Pratica di Shadowing: When a Bf-109 spared a stricken B-17 - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
Creazione lezione...
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It was December 20th 1943 and in the freezing air high above Germany,
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2nd Lieutenant Charles Charlie Brown struggled to keep his mortally damaged American bomber on course.
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Brown had been wounded in the shoulder, his tail gunner Sergeant Hugh Ecke Eckenrode was dead and several other members of the crew were wounded, some severely.
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Their aircraft, B-17 Ye Olde Pub, had been hit twice by flak as it approached its target, the Focke-Wulf plant in the German city of Bremen,
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forcing the crew to shut down one of the engines and throttle back on another.
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This had left it lagging behind the main formation of aircraft from the 379th Bombardment Group, and groups of German fighters had closed in like sharks, sensing blood in the water.
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Up to 15 fighters had attacked the bomber, and the whole tail section was shot to pieces.
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The nose cone was missing.
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The electrical, hydraulic and oxygen systems were damaged.
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The radio was out and the entrails of the crippled bomber flapped in the slipstream through gaping wrecks in the fuselage.
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But B-17s are tough old birds and this one somehow kept on flying despite the damage.
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Brown blacked out for a short time due to pain, loss of blood and a lack of oxygen, and the bomber spiraled towards the ground.
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Brown came to and realized that the B-17 was only a few hundred feet above the ground.
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He somehow managed to get it back under control and turned west towards England in safety, 250 miles away.
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Brown wasn't able to coax the B-17 much above 1,000 feet, and he was vaguely aware that he had passed close to the perimeter of a German airfield.
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Soon after he realized that a German Messerschmitt Bf 109 was flying in close formation beside him.
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It was so close that Brown could see the German pilot as he gestured towards the ground, telling Brown to set the bomber down.
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Most of the B-17's gunners were wounded.
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Only a few guns were still working and none were able to shoot at the enemy fighter alongside.
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Brown could only look on at the German pilot and shake his head.
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For a short time the Messerschmitt flew beside the bomber.
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Then it slid away above and behind.
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Brown waited for the gunfire that must mean the end of the old pub. But nothing happened.
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He realized to his astonishment that the German fighter was flying escort on the B-17.
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As they crossed the coastline and flew out over the North Sea, the fighter remained on station.
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Only when they were well out from the German coast did the fighter slide in again close to the bomber.
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Brown looked across and the German pilot looked back at him, raised a gloved hand in salute and then swung his aircraft away back towards the east.
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Brown managed to put Ye Olde Pub on the ground, not at their home base in Cambridgeshire, but at an air base of the 448th Bomb Group near Norfolk and East Anglia.
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He and all his crew, other than the tail gunner, survived.
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At debriefing, Brown told his story about the German fighter which escorted him.
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It was decided that this should be kept secret.
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The notion of an honorable German pilot choosing not to shoot
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down a damaged American bomber just didn't fit with the message that the US Air Force wanted to give out.
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Charlie Brown survived the war, went home to go to college and then rejoined the Air Force in 1949.
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He served until 1965 when he retired as a colonel.
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It wasn't until much later, in 1986, at a meeting of retired combat pilots called gathering of the Eagles, that he first spoke about what had happened.
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The response was strong, though some questioned whether the whole incident really happened.
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Even Brown began to wonder.
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His memories of that day in 1943 were hazy due to his injuries, exhaustion and the stress of combat.
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Could he be remembering it all wrong?
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Brown decided that he was going to find the German pilot involved, if only to prove that he hadn't imagined the whole thing.
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It took four years, But in 1990, Brown finally received a letter from a man named Stigler, who was living in Canada.
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Stigler explained that he had been the pilot of the German fighter who had escorted Ye Olde Pub.
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On December 20, 1943, Franz Stigler had been a 27-kill veteran pilot.
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He had flown against American bombers in his Messerschmitt Bf 109 G6 that morning, and he was refueling on the ground when Ye Olde Pub passed close by.
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He took off intending to shoot down the American bomber.
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However, as he closed with the limping aircraft, he could see just how badly it had been hit.
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He would later say that he had never seen a more severely damaged aircraft still flying.
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Stigler's commander had told his pilots never to fire an enemy who was descending on a parachute.
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While the crew of the old pub hadn't bailed out, they were clearly no longer capable of fighting and Stigler decided that he could not bring himself to attack.
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Instead he flew alongside and gestured to Brown to land.
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He just simply couldn't imagine that the crippled aircraft could possibly make it back to England.
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When Brown refused, Stigler made an extraordinary decision.
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Instead of shooting it down, he flew close formation with the B-17, hoping that this would deter flak batteries on the coast from firing at it.
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He flew with the bomber well out over the North Sea until it was clear of German airspace
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and then left it to continue towards England.
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Stigler never told anyone about what had happened.
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Sparing an American bomber would likely have led to punishment and perhaps even execution, but he often wondered if it had made it back to base.
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Stigler continued flying fighters throughout the war.
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In 1953 he emigrated from Germany to Canada where he started a successful business.
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When he heard from Charlie Brown in 1990, Stigler confirmed every aspect of his story.
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Franz Stigler and Charlie Brown were astonished to discover
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that they had been living less than 200 miles apart for much of the time since the war.
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Stigler had settled in Vancouver, British Columbia, while Brown was in Seattle, Washington.
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In the latter years, the two men remained close friends, often visiting and talking to other flyers about their shared experiences.
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Thank you.
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Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione
Questa lezione di conversazione di livello B2 si basa sul video “When a Bf-109 spared a stricken B-17”. Le parole che ritornano più spesso: Brown, German, bomber, Stigler, fighter. Questo video contiene 66 frasi e 1070 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 5:51. Chi parla va veloce, circa 183 parole al minuto: aspettati suoni legati e ridotti. Solo il 79% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese, quindi il lessico è impegnativo.
Vocaboli chiave di questo video
Le 15 parole più avanzate del video, con pronuncia e significato:
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| bomber sostantivo | /ˈbɑmɚ/ | bombardiere |
| gunner sostantivo | /ˈɡʌn.ɚ/ | artigliere |
| escort sostantivo | /ˈɛs.kɔɹt/ | scorta |
| flak sostantivo | /flæk/ | criticismo avverso, critica avversa |
| gesture sostantivo | /ˈd͡ʒɛs.t͡ʃɚ/ | gesto |
| retire verbo | /ɹəˈtaɪɹ/ | ritirarsi |
| airfield sostantivo | aerodromo | |
| airspace sostantivo | spazio aereo | |
| astonish verbo | /əˈstɑnɪʃ/ | sorprendere, stupire |
| astonishment sostantivo | /əˈstɑːnɪʃmənt/ | stupore, meraviglia |
| debrief verbo | /diːˈbɹiːf/ | fare il punto, fare un bilancio |
| emigrate verbo | /ˈɛmɪɡɹeɪt/ | emigrare |
| fuselage sostantivo | /ˈfjuːzəˌlɑːʒ/ | fusoliera |
| throttle sostantivo | /ˈθɹɔ.tl̩/ | acceleratore, farfalla |
| vaguely avverbio | /ˈveɪɡli/ | vagamente |
I phrasal verb che sentirai
| Parola | Significato |
|---|---|
| shut down verbo | spegnere |
| take off verbo | togliere |
Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione
Chi parla usa 6 contrazioni e forme ridotte, come hadn't, wasn't, couldn't. Pronunciale nella forma breve, così come le senti.
- I suoni “sh” e “zh”: astonish /əˈstɑnɪʃ/, astonishment /əˈstɑːnɪʃmənt/, fuselage /ˈfjuːzəˌlɑːʒ/, parachute /ˈpæɹəʃut/, notion /ˈnoʊʃən/
- Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: astonishment /əˈstɑːnɪʃmənt/, perimeter /pɪˈɹɪm.ɪ.tə/
I suoni difficili per chi parla italiano:
- Consonante finale — senza aggiungere una vocale dopo: escort /ˈɛs.kɔɹt/, flak /flæk/, beside /bɪˈsaɪd/, astonish /əˈstɑnɪʃ/, astonishment /əˈstɑːnɪʃmənt/
- /æ/ — più aperta della “e”: flak /flæk/, parachute /ˈpæɹəʃut/, lag /læɡ/
Come esercitarsi con questo video
- Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
- Inizia a velocità 0,75×, fai shadowing frase per frase e torna alla velocità normale quando diventa facile.
- Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come bomber, gunner, escort.
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.