11. By a Miracle, Sergeant Magee Managed to Escape Death
The antiaircraft shell that destroyed a wing of Alan Magee’s bomber also started an uncontrollable fire, and sent the B-17 spinning towards earth. As he crawled toward the stricken aircraft’s front, Magee blacked out due to lack of oxygen. Unconscious, he fell out of the burning plane. He plummeted for four miles, and crashed through the Saint-Nazaire railroad station’s glass roof, which shattered and observed some of the impact, then slammed into the station’s floor. He somehow managed to escape death and was injured, but alive.
Alan Magee’s fall left him a bloody mess. In addition to 28 shrapnel wounds he took in the Flying Fortress, he sustained damage to his lung, kidney, nose, and eye, had several broken bones, plus a nearly severed right arm. Nonetheless, he had miraculously survived. Magee spent the rest of the war in a POW camp until he was liberated in 1945. In 1993, on the 50th anniversary of his fall, Saint-Nazaire erected a monument in honor of Magee and the crew of Snap! Crackle! Pop!
