaffe strafing runs (Junkers Ju 87s were still active until noon) and navigating through friendly anti-aircraft fire. gold assault area raf flight commander medical
Gilt-Eyged Angels: The Medical Dynamics of RAF Flight Commanders in Gold Assault Areas His most dangerous extraction came at 16:20, when
His Auster, loaded with two litters and a medical kit, touched down at 10:27. Small arms fire pinged off the beach stones. Ground crew rushed to secure the aircraft while Halewell kept the engine running – a standard procedure known as “combat loading.” Four stretcher cases were loaded: a Royal Engineer with a shattered femur, two infantrymen with abdominal wounds, and a young lieutenant with a traumatic amputation of the right arm. He banked hard, climbed in a corkscrew pattern,