[SystemSafety] Sometimes, it's not really just luck.....

[andy]

                    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, theTondelayo, 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 marvelling. 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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