Impact

On March 9, 1945, an American B-17 bomber took two hits while bombing the industrial plant ＂VDM-Werke Heddernheim＂ in Frankfurt am Main and made an emergency landing near the small town of Weisel, Germany. This singular event rippled through many lives with surprising intensity. Eight crewmembers ended up in captivity and the two others paid with their lives. The residents of Weisel were thrust into contact with ＂the enemy＂ for the first time, and for them, the aircraft held possibilities that were then undreamed of... Theo Dillenberger has reconstructed this incident in careful detail and has not only brought astonishing things to light, but he has also unearthed the long-hidden memories that have burned deep inside all concerned. Sixty-one years after that fateful incident, Dillenberger succeeded in finding living crewmembers in the U.S. and in initiating contact between those former soldiers and the townspeople of Weisel. Click ’Preview’ for sample pages from different parts of the book.