Medal of Funk

fight often turn to activism to voice their opposition. Although every war has seen demonstrations against armed conflict, Vietnam comes to mind for many as one of the most divisive wars in modern history, and much of the opposition came as a result of the draft. The Draft Lottery was a system used in nineteen sixty nine that conscripted young American men into fighting overseas. Tests were held across the country.

Draft cards were torn up and burned, and many of the fighting age fled to places like Canada to avoid having to enlist. But that wasn't the first time people were forced to fight a war against their will. That happened in World War Two as well, and those facing tough choices decided to fight back in surprising and explosive ways. It all started with a plane, a B seventeen F

bomber named the tond Leo. The tond Leo's ten man crew, including pilot Bond Fox and navigator Elmer Benny Benderner, were a ragtag group of fighters in charge of an aircraft often referred to as a flying coffin. It was a massive plane manufactured by Boeing. However, its design was inherently flawed. The B seventeen F was tail heavy, made even more so once the bombs, ammunition, and the crew were all

loaded on board. With its center of gravity shifted towards the back of the plane, it became slow and difficult to maneuver. Benny and the rest of the crew understood what they were getting into. The Odds of surviving in a bomb murdering World War two were roughly thirty, but that didn't stop them from carrying out their missions as ordered and facing down German fighters in the process. But tid Leo didn't fly all twenty five missions it was

meant to. It was shot down before it could be retired from service, though all of its crew did survive. But the story of this particular Beast seventeen isn't about how capable it was but about how lucky it was. Now, you might say that a plane that went down during battle couldn't have been that lucky, after all, it was big, heavy, and not very effective in a dog fight. But ask Benny the navigator, and he'll tell you a much different story. It was during one particular raid when Tan de Leo's

crew realized just how lucky they were. They had been airborne for some time when they started taking fire from Nazi anti aircraft guns, which were firing twenty millimeter shells at them. One after another. The shells hit the plane miraculously, though they didn't explode on impact. When Time de Leo landed, the crew examined the fuselage and were shocked at the site the eleven unexploded twenty millimeter shells had been lodged into the wing gas tank. The shells were carefully extracted

and sent to the armors to be diffused. But Benny wanted to know more. Why hadn't the shells exploded when they hit the plane. Well, they had been manufactured by forced laborers. Hitler and the Nazis didn't just kill and imprison people. They often put them to work growing food, building engines, and making munitions. These workers were literally held

at gunpoint, forced to help their enemies or die. There was little they could do to rebel, but several laborers building anti aircraft shells had figured out a unique way to fight back. When military personnel opened up the shells that had been removed from the gas tank, they didn't find any explosive materials. Almost every shell was empty save for one. Within its hollow metal frame was a note

left by the person who had assembled it. The worker had been checked and had written a message for whomever would find it. Translated, it said, this is all we can do for you now. Eventually, though, tando Leo's luck would run out and it's thirty four thousand pound hall would be claimed by the English Channel once and for all. But thanks to the rebellious spirit of several forced laborers, Benny Fox and the rest of the crew live to fly another day. World War two brought out some of

the best and worst in humanity. Individual acts of bravery clashed with the overwhelming death and dread of mass warfare, but in the end, the individual stories of heroism are rather remarkable. For example, it takes a special kind of bravery to charge up Normandy beach face first an enemy gunfire. It takes a similar kind of bravery to jump out of a plane with a parachute knowing the enemy forces will be firing at you. And that kind of bravery is also found in someone who risks their own life

to save hundreds of others. This is the kind of bravery that was found in the heart of First Sergeant Leonard A. Funk, Jr. A recipient of numerous awards and honors. Funk did some incredible things during World War Two, which distinguished him as one of the bravest Americans in enemy territory. But there's one particular episode that really shows us what

kind of human Funk was. We already know that he was brave, selfless, and more, but this this was something else, like a series of scenes cut out of an action film that the audience immediately questions for being unrealistic. Surely that kind of thing couldn't happen, but it did because of Sergeant Funk. It happened on January nine. Funk and his small company of men were stationed just outside of Holtzheim, Germany, where they had spent the winter. Their goal was to

take the town, but their forces were running thin. Rather than hunker down and wait for what may never come, Funk decided to continue his mission. Without enough infant treatment to keep advancing forward, Funk recruited a platoon of clerks and speed trained them into a fighting force that he took fifteen miles through artillery fire and driving snowstorms towards

their objective. There they cleared out fifteen houses without losing a single unit, and captured eighty German soldiers in the process. They had taken the town, but the battle wasn't over for Funk. Those eighty prisoners managed to dupe their captors and connect with a German patrol. They waited for their chance to strike, and it came quickly. Funk, after doing the rounds to insure the safety of a town, came to check on the prisoners, but rather than find reassurance,

he found a German pistol poking into his stomach. With little more than a handful of soldiers nearby and the rest of his company sweeping up the town, Funk was up against the odds in a big way. The Nazis had him dead to rights and he had nowhere left to turn. So when the Germans ordered him and his men to drop their weapons. Funk pretended to comply. He unslung his submachine gun from his shoulder, all while the cogs in his head were turning. But that's as far

as Funk's compliance would go. With his machine guns still in hand, and in true Allied fashion, he laughed in the Nazi faces before unloading his gun into the German officer and his company. While he fired, Funk shouted through the commotion for his men to take the Germans weapons. Within minutes, twenty one German soldiers lay dead, many more were injured, and the rest had been recaptured. And you can bet Funk was smiling as he realized what he

and his men had just done. They had completely overturned the odds, recapturing a company larger than their own, and halted any hopes the Germans had of upsetting American plans in the area, and all it took was a little trickery and a whole lot of bravery. Funk returned to America after the war to receive his awards, and he has since been immortalized with his own stretch of highway

in Pennsylvania. And you can bet that all the men that served with him will never forget just how brave their sergeant was that day and his funky dose of courage. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership

with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.