God Works Behind the Scenes of B-17 Bombers.

Mike Hosey, An Elder

The B-17 Flying Fortress was named "Snap! Crackle! Pop!"  It was a desperate time in the world when she last took wing. So desperate, in fact, that her pilot was a 19 year old kid. On January 3, 1943 the lumbering bomber took off from Molesworth, England with a 10 man crew, and accompanied by 85 other B-17s. Their mission was to bomb a Nazi submarine port in Nazaire, France.

She never made it back. And neither did 7 other bombers or 75 airmen. But her ball turret gunner did. God was working behind the scenes to make that happen!  His name was Alan Magee, and he has one of the most amazing survival stories of World War II.

By the time she approached her target, the giant bomber was damaged by ground based anti-aircraft fire, and as she fought to survive the flak from below, German fighters in the sky shot off part of her right wing.  The loss of that wing caused her to careen into an unrecoverable spin ending in a more-than-likely unsurvivable crash.   

B-17 Flying Fortress

Providentially, a flak shell had ripped a hole through the skin of the plane.  Magee’s parachute had been damaged so he tossed it.  The situation was dire. As the plane spun helplessly through the sky, he either fell or leapt through that hole and out into the blue.  He was 22,000 feet above the earth.  He asked God to save him, and then passed out from the altitude.  He fell four miles before crashing through the glass skylights of the Nazaire train station.

He lived. But barely. His arm was almost lost. He had broken bones, head and facial injuries, and damage to some internal organs. A German military doctor saved his arm, stating, “We are enemies, but I am first a doctor and I will do my best to save your arm." After returning to health he was sent to a German POW camp, until the war ended. A year after the war, he returned to the skies and earned a pilot’s license.  He died in 2003 at the age of 84.

An amazing story of how God is in control of every circumstance (Proverbs 16:33), and how He works behind the scenes leaving nothing to chance! He placed a hole in just the right spot, and a glass ceiling at the moment of impact, and a doctor who could tend to his wounds!

Sourced from:  http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/FreeFall1943.htm
                         http://www.303rdbg.com/magee.html
                         http://ideas.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/how-to-survive-a-6-mile-fall/?_r=0
                         http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a5197/4344037/