Play / pause The Parachute Dress

The Parachute Dress

  • Ian Brownlee
  • Interview by: Tod Nicol

Transcript

I lost four of my crew

who lie in a

cemetery in Denmark.

One, two, three, four

in a beautiful cemetery

at Esbjerg.

I've been there, and I've seen the cemetery,

and I've met

Danes who

lived near where my airplane crashed.

And I've met

I've met a girl who was confirmed

in a dress made out of the silk from the parachute

that I used to survive.

That parachute, I came down in trees,

and the parachute went round the top of this fir tree.

I was suspended that much above the ground,

my feet were just above the ground,

I just had to undo it and just drop that much,

but I had to leave the parachute there.

This was recovered by a Dane

and hidden for the rest of the war.

At the end of the war,

this girl was due to be confirmed,

and she was a friend of the

the forester in charge of this

who knew where the silk had been stashed away.

This was produced and

made the dress for this girl,

and also, a couple shirts for young boys

who were pages at the ceremony.

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