Shot 47 Times, Still Flying — The Pilot Who Refused to Die Over Enemy Territory скачать в хорошем качестве

Shot 47 Times, Still Flying — The Pilot Who Refused to Die Over Enemy Territory

Shot 47 Times, Still Flying — The Pilot Who Refused to Die Over Enemy Territory June 16th, 1943. Captain Jay Zeamer lifted Old 666 off the runway and pointed the nose toward 600 miles of enemy territory. Alone. No fighter escort. No backup. Just one B-17 bomber flying into airspace defended by 150 Japanese fighters. The mission was simple: photograph the heavily defended Japanese airfields on Buka Island and come home alive. Nobody expected him to survive. Jay Zeamer was 25 years old. He had zero official combat missions as a pilot. The Army Air Force didn't want him. They said he questioned orders. They said he had an attitude problem. They passed him over for command again and again. So he built his own crew. Misfits. Troublemakers. Men that other squadrons had rejected. They called themselves the Eager Beavers. Then he found Old 666. Serial number 41-2666. The Devil's Number. The aircraft had been condemned three times. Stripped for parts twice. Left to rot on a maintenance line where bombers went to die. Ground crews refused to work on it. Pilots refused to fly it. Zeamer resurrected it anyway. For two months, the Eager Beavers rebuilt that condemned bomber. They added 19 machine guns—more firepower than any B-17 in the Pacific. They turned a cursed aircraft into a flying fortress that could defend itself against impossible odds. Then they volunteered for the suicide mission to Buka. At 0841, twenty Japanese fighters rose to meet them. Zeros. Oscars. Flown by pilots who had been killing Americans since Pearl Harbor. The battle lasted 40 minutes. Forty minutes of continuous combat. Twenty fighters swarming one bomber. Cannon shells tearing through the fuselage. Machine guns roaring from every angle. A 20mm shell exploded in the bombardier's compartment. Joseph Sarnoski took shrapnel to the neck and chest. Blood filled the nose section. He was dying. He kept firing anyway. Another shell hit the cockpit. Fragments tore into Zeamer's arms, legs, and torso. Blood soaked through his flight suit. The controls were slippery in his hands. He kept flying anyway. Sarnoski shot down one more Zero before he collapsed over his guns and died. Zeamer flew wounded for five more hours. Two engines dead. Hydraulics gone. Electrical system failed. The aircraft had 47 bullet holes. His crew was bleeding. His bombardier was dead. But the camera had completed its run. The mission was accomplished. When Old 666 touched down at Dobodura, Zeamer had been flying wounded for nearly five hours. He brought his crew home from a mission that should have killed them all. Then he collapsed unconscious for three days. The doctors didn't expect him to survive. But Jay Zeamer refused to die. President Roosevelt awarded two Medals of Honor for that single mission. One to Joseph Sarnoski, posthumously. One to Jay Zeamer, the pilot who assembled a crew of misfits, resurrected a cursed aircraft, and flew into hell. This is their story. 👍 LIKE if this story moved you 🔔 SUBSCRIBE for more forgotten hero stories 💬 COMMENT where you're watching from #JayZeamer #Old666 #MedalOfHonor #ww2 #PacificWar