At 32,000 ft. in the dark Texas skies, Air Force Lieut. James Edward Obenauf made a split-second, life-and-death decision. Around him, his six-jet B-47* seemed to be falling apart: the right outboard engine was boiling with flame, scattering red-hot pieces of steel across the wing and fuselage. The navigator had bailed out of the nose compartment; so had the pilot. Copilot Obenauf, squeezing along the catwalk toward the nose, was ready to jump too. He looked down and froze: there, lying unconscious, his oxygen equipment disconnected, his chute pack gone, was the...
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