---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ramey hoskins
Date: Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 9:19 PM
Subject:
To:
*"This is all we can do for you now...
From: ramey hoskins
Date: Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 9:19 PM
Subject:
To:
Sometimes, it's not really just luck.....
This story is confirmed in Elmer Bendiner's book,
The Fall of Fortresses.
*Sometimes, it's not really just luck.*
Elmer Bendiner was a navigator in a B-17 during WW
II. He tells this story of a World War II bombing run over Kassel, Germany
, and the unexpected result of a direct hit on their gas tanks. "Our B-17, the
Tondelayo, was barraged by flak from Nazi antiaircraft guns. That was not
unusual, but on this particular occasion our gas tanks were hit.
Later, as I reflected on the miracle of a 20
millimeter shell piercing the fuel tank without touching off an explosion, our
pilot, Bohn Fawkes, told me it was not quite that simple. "On the morning
following the raid, Bohn had gone down to ask our crew chief for that shell as a
souvenir of unbelievable luck.
The crew chief told Bohn that not just one shell
but 11 had been found in the gas tanks. 11 unexploded shells where only
one was sufficient to blast us out of the sky. It was as if the sea had
been parted for us. A near-miracle, I thought.
Even after 35 years, so awesome an event leaves me
shaken, especially after I heard the rest of the story from Bohn.
"He was told that the shells had been sent to the
armorers to be defused. The armorers told him that Intelligence had picked
them up. They could not say why at the time, but Bohn eventually sought
out the answer. "Apparently when the armorers opened each of those shells,
they found no explosive charge. They were as clean as a whistle and just
as harmless.
Empty? Not all of them! One contained a
carefully rolled piece of paper. On it was a scrawl in Czech. The
Intelligence people scoured our base for a man who could read Czech.
Eventually they found one to decipher the note. It set us marveling.
Translated, the note read:
*"This is all we can do for you now...
Using Jewish slave labor is never a good idea."
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