February 3rd, 1945.
27,000 ft over Berlin.
Lieutenant Robert Rosenthal is watching his bomber disintegrate around him.
The B7 Flying Fortress, nicknamed Rosy’s Riveters, has taken a direct hit from German flack.
The number three engine is on fire.
The hydraulic system is shot.
Half the control cables are severed.
The oxygen system is leaking.
Worse, the intercom is dead.
Rosenthal can’t communicate with his crew.
He assumes they’re dead.
The explosion that tore through the fuselage was catastrophic.
In 30 previous missions, he’s seen what direct flack hits do to men.
Nobody survives that kind of damage.
The smart move, the survival move, is to bail out.
Ring the alarm bell.
Abandon the aircraft.
Take your chances as a P.
Robert Rosenthal doesn’t bail out.
He’s going to fly this burning rack 600 m back to England alone with one working engine and he’s going to land it because there’s a chance, however slim, that someone in his crew is still alive back there.
And Robert Rosenthal doesn’t leave his men behind.
What happens over the next 3 hours will become one of the most incredible feats of airmanship in World War II.
A mission that should have ended in a German P camp, a crew that should have died over Berlin.
and one pilot who refused to accept either outcome.
Robert Rosenthal was born June 11th, 1917 in Brooklyn, New York.
Jewish family, immigrant parents.
His father ran a small printing business.
Rosie, as everyone called him, was brilliant.
Graduated Brooklyn Law School in 1939, passed the bar, had a promising legal career ahead of him.
Then came Pearl Harbor, December 7th, 1941.
Rosie is 24 years old, successful attorney, exempt for the draft due to his profession.
He could sit out the war in comfort and safety.
He enlists the next day.
The Army Air Forces need pilots.
Rosie volunteers, goes through flight training.
Turns out he has a natural gift for it.
Steady hands, quick mind, the ability to stay calm when everything is falling apart.
By 1943, he’s a B17 pilot assigned to the 100th bomb group, the Bloody 100th, based at Thorp Abbotts in England.
The 100th earns its nickname the hard way.
October 10th, 1943.
Mission to Monster, Germany.
The 100th puts up 13 bombers.
12 are shot down.
Only one returns.
Rosie flies that day.
His aircraft is the only one that makes it home.
October 14th, 1943, the second Schweinford raid.
The bloodiest bomber mission of the war.
60 B7s lost in one day.
The 100th is decimated again.
Rosie survives again.
By February 1945, Robert Rosenthal has flown 30 combat missions.
He’s seen friends die.
He’s watched bombers explode in midair.
He’s brought damaged aircraft home on two engines, one engine, barely controllable.
He’s one of the most experienced pilots in the Eighth Air Force.
And on February 3rd, 1945, every bit of that experience will be tested.
The mission briefing is straightforward.
Berlin, the German capital.
Strategic targets, rail yards, industrial facilities, government buildings.
Berlin is 600 m from England, 1,200 m round trip, 6 hours in the air, most of it over enemy territory.
The Luftvafa is weaker than it was in 1943.
American P-51 Mustangs now escort bombers all the way to target.
German fighter opposition has collapsed, but German flack is still lethal.
88 millimeter anti-aircraft guns ring every major city.
Shells with proximity fuses that explode near aircraft, sending shrapnel through aluminum like tissue paper.
Berlin has the heaviest flack defenses in Germany.
Approaching the city means flying through a steel curtain of exploding shells.
Ros’s crew boards Rosy’s Riveters at 0600 hours.
10 men, pilot, co-pilot, navigator, bombardier, flight engineer, radio operator, four gunners.
They’ve flown together for months.
They trust each other.
They know each other’s voices on the intercom.
They’ve saved each other’s lives multiple times.
The formation takes off.
300 B7s, thousands of air crew heading into Germany.
The flight to Berlin is uneventful.
P-51 escorts keep German fighters at bay.
The bomber stream crosses into German airspace without contact.
Then they reach Berlin.
The flack opens up.
Black puffs of smoke appear around the formation.
Explosions that shake aircraft from hundreds of yards away.
Shrapnel rattles against fuselages.
The sky becomes a forest of steel.
Rosy’s Riveters is flying in the lead element.
First aircraft to reach the target.
First to face the heaviest flack.
The bombadier takes control.
Bomb bay doors open.
The aircraft steadies on the approach.
Straight and level.
The most dangerous configuration.
Sitting ducks for the flat gunners below.
Then it happens.
A shell explodes directly beneath the B7.
The blast lifts the aircraft like a toy.
Shrapnel tears through the fuselage.
The number three engine erupts in flames.
Hydraulic lines rupture, spraying fluid across the wing.
Control cables snap.
The intercom goes dead.
Rosie can’t hear his crew, can’t communicate, can’t ask for damage reports.
He looks back through the cockpit door.
Smoke is pouring through the fuselage.
He can’t see anything past the first few feet.
The aircraft is shaking violently.
The fire on number three is spreading toward the fuel tanks.
If the fire reaches the tanks, the aircraft will explode.
Rosie feathers the propeller on number three, cuts fuel to the engine.
The fire doesn’t stop.
It’s burning through the engine itself, consuming oil and residual fuel.
He activates the fire suppression system.
CO2 floods the engine to cell.
The fire reduces but doesn’t extinguish.
The co-pilot is looking at him, waiting for the order.
Bail out.
Ring the alarm bell.
abandoned ship.
Rosie doesn’t give the order.
He looks at the instruments.
Oil pressure dropping on engines one and two.
Fuel gauges showing leaks, hydraulics gone, electrical system failing.
But the aircraft is still flying barely.
Three engines still producing power.
Control surfaces still responding, though sluggishly.
The bombs are gone.
They dropped during the chaos of the flack hit.
Mission accomplished.
Now it’s just about getting home.
Rosie banks the aircraft west away from Berlin toward England.
600 m of German occupied territory.
The co-pilot is pointing at the fire, gesturing frantically.
The number three engine is still burning.
The fire is spreading.
Rosie knows.
He can see the flames through the windscreen, bright orange against the sky.
The wing could fail at any moment.
The fuel tanks could explode.
But he can’t bail out.
Not yet.
Because somewhere back in that smoke-filled fuselage might be survivors.
Wounded men who can’t bail out on their own.
Men trapped by wreckage.
Rosie is flying this bomber home.
Or he’s dying trying.
The formation is leaving them behind.
Other B7s are maintaining speed and altitude.
Ros’s Riveters is slowing, losing altitude.
Within minutes, they’re alone.
No other aircraft visible, just one damaged B7 limping across Germany.
This is when German fighters attack.
They watch for stragglers.
Damaged bombers falling behind the formation.
Easy kills.
Rosie scans the sky.
No fighters yet.
Maybe they’re occupied elsewhere.
Maybe the escorts drove them off.
Maybe luck is on his side.
He’s not counting on luck.
The fire on number three finally dies.
The CO2 and lack of fuel eventually starve it, but the engine is destroyed.
Dead weight hanging off the wing.
Three engines left.
That’s enough.
The B7 can fly on two engines if it has to.
Three is manageable.
Except the oil pressure on engine one is dropping slowly but steadily.
Oil leaks somewhere.
The engine is dying.
If engine one fails, they’re down to two.
The aircraft will barely maintain altitude on two engines, and they still have 500 m to go.
Rosie eases back on the throttle, reduces strain on the engines.
The aircraft slows further.
Altitude drops to 15,000 ft, then 12,000.
Lower altitude means warmer air.
The crew doesn’t need oxygen systems below 10,000 ft, but it also means they’re in range of German light flack, 20 mm and 37 mm guns that can reach 10,000 ft easily.
Rosie has no choice.
The damaged engines can’t maintain altitude.
They’re descending whether he wants to or not.
At 10,000 ft, he tries the intercom again.
Maybe the electrical system has enough power now.
Maybe someone will answer.
static, nothing else.
He unbuckles, tells the co-pilot to hold the controls, goes back through the cockpit door into the fuselage.
The smoke is cleared somewhat.
He can see now.
The devastation is worse than he imagined.
The flax shell tore through the radio room.
Equipment is destroyed.
Wiring hangs from the ceiling.
Blood is everywhere.
But movement.
There’s movement.
The radio operator is alive, wounded.
shrapnel in his leg and shoulder, but conscious, applying pressure to his wounds.
Rosie moves further back.
The waist gunners, both alive, one wounded but functioning, the other shaken but uninjured.
The tail gunner, cut off from the rest of the crew by wreckage, but responding to Ros’s shouts.
Alive.
Seven men, seven out of 10.
Three dead.
the navigator, the flight engineer, and the ball turret gunner killed instantly by the flack burst.
But seven survivors, seven men depending on Rosie to get them home.
He returns to the cockpit, straps back in, takes the controls.
The co-pilot looks at him, question in his eyes.
Seven alive, Rosie says.
We’re flying home.
The next two hours are the longest of Robert Rosenthal’s life.
Engine one fails at the German Belgian border.
Oil pressure drops to zero.
The engine seizes.
Propeller windmilling uselessly.
Down to two engines.
The aircraft is barely maintaining 8,000 ft.
Air speed dropping below 150 mph.
German territory is behind them now.
Belgium below.
Occupied but less hostile.
Fewer flack batteries.
Rosie runs calculations in his head.
Distance to England, fuel remaining, engine power, altitude.
The math isn’t good.
They might not make it.
The English Channel is ahead.
60 m of cold water.
If they have to ditch, survival chances are minimal.
February water temperatures are near freezing.
Survival time is measured in minutes.
But the coast is close.
Maybe a 100 miles.
Maybe they can glide if the engines fail completely.
Engine 2 begins running rough, sputtering, power fluctuating.
Rosie adjusts the mixture, leans it out, saves fuel.
The engine smooths slightly, but it’s on borrowed time.
The co-pilot is watching the fuel gauges, calculating.
They’re going to be close, very close.
The English coast appears through the haze.
White cliffs, green fields, home.
They crossed the coastline at 4,000 ft.
Both engines still running barely.
Rosy radios ahead.
Emergency landing.
Wounded on board.
Fire equipment standing by.
The tower clears them for immediate approach.
Every other aircraft diverts.
The runway is theirs.
Gear down.
Except the hydraulics are gone.
The landing gear won’t extend normally.
Emergency extension hand crank system.
The co-pilot and Rosie work together.
Cranking manually.
The gear drops slowly.
Locks into place.
Green lights.
Flaps down.
Same problem.
Manual extension.
Limited flaps.
The landing will be fast.
Final approach.
Two engines still running.
Rosie can’t believe they’ve made it this far.
600 m on two failing engines with half the aircraft shot to pieces.
Threshold, flare, touchdown.
The aircraft hits hard, too fast, bounces once, settles, brakes barely working.
They use every foot of runway.
Full stop.
Engines shut down.
Fire truck surrounding them.
Medics rushing toward the aircraft.
Rosie sits in the pilot seat, hands shaking, adrenaline draining away.
Seven men climb out of that bomber.
Seven survivors of a flack hit that should have killed them all.
The medics take the wounded.
Rosie walks around the aircraft, counting the holes.
Over 200 flack damage, bullet holes, torn metal.
An engineering officer approaches, looks at the aircraft, looks at Rosie.
How the hell did you fly this home? Rosie doesn’t have an answer.
Skill, luck, desperation, all of the above.
Had men back there, he finally says couldn’t leave them.
Here’s what Robert Rosenthal’s story tells us.
Courage isn’t about charging into battle.
It’s not about heroic last stands or dramatic sacrifices.
Sometimes courage is deciding not to quit when quitting is the rational choice.
Rosie had every justification to bail out over Berlin.
Aircraft on fire, crew presumed dead, hydraulics gone, alone over enemy territory.
Any reasonable person would have taken their chances as a PL.
But Rosie didn’t know for certain his crew was dead.
there might be survivors, men who couldn’t bail out, men who needed him.
So he flew through German flack, through fighter territory, on failing engines and damaged controls for 3 hours because seven men needed to get home.
And Robert Rosenthal was going to get them there.
That’s courage.
Not the absence of fear, not superhuman strength or skill, just a simple decision that your crew matters more than your own survival and acting on that decision when everything is falling apart around you.
February 3rd, 1945, Lieutenant Robert Rosenthal flew a burning B7 home alone.
Except he wasn’t alone.
Seven men were counting on him and he didn’t let them
