Recovery of the RAF Lancaster bomber in 1954

Today we passed our local museum which was redone a few years ago and decided to go in. Here just one example of the local history: 

Martin Schaffner (called the bomber Schaffner) was a 200 kg (!) man (3rd picture on the left) and he was in the business of discount gas stations. From a photo in a magazine he got the idea to also decorate his gas station with an old military plane. That's what he did by recovering war planes sunken in Swiss lakes. The plane in our area was already the third one he recovered. 

In the exhibition was also the history by the Australian pilot Robert Peter. Thanks to the internet I was able to convert the picture to text and to translate it automatically with deepl to English: 


Recollection of the Australian pilot Robert Peter 
My last enemy flight 27/28 April 1944
Recorded 1992
 
 
Back in Steckborn
For the first time after the war I came back to Europe in 1967. I visited England and Steckborn in Switzerland. There I and my crew had climbed ashore at 2 a.m. on April 28, 1944, after the ditching. My six men of that time had all been good, cheerful friends, always up for a joke. After our ninth enemy flight, we thought we were invisible to the German fighters and became overconfident. What a deception! -A new life was given to us when we climbed ashore at Steckborn that night!
 
A first attack before Friedrichshafen
When a German fighter attacked us from the front, we were still 50 km away from Friedrichshafen, our destination. The enemy destroyed the one starboard engine. I decided to stay on course with three engines. We were assigned as one of the "scout planes." From an altitude of 5500 meters, we set down flares over the six industrial plants of Friedrichshafen, completed our bombing mission on them, turned around, and flew back toward the Rhine with three engines.
 
The second attack
Now we were attacked again by a night fighter. He shot our rear cockpit and the upper gun turret on fire. The cockpit immediately filled with thick smoke, which took away all visibility, even of the instruments. I opened the upper escape hatch and gave the jump command to everyone, but received no response. The airplane no longer responded to any control commands, apparently the control rudders were damaged. The bomber began to spin horizontally around its own axis. The only way I could still control it was through the engines. I throttled down the two port engines completely and gave full throttle with the remaining starboard engine. That stopped the turning motion. We had dropped to a thousand meters. Sluggishly we flew between the hills along the Untersee with one engine. The burning Friedrichshafen reflected in the water surface. For me, those were terrible seconds, which I later relived a hundred times in my mind.
 
The ditching
I thought my crew had bailed out, but only two men had obeyed the order. Now the remaining four men found themselves with difficulty with me in the cockpit. Both gunners had received severe burns on their faces and hands and their chutes were burned. The only option left to me was to immediately touch down the bomber on the lake, despite the darkness. At 170 Km/h the fuselage hit the water with a bang, flipped over on its nose and scooped a big gush of water through the upper exit hatch. Everyone had survived the landing intact and quickly we had climbed out through this hatch. The bomber immediately began to sink. Oh luck! We saw the round rubber boat, inflated at the wing float. Climbing in, we quickly rowed it away from the plane, which immediately sank. We knew that Switzerland must be in the south. The star "Polaris" showed us north. A man kept scooping out the leaky rubber boat.
 
Are we on the right shore?
Before we hit the water, we had seen lights from flashlights on the darkened shores, but now everything was dark and silent. Arriving at the shore, we took off our wet jackets, climbed over stone blocks and a wire mesh fence, crossed a road and a railroad track (At Hotel Schweizerland). Then we climbed up a steep slope. At the top, exhausted, we lay down in a grove. It was raining. At first light we looked at the bad burns on the faces and hands of the shooters and decided to seek help immediately.
 
 
We are safe in Steckborn!
We set off towards the houses. The farmer Alfred Ulrich' on the "Härdli" in Steckborn confirmed that we were in Switzerland. He invited us in, gave us food and drink. He already knew that Englishmen had made a forced landing. The farmer harnessed his cow to the ladder truck and led us with it to the Steckborn police station, where policeman Walter Büchi questioned us. The doctor, Dr. Attenhofer, gave first aid to the two injured until an ambulance drove them to the hospital in Münsterlingen. The other three of us were driven by car to a hotel in St. Gallen. As we drove by, we saw Friedrichshafen in Romanshorn across Lake Constance, which was still on fire. The next day we were questioned at the airport in Dübendorf. Questions we were not allowed to answer.
 
I myself was quickly free again
I took the train to Bern. Unlike my crew, I was put on an "exchange" list by the "Red Cross". I was released from internment on May 12 along with another eight British. Nine German internees were also released at the same time. I was dressed in civilian clothes and traveled with the others by train via Paris to lrun on the Spanish border, where the accompanying German officers took their leave. Via Madrid we exchange internees traveled to Gibraltar. From there we were flown back to England.
 
 
 
Postscript:
For his flying performance and probably for trying everything to save his crew from almost certain death, Bob Peter received the DFC Order. (Distinguished Flying Cross)