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Death took a five-minute break

DEATH TOOK A FIVE-MINUTE BREAK....And a quirk of fate helped, too, as a Martin B-26 Marauder tail gunner, Sgt. Edward R. Yurkonis, 24, of Shenandoah, Pa., came back Feb., 25, 1945 from an encounter with German flak gunners that left his bomber's tail assembly looking like a sieve. Yurkonis explained the miraculous escape by pointing to his riddled flak suit, which he had draped over his turret before the bomb run. The gunner's pilot, 1st Lt. Richard M. Crummett, 23, of Clinton, Mo., brought the disabled B-26, named "Patty Kaye IV", in for a safe, dead-stick landing, This, despite the fact that the right horizontal stabilizer and elevator had been shot away, the right engine was knocked out, the vertical stabilizer and rudder so badly shot up they had to be replaced. For a climax, Lt. Crummett elected to cut out his one remaining engine to achieve stability and make a dead stick landing, his second in a month of flying.