From the Memoir of Eugene D. Scamahorn:

“We flew into the drop area at the lowest possible altitude to prevent the Jerries using the deadly 88s to any extent. We had to pull up to make the drop and then immediately drop back down to deck level to come out. Our plane was hit by machine gun fire from the ground troops and we were in a bad shape for a while. The slugs took out the entire hydraulic system and nearly severed the rudder and elevator cables. What a War, the Dutch waving to us on one side and the Germans shooting at us from the other and we can’t shoot back (orders) for fear of hitting the Dutch.

We had to leave the formation as we were having considerable difficulty and couldn’t keep up with the others. When we got to home field we found we could not get the landing gear down and had no brakes or flaps. We were also afraid the rudder and elevator controls might go out at any time as there were only a few strands holding the cables together. Home field sent us away as they didn’t want any wreckage blocking the runway so that other planes could not land.

We went to Woodbridge, a special field designed for the landing of damaged aircraft. The runway is about 2 miles long and several hundred feet wide. Capt. Bridges had about the same trouble as we did and had landed his plane just before our arrival. He and his crew managed to get out safely but the plane was burning in the center of the runway and we were told to circle the field and wait for clearance. After about one hour we received clearance to land and it was a good thing as we were running low on gasoline. Sgt. Armstrong, our engineer, had been working on the landing gear manually. He managed to get the nose wheel and the right main down and locked but couldn’t do anything with the left main gear. We had to land as the fuel tanks were showing empty. The left main gear was hanging down limply, not in place or locked.

As we touched down, I applied a little more power to no. 1 engine in hopes it would help hold the left wing up as we lost speed, that didn’t do much good. The left gear folded almost immediately and allowed the no. 1 prop to hit the runway turning at a high rate of speed. As soon as the prop hit the asphalt, it snapped the crankshaft and bounced about 20ft in the air spinning rapidly and flying forward parallel to our aircraft. The drag of the left wing on the pavement caused our plane to veer sharply to the left and this turned us directly
into the path of the rapidly spinning prop which was moving at our same
rate of speed. I could see the spinning prop out of the corner of my eye and much more clearly as it sliced through the nose section like a buzz saw just inches in front of my feet.

As the plane skidded along on its belly, the hydraulic fluid and probably some gasoline from broken lines caught fire. Sgt. Dzik, one of the waist-gunners, saw the flames and jumped out the rear escape hatch. We must have been going close to fifty miles an hour at the time he jumped. He had rolled end over end for quite a way and he looked like a native American had practiced scalping on his head. He was cut up and badly bruised when the ambulance delivered him to the rest of us. He had disobeyed instructions so he didn’t get much sympathy from me. He could have easily been killed. All of the other crewman escaped any injury. I had given orders that no one was to leave from their braced positions until the plane had come to a complete stop.

The plane was totally destroyed. We were shortly picked up by an army 2 ½ half ton truck and on our way back to North Pickenham. The ride was very cold so we popped open some parachutes that we had salvaged and wrapped up in the nylon. Following day the ship “SCREW BALL” was inspected at the Woodbridge emergency landing field and deemed uneconomical to repair and subsequently salvaged.”