The double-decker bomber scared the enemy

This World War 2 8 engine bomber really scared the enemy so much so that when it flew over the North Sea the Germans didn't bother to fire their guns but this is really not a secret weapon of the Allies but to be 17 bombers crashed together in the shape of dragonflies in love with each other flying to Bremen Germany the world is full of strange things bad luck into this aviation history only this time Glenn rojan's family was strange in that his family never seemed to celebrate New Year's day grojon was not easy as a pilot of ab17 bomber he had been awarded the air medal the distinguished flying cross and the purple heart and all three of those medals were actually awarded on the same day which was the very last day of 1944 but on the first day of 1945 he became a prisoner of war so it's understandable that the family has been emo since then as soon as New Year's Day rolls around on December 31 1944 Glenn Rojan flew his little Captain B-17 bomber along with the remaining 36 b-17s of the 100th Bomb Group over Hamburg Germany ready to drop bombs la like Hamburg a port city with many refineries and submarine Depots the anti-aircraft artillery naturally laid out like hedgehogs and when they saw the god of pestilence approaching naturally they were densely packed with a dense curtain of anti-aircraft shells to engage in originally John luo and his co-pilot William Leake should have taken their turns to rest but at 4am on this day they were captured and dragged to participate in the bombing mission to Hamburg this Mission began very poorly take off time because of fog repeatedly postponed it was not easy to take off collection the results learned that the escort Fighters responsible for the weather cannot come this group of bombers can only be hard to fly to Germany they dropped their bombs in a hurry amidst Heavy Artillery fire over Hamburg but on the return flight the lead Commander somehow instead of following the original plan of flying Southwest to Belgium and then West back to England made a 180 degree U-turn over Hamburg and tried to fly directly across the North Sea back to England in doing so the group of bombers ran head-on into a heavy 80 knot headwind and at one point the bomber's ground speed reached 90km kilometers per hour which was slower than driving a car such a slow flight speed was soon rewarded and after having managed to survive the German Coastal air defense guns wave after wave of German Fighters caught up and Unleashed a massacre that soon took out 10b17s although the b-17's defensive Firepower up and down left and right are all arranged but there is no way this big guy flying too slow in the face of the Fighter's attack the bomber group can only lean together tighten the formation use the formation advantage to increase the density of Firepower in order to play out the maximum effect of Firepower but in a dense formation even small evasive maneuvers can greatly increase the risk of a collision the next thing that happened was to John Law's little Captain one of the b-17s in front of the little Captain was suddenly hit in the engine and the hull began to catch fire and crash to the ground leaving the Gap in Firepower throughout the formation Rojan immediately prepared to fly forward to fill the Gap but just then the unexpected happened the crew of The Little Captain suddenly felt the bomber jolt with a tremendous shock and Rojan felt the bomber shutter and become very heavy and begin to lose altitude he immediately realized that he should have collided with a friendly aircraft but what he didn't expect was that he had indeed done what no one had ever done before or since with this Collision the bomber that hit rojan's little Captain was ab17 named Nine Lives the top turret of this bomber crashed into the belly of the little Captain while the bottom ball turret of the little Captain crashed into the top of the canine lives if the tale of the canine lives was a little bit more to the right the two bombers could be perfectly aligned in the longitudinal axis a shortcoming which is really forcing the obsessive-compulsive disorder to die The Nine Lives by Elton William McNabb and Ensign Nelson Bond but whether they were so badly injured that they lost control of their plane and crashed or whether they crashed because like Rojan they were trying to fill a gap in the bomber formations fire is anyone's guess at this point and the two pilots aboard the bomber perished never to be able to tell their own story one of the four engines of The Nine Lives had caught fire but the other three were still running at high speed and functioning normally the four engines of the little Captain were also functioning normally and Roja on seeing that the altitude had been further reduced began to try to shake off the bombers below him by making constant Maneuvers the rest of the 100th bombardment group watched in disbelief as the two conjoined bombers twisted and turned in a futile attempt to break the chain of death finding the Maneuvers ineffective Rojan began to restart the engines to break free but ultimately found that it was still useless in the airflow of the engines the lower and Nine Lives number two engine fire is getting more and more violent at any time we'll ignite the upper engine in order to prevent the engine explosion Rojan shut down his engine and turned on the parachute indicator and began to turn around to the continent of Europe the only way to get as close to the shore as possible the crew will have a better chance of surviving at this point the plane was in a hard dive and he had to take control of the conjoined bomber in order to give the crew time to jump Captain Rojan and Ensign League brace their feet on the instrument panel and pulled back on the stick with all their strength to prevent the plane from going into a spiral dive the parachute escape window at the bottom of the airplane was no longer available and All crew members had to jump one by one from the waist hatch behind the wing and had to control their strength so as not to hit the fuselage of the nine lives below at the moment the fire from the nine lives below was increasing and the left wing of the little Captain was almost toast Rojan could even hear the bursts of .50 caliber ammune mission in the cabin figuring that the crew had pretty much parachuted out Captain Rojan ordered his co-pilot Lieutenant Lee to hurry up and jump as well but leak immediately refused the order because he knew that Rojan could not stabilize the plane and make the jump all by himself German soldiers on the ground looked at the conjoined eight-engine bomber in amazement believing that they had discovered one of the Allies new secret weapons but the Long Trail of black smoke trailing behind it and its rapidly declining altitude indicated that the secret weapon had already succumbed to serious injuries and the commanders of the anti-aircraft guns feeling that soon or later it would have to crash land simply ordered the firing to Cease the two pilots on the bombers could do nothing more now than struggle to keep their planes in a horizontal attitude the continent of Europe was in sight and the two planes were plummeting like stones toward the shore the oncoming Earth was gaining speed in a last-ditch effort the bomber slammed into the ground and the nine lives at the bottom used up its Nine Lives instantly being crushed and thrown out while slowing the impact of the little Captain's Landing the little Captain bounced upward then slammed into the ground skidding along at high speed until its left wing struck a small wooden house and the bomber Hull instantly disintegrated but the cockpits of Rojan and leak incredibly remained intact the two of them were shocked but both of them were unharmed they really didn't expect to encounter this outburst and still be able to survive big time they both climbed out of the cabin and were about to have one but were scolded by the German Soldier who rushed over to them snatching the cigarette out of leak's mouth and saying that siglite was bad for your health and couldn't you see the gasoline dripping Next To You by the time the first raise of the New Year's Sun Shone on the land in 45 Rojan was already on a bus to A POW Camp where the Germans immediately put him in solitary confinement and interrogated him for two full weeks dead set on not believing rojan's account of what had happened identifying them as flying the latest Allied development of the eight-engine super bomber after months of eating sawdust bread in A POW Camp Rojan was eventually rescued by the attacking allies and through his and Lick's efforts six of the eight-man crew of The Little Captain survived in addition to the four who survived a parachute jump from The Nine Lives 37 b-17s took part in the bombing mission of which 12 were shot down and 100 crew members were killed in action so that was a lucky break in terms of bad luck that's it for today's story so Kudos and Kudos so we can see you in the next installment

Channel: Paper Plane

Views: 3,631

Keywords: aviation, planes, education, story, aircraft, airlines, documentary, flying, animated, flight accidents, Air Force, Military

Id: KPCqX6jQD_A

Length: 7min 29sec (449 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023