I thought I'd share with you an excerpt from Wings Of War Edited by Laddie Lucas. The particular excerpt is from The Fall of Fortresses, by Elmir Bendiner.
It relates to the Scheinfurt raid of 17 August 1943, where B-17 Tondelayo was involved.
There's no need to write it out verbatum - a lot of it concerns a running commentary of B-17s being shot down.
This shall suffice:-
In England monitors heard the German pilots gathering from all over France and Germany to ambush our homeward flight ... All across Germany, Holland and Belgium the terrible landscape of burning planes unrolled beneath us. It seemed that we were littering Europe with our dead. We endured this awesome spectacle while we suffered a desparate chill. The cartridge cases ere filling our nose compartments up to our ankles....
But then we come to the interesting bit at the end:-
The professorial Captain of Intelligence confirmed the story. Eleven unexploded 20 mm shelss were in fact found in Tondelayo's tanks. No he ... could not say why.
Eventually (he) broke down. Perhaps it was difficult to refuse ... the evidence of a highly personal miracle ... Or perhaps ... the truth ... was too delicious to keep to himself. He swore (the crew) to secrecy.
The armourers who opened each of those shells had found no explosive charge. They were as clean as a whistle and as harmless. Empty? Not quite, said the Captain ....
One was not empty. It contained a carefully rolled piece of paper. On it was a scrawl in Czech ... Translated, the note read:
'This is all we can do for you now'.
I wonder how many other Allied aircraft were 'saved' in a similar way.
It relates to the Scheinfurt raid of 17 August 1943, where B-17 Tondelayo was involved.
There's no need to write it out verbatum - a lot of it concerns a running commentary of B-17s being shot down.
This shall suffice:-
In England monitors heard the German pilots gathering from all over France and Germany to ambush our homeward flight ... All across Germany, Holland and Belgium the terrible landscape of burning planes unrolled beneath us. It seemed that we were littering Europe with our dead. We endured this awesome spectacle while we suffered a desparate chill. The cartridge cases ere filling our nose compartments up to our ankles....
But then we come to the interesting bit at the end:-
The professorial Captain of Intelligence confirmed the story. Eleven unexploded 20 mm shelss were in fact found in Tondelayo's tanks. No he ... could not say why.
Eventually (he) broke down. Perhaps it was difficult to refuse ... the evidence of a highly personal miracle ... Or perhaps ... the truth ... was too delicious to keep to himself. He swore (the crew) to secrecy.
The armourers who opened each of those shells had found no explosive charge. They were as clean as a whistle and as harmless. Empty? Not quite, said the Captain ....
One was not empty. It contained a carefully rolled piece of paper. On it was a scrawl in Czech ... Translated, the note read:
'This is all we can do for you now'.
I wonder how many other Allied aircraft were 'saved' in a similar way.
