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In the Vandersteen comic strip De valschermspringers, Patricia Nelson was the wife of former secret service agent and later Air Police parajumper Jack Nelson. Biggles first met Patrica on a street in London where she was waiting for her husband outside an unsavoury bar. She told Biggles how her husband had changed and was constantly trying to drown himself in drink. Biggles later learnt that this was due to a traumatic experience during the War and, together with Patricia, helped to rebuild his life by persuading him to sign up as a parajumper in the International Air Police.

After Jack had finished his training in the Air Police camp in Hong Kong, Patricia flew in to join him for a week's leave and subsequently left on Flight 554 bound for Manilla. A spy whom Biggles was hunting for, Dillonk, hijacked Patricia's flight. During a gunfight with a member of the crew, one of Dillonk's bullets struck Patricia in the head. After Dillonk had left the aircraft by parachute, the captain offloaded the other passengers to lighten the aircraft and attempt, with his remaining fuel, to make it back to Manilla. In this he was ultimately unsuccessful and he crashed in the jungle not far from Dillonk's drop zone.

Biggles and Jack Nelson, studying reconnaissance photos of the crash site, saw that Patricia was there at the crash site, being tended to by Jenny, the flight stewardess. They also noted that Dillonk was nearby and realised that Patricia and the other survivors were in danger. They thus planned a risky rescue operation involving a night free-fall descent (what we would, today, call a HALO drop) into the jungle and managed overpower Dillonk and free the hostages. A doctor was air dropped into the crash site the next day to tend to Patricia and she was subsequently evacuated by truck with the others when the rescue expedition reached the area a few days later.

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