ShootingStar
Recruit
I'm going to quote this from the book I read it from:
...Harry Crosby was unable to sight his primary target through a thick cloudbank. Both backup targets were socked in as well, freeing the squadrons to bomb a "target of opportunity," an Air Force euphemism for anyplace that could be conveniently creamed. Sighting a large German city through a clearing in the clouds, Crosby gave the OK sign to the pilot. Just as he heard the bomb doors opening, he looked down at his map and discovered that the city was Bonn.
He immediately hit his mike button. "All positions from navigator, I have another target. We can't bomb Bonn."
"Command to navigator. Why not?"
"That is where Beethoven went to school."
Crosby happened to know this because he had read it on the cover of the phonograph record he had played in his room the night before the raid, Beethoven's 5th, a fitting musical prelude, he thought, for a mission into Germany. He had also read on the cover that Bonn was a university town, one of the most picturesque places in Europe.
After an outburst of "Oh, ****s" from the crew, the pilot went along with Crosby and sixty-three Forts passed over the city, some of them with their bomb doors open. Minutes later, they found a marshaling yard in the Ruhr and obliterated it.
There. Not meaning to offend any Germans, it's from the book I'm reading...
...Harry Crosby was unable to sight his primary target through a thick cloudbank. Both backup targets were socked in as well, freeing the squadrons to bomb a "target of opportunity," an Air Force euphemism for anyplace that could be conveniently creamed. Sighting a large German city through a clearing in the clouds, Crosby gave the OK sign to the pilot. Just as he heard the bomb doors opening, he looked down at his map and discovered that the city was Bonn.
He immediately hit his mike button. "All positions from navigator, I have another target. We can't bomb Bonn."
"Command to navigator. Why not?"
"That is where Beethoven went to school."
Crosby happened to know this because he had read it on the cover of the phonograph record he had played in his room the night before the raid, Beethoven's 5th, a fitting musical prelude, he thought, for a mission into Germany. He had also read on the cover that Bonn was a university town, one of the most picturesque places in Europe.
After an outburst of "Oh, ****s" from the crew, the pilot went along with Crosby and sixty-three Forts passed over the city, some of them with their bomb doors open. Minutes later, they found a marshaling yard in the Ruhr and obliterated it.
There. Not meaning to offend any Germans, it's from the book I'm reading...
