LEGENDS OF AN OCEAN-CROSSING SEAPLANE

摘要

The seaplane rocked violently. Flak from a battleship below exploded all around it. "My God, what have I done?" Leonard Smith recalled thinking. Though not in strict compliance with the Neutrality Act of 1939, U.S. Navy Ensign Leonard Smith was at the controls of a Royal Air Force Consolidated PBY-5 flying boat that morning in May 1941, scouring the surface of the Atlantic for the notorious German battleship Bismarck. Surprised to suddenly spot the vessel, Smith steered the American-made seaplane-exported to Britain as part of the Lend-Lease program-into a cloud bank to safely shadow the battleship from afar. But after losing his bearings in the cloud, Smith swerved back into clear air-and got a nearly vertical view down the Bismarck's smokestack. A barrage of anti-aircraft fire from the ship erupted.