Flak... this is what airmen feared!

[MauldinFan]

Hollywood would leave you to think that flak was always the size of a pie plate.
This is real Flak, recovered from a 91st BG B17 in 1944.

The piece with the shiny end came through the nose and struck the copilot's seat. Thankfully, a previously pilfered British manhole cover attached to the underside of the secured his second son's existence after the war.
The shiny part is the skin of the Flying Fortress.
These were given to me by the vet in the 1990s.
God Speed, Mr Delo. I still miss our conversations.

 

[Dumpster D]

Real deal souvenirs.

DId you hear the one about the ice cream?

Forget which group the story came from but the boys wanted some ice cream and They delivered.

10 gallon Pails of it!! Of course it wasn't frozen so they loaded the ice cream onto their ships and by the time they came back from a mission it was ready to eat.

Some guys were spittin' out chunks of flak into their bowls.


Look at the rounded shiny aluminum that chunk picked up... I mean, if that gives any idea of travel velocity, or what?

 

[B-Man2]

Hollywood would leave you to think that flak was always the size of a pie plate.
This is real Flak, recovered from a 91st BG B17 in 1944.
View attachment 143945
The piece with the shiny end came through the nose and struck the copilot's seat. Thankfully, a previously pilfered British manhole cover attached to the underside of the secured his second son's existence after the war.
The shiny part is the skin of the Flying Fortress.
These were given to me by the vet in the 1990s.
God Speed, Mr Delo. I still miss our conversations.

Looks kind of innocuous just sitting there in the palm of your hand but traveling at about 2300 ft per sec after the initial detonation the results as we’ve all seen photos of … were Just devastating.

 

[Dumpster D]

Looks kind of innocuous just sitting there in the palm of your hand but traveling at about 2300 ft per sec after the initial detonation the results as we’ve all seen photos of … was Just devastating.

Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

 

[MauldinFan]

This piece was recovered from the center of the three B-17s in the middle of this photo.

It's at the bottom of the North Sea today, so I have the only part of the plane above water, fused aluminum from this flak piece's entry to that airplane.

Look at the rounded shiny aluminum that chunk picked up... I mean, if that gives any idea of travel velocity, or what?

Much faster than a rifle bullet if you're close to it going off, that's for sure.
I've been told by several vets that flak pieces were just dumped out of the planes after missions, so I'd think if you had a metal detector at a former 8th AF field, you might find some.

 

[mulceber]

I've been told by several vets that flak pieces were just dumped out of the planes after missions, so I'd think if you had a metal detector at a former 8th AF field, you might find some.

Makes me want to show up at Thorpe-Abbotts with a metal detector in tow and take a stroll.

 

[MauldinFan]

Makes me want to show up at Thorpe-Abbotts with a metal detector in tow and take a stroll.

If I lived in the UK, I'd do exactly that.

 

[B-Man2]

When I went to the Show of Shows I looked for some pieces but they’re hard to find and crazy expensive for what they are.

 

[MauldinFan]

When I went to the Show of Shows I looked for some pieces but they’re hard to find and crazy expensive for what they are.

There's hardly any way to know if it was the real deal anyway.

 

[ties70]

Here is what came from above:

Part of a 500lb GP. Found close (250 meters) to our refinery. They had to detonate it on site. This part was found in front of the cafeteria…

 

[ties70]

Watch it go off from 3:02 onwards:

The guy from the bomb disposal unit in the interview later explains that the bomb was covered with a plastic bladder containing 25,000 liters of water to minimize the blast range and direct it mostly upwards...

 

[B-Man2]

That’s some bomb crater .

 

[Smithy]

There's hardly any way to know if it was the real deal anyway.

Exactly right.

You'd want confirmed and authenticated provenance before buying "a piece of flak" as there's a lot of unscrupulous types flogging this kind of thing.

You were lucky as they came direct from a vet.

 

[B-Man2]

The ground crews used to clean hundreds of pounds of pieces of flak out of the bombers after each mission. If they only could have known how much people are selling this stuff for today they or their families would have been pretty happy with the extra spare cash .

 

[B-Man2]

I’d bet that there’s probably buried dumping grounds of this stuff around the old bomber air fields in England ?

 

[Pa12]

Anyone know what type of steel they were made of?

 

[leper-colony]

Anyone know what type of steel they were made of?

German.

 

[Smithy]

Anyone know what type of steel they were made of?

They actually came in different thicknesses depending on the shell and it's purpose.

The Germans used coding on the side of the shell indicating the thickness and purpose of the shell.

Most HE shells for flak purposes (designed to detonate at a fused point and spread maximum amounts of shrapnel at altitude) were usually marked STG which meant a thin steel body to the shell to increase fragmentation upon detonation.

 

[Blackboxr1200S]

Interesting read...
STG or short for Stahlguss (= cast iron).

Imagine the damage when this spreads around

 

[johnslemp]

A detail from a larger image from my book about WWII "bomber jackets." This was very sharp, very dense, and I'm sure very deadly...