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"…a thousand will fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but
it will not come near you..." Psalm 91
The first squadron had flown over the Nazi oil field. They were met not by
antiaircraft guns, but by a greater evil known as "flack cannons." Flack
cannons were like huge, monstrous shotguns loaded with tons of pieces of
scrap metal. When fired, the chunks of metal struck U.S. bombers like hail
- except that this hail penetrated right through fuselages, wings, and fuel
tanks!
The first squadron took a horrible attack.
Flying in the second squadron was SSGT John Hilton, who told me this story.
His flight was actually more terrifying!
As his plane crossed the site, he could hear metal striking all over his
plane! Suddenly, he felt an object pass over both his legs! He thought
that he had been struck. He felt the object through the uniform!
When he had the chance, he checked his body, but NO WOUNDS and no rips in
his uniform! None. He later found the ugly, roundish chuck of scrap metal
inside the fuselage! He kept it. When the plane returned to base, it was
full of holes: fuselage, wings, even fuel tanks! But, the plane made it
back and so did John Hilton, without a scratch.
Sixty years later, resting in a hospital bed, John told this, one of many
such stories, to a church visitor, Vance Agee, who thought that these
stories MUST be preserved in honor of our WWII veterans, quickly passing on
to their greatest Reward. John also soon passed, leaving a dear wife, a
true Christian lady, and four children, and a lifetime of service to others.
Of course, John could have been horribly wounded or killed by that ugly
chunk of metal, now a prized family possession of a miracle. John's
salvation and ours is, indeed, in the Lord.
Amen
Told with permission of Mrs. Elsie Hilton, who possesses a complete record
of all of John's missions, EXCEPT for this one, which he told me that night
in the hospital! VA
Vance Agee |
