Six Messerschmitts jumped the B-24 Liberator bomber on its way to raid the Piacenza airport in northern Italy. The Lib got away and started its target run, but the hydraulic system had been shot to bits, the fluid had frozen over the bomb-bay mechanism. The doors wouldn't open.
There was an emergency crank for just such a situation. It had been cut off neatly by a 20-mm. shell.
Pilot Lieut. Stanley Sagert of Maywood, Calif. was resigned to flying the bombs home again, when someone tapped him on the shoulder: "Bombs away." Looking back, Sagert saw two sergeants holding the bay doors open...
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