B-17 'Mizpah' after 88mm flak rounds ripped its nose off over Budapest, July 14 1944. Pilot kept it flying 10 mins so the crew could bail out.

Black and white version of photo.

143 points · 20 comments · view on lemmy.world

20 Comments

Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 42 pts · 101d (7 replies)

Ok, this is one where we need a red circle for where the pilot would be.

Holy cow that's nuts.

setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world · 41 pts · 101d (6 replies)

Up high and just forward of the top ball turret.

call_me_xale@lemmy.zip · 20 pts · 101d (2 replies)

Honestly, I'm still having a hard time seeing it. There doesn't appear to be anything forward of the ball turret...

doomsdayrs@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 100d (1 reply)

you can see the glass of the pilots cockpit right behind a shred of steel.

The pilot is likely flying very blind, and only based on the plane taking the photo.

They likely had some structural steel that prevented them from dying instantly from the blast. or maybe it got shredded, and they kept it up through pure will, then died afterwards.

acockworkorange@mander.xyz · 1 pts · 98d

I had to use quite a bit of imagination, but now I can guess where the pilot was. Thank you.

Davel23@fedia.io · 20 pts · 101d (1 reply)

I guess the bombardier and navigator were out of luck.

Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 4 pts · 100d

Yea, article says they were killed.

Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe · 5 pts · 100d

Thanks for the diagram, I can at least see where the pilot would be now.

urandom@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 100d (6 replies)

Wait. So the front fell off?

zergtoshi@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 100d (1 reply)

Yeah, that’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.

redhorsejacket@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 100d

I just don't want people thinking bombers aren't safe.

LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 100d

They had to fly it out beyond the environment.

Codpiece@feddit.uk · 1 pts · 100d (2 replies)

No, it wasn’t built by Boeing.

LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 100d (1 reply)

wut? Probably was. Boeing designed the B-17 and built more than half of them.

Codpiece@feddit.uk · 2 pts · 100d

Ok, that’ll teach me to try and be amusing without doing research.

JackFrostNCola@aussie.zone · 7 pts · 100d (2 replies)

acockworkorange@mander.xyz · 1 pts · 98d (1 reply)

Where is this from?

JackFrostNCola@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 96d

Some (japanese?) Cooking tutorial back in the day. I remember it popping up on reddit ~8years ago or so and becoming a meme.

Hawke@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 100d

Colorized by AI? Because the damaged area in the color version looks nothing like the mono version.

LovableSidekick@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 100d

My pappy said they used to call that a "front row seat".