enginehistory.org

[akambic]

This is a post on FB under the DB601/605 group. Collector claiming to have found a planted MG round in a DB engine. Go there to see the images and commentary of the round.

DB605 Sabotage
I would like to share with the community an interesting discover I made while dismantling my DB605 engine. I found this bullet in the coolant cavity of the left cylinder bank. I wondered how a bullet got into the engine, maybe a repair from an engine that had been in a fight. However, when I looked closer, it was not deformed on impact and the bullet is made of steel. The bullet is not of a recognised caliber. It is approximately 9.5 mm in diameter and is not pressed formed like a real bullet. This bullet has lathe lines on it which were obviously done in a hurry. Factories that made DB605 engines used forced labour from occupied countries. The man or woman building this engine cleverly made a bullet out of steel on their lathe and put it in the coolant cavity in the hope that it would wreck the water coolant pump thereby seizing the engine. Really clever because impossible to detect and, being like a bullet, hard to prove if successful. This man or woman was very brave, if caught they would have been executed. When I get the engine finished I will be keeping the bullet with the engine to show their courage.