On November 23, 1944, a Royal Air Force antiaircraft unit stationed outside Cortonburg, Belgium observed a B-17 Flying Fortress flying towards them. The massive U.S. Army Air Forces bomber approached at high speed with its landing gears down. With no landing scheduled, the base personnel presumed it was an emergency landing situation and reacted accordingly. The Flying Fortress proceeded to execute that emergency landing by plowing into a nearby field. Having just barely avoided crashing into the unit’s guns, the aircraft’s landing was so fast and uncontrolled that the propellers snapped off and both wings slapped into the earth during...