Fighter plane deploying chaff as countermeasure. |
“The flying saucers must not operate in our area or at least
no one that I’ve heard of has seen any. Walter Overby came in with something a
little unusual last week, tho’. He had several pieces of what looked like metal
shavings. Said he found thousands of them floating on his fish pond and a few
in the water. I still don’t know what they were, but they must have been
something dropped from a plane.”
Those of you who remember Bob Bozeman, the father of present-day
Courant publisher Robert Bozeman, will remember that he was a highly-respected
newspaperman, who was later inducted into the Alabama Press Association’s Hall
of Honor. Bob, who passed away in 1991, was also a decorated U.S. Marine, who
was wounded in action in the Pacific during World War II. I make mention of all
this to show that he was a man who’d been around the block a time or two and
was familiar with different types of military equipment.
Despite my best efforts, I could not find out much about
Walter Overby, but Robert Bozeman remembers him well. Robert said that Overby
lived in the Brooklyn area and was a veteran slightly younger than Bob. Overby
was also apparently a Freemason and would sometimes attend meetings of the
Alabama Grand Lodge in Montgomery.
Based on what I could find out, I believe Overby’s fish pond
to be the pond that he built in 1947, not long after the end of WWII. In the
Sept. 11, 1947 edition of The Courant, it was reported that Overby had “cleared
the site for his farm fish pond and is now completing the dam.” Apparently,
this pond was about three acres in size, but exactly where this pond was
located, I do not know.
Based on Bob’s short report, Overby had several pieces of
the shavings to display, and they were apparently light enough to float on the
surface of the pond. A close reading of the report indicates that some of the
shavings were “in the water,” that is, below the surface. It would be
interesting to know how big they were and how thin they were.
Bob’s description of the metal shavings reminded me of the
chaff that is sometimes ejected by military aircraft as a countermeasure. These
thin strips of metal show up on enemy radar as a bunch of different targets. In
theory, during all the confusion, the friendly aircraft will have time to
escape from the bad guy.
Question is, if the metal at Overby’s pond was chaff from a
military aircraft, why was it ejected in the vicinity of a pond in Conecuh
County? Was it part of some kind of Cold War training exercise or is there some
other explanation? Maybe it was something top secret?
In the end, let me hear from you if you know anything more about this incident. I would be especially interested to know where Overby’s pond was located or if any of these shavings still exist for examination. Perhaps with the right amount of information, we might be able to solve this 68-year-old mystery.
That is a very interesting read. I was born and raised in Conecuh Count y and have never heard about this happening. Although I no loner live there I still find it interesting. Thanks for publishing.
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