He joined 75 Squadron at RAF Feltwell in 1940 as a Sergeant Navigator.
One night in December that year he and 5 other crew set off from England to bomb a target at Mannhein
in the heart of Germany's Rhur industrial district. Pilot Officer CF Scott of Timaru captained the Wellington bomber.

Prior to World War 2 the NZ Government ordered 30 Vickers Wellington bombers to re-equip the RNZAF.
RNZAF crews were sent to England to train and take delivery of the aircraft before ferrying them back
to New Zealand. At the outbreak of war the Government offered the aircraft and crews to the British.
They became the nucleus of No 75 (NZ) Squadron RAF that was to serve with distinction throughout the whole war.

Hugh English of Hastings belonged to the world's most exclusive “club” - for those who have fallen from an
aircraft without a parachute and lived to tell the tale. He joined 75 Squadron at RAF Feltwell in 1940
as a Sergeant Navigator. One night in December that year he and 5 other crew set off from England to
bomb a target at Mannhein in the heart of Germany's Rhur industrial district. Pilot Officer CF Scott
of Timaru captained the Wellington bomber.

The aircraft was badly shot up on the homeward leg. With a motor gone, Pilot Officer Scott was peering
through the rain-swept darkness looking for a place to put his aircraft down. Steadily losing height, the aircraft flew
back across Germany and into occupied France. The captain warned his crew to prepare to bale out.

Before Hugh had the opportunity to strap on his parachute the Wellington staggered across a mountainous ridge,
“mushed” into trees on the summit, and flew on. The upward jerk of the bomber when it hit the trees on the
mountain-top shot Hugh English right up through the navigator's perspex astrodome.

He felt a terrible shock, and an agonising pain in his legs, and then he was turning over in the blackness of the night.
Although conscious of the receding drone of the aircraft's engines Hugh did not remember landing in a haystack,
but that is where he fell. He recalled hearing German voices, hands lifting him on to a stretcher, the white walls
of a hospital and the voices of French nurses. The Germans had taken him to one of their military hospitals
in Rouen, France. He spent many weeks there before entering a prison camp.

The Germans treated Sergeant English with great respect.
This was a man, they said, who had fallen from an aircraft without a parachute.
Subsequent computations showed he had fallen 1500ft, - and by a million-to-one chance had landed
in a haystack in the valley below.

And what of the aircraft? Nursing it down through the wet blackness, Pilot Officer Scott brought the
Wellington in for a crash landing. All the crew survived. Scott made off into the rain-sodden countryside
and the following day was found by the French “underground” and made an incredible escape
through Spain to fly again.