Strange tale (tail?) from Air Force, April 1943.
DELAYED ACTION
CREWMEN of a B-17 had a surprise recently while flying over a quiet sector of England when a 20 mm. shell exploded in the left horizontal stabilizer. They had reason to be surprised. There wasn’t an enemy plane in sight.
After the big bomber had landed, Captain Henry J. Schmidt, an engineering officer with the Eighth Air Force, began investigating. He found that the B-17 had been carrying the shell around ever since it had attacked German installations in France some three weeks before. During that attack the shell had pierced the stabilizer without exploding. The hole it made was subsequently repaired, but without knowledge on anyone’s part that the missile was still in the ship.
