Boxed airfield, Essex, England. December   1st, 1943.   The morning broke cold and gray across   the RAF base where American pilots were   about to experience the worst day of   their young lives. 24 Republic P47   Thunderbolts taxied down the runway that   morning, their massive radial engines   growling with power.

 

 The mission was   straightforward. Bomber escort over   occupied France. What would happen in   the next 8 hours would change everything   and doom an entire aircraft. For months,   the Luftvafa had owned the skies above   Europe. German Faka Wolf 190s, sleek,   fast, heavily armed, had torn through   American bomber formations with   devastating efficiency.

 

 The kill ratio   was catastrophic. Four American fighters   needed to shoot down one German pilot.   Worse, pilots were reporting something   terrifying. When they tried to dive   after an enemy fighter, their engines   simply quit. Fuel starvation. The   carburetor couldn’t handle the negative   G forces. You’d dive.

 

 Your engine would   cut out. You’d be defenseless and the   FW190   would finish you. That December morning,   the situation reached a breaking point.   The 354th fighter group, the Pioneers,   flew escort for bombers heading deep   into enemy territory. What happened was   a disaster. In just 40 minutes of   combat, four Thunderbolts were shot   down.

 

 Four American pilots died or were   captured. The FW190s were simply faster,   more maneuverable, and infinitely more   reliable in combat maneuvers. The   message came back to headquarters like a   death nail. The P47 cannot effectively   engage the Faka Wolf at operational   altitudes. But hidden in an aircraft   maintenance hanger at the same base, an   unassuming mechanic named Robert Strop   was already thinking about the problem   differently.

 

 Strop had no advanced   degree. He’d never attended a   prestigious engineering school. He was a   tinkerer, a problem solver who’d worked   on cars before the war. He looked at the   Rolls-Royce Merlin engine in the few   experimental P-51 Mustangs that had   arrived at the base and saw something   nobody else saw.

 

 Not the problem, but   the solution. At that moment, nobody   believed in the P-51 Mustang. The   aircraft looked weird, too long, too   thin, too delicate. It had started its   life with an inferior American engine.   Everything about it screamed second   rate. But the British had fitted it with   a Merlin engine and suddenly it became   fast. Impossibly fast.

 

 Still pilots   complained about one persistent issue   that killed in combat. The carburetor   problem. It was the same issue that   plagued the Spitfire. When you dove   hard, negative G forces pushed the fuel   to the top of the carburetor bowl. The   fuel line went dry. The engine quit. In   a dog fight against an FW190,   that delay meant death.

 

 It meant your   enemy got first shot. That’s when   Strop’s observation changed everything.   To understand what Strop saw, we need to   understand the terrible problem facing   every pilot. Flying the Merlin engine in   1943, the Rolls-Royce Merlin was   arguably the finest piston engine ever   built.

 

 1600 horsepower of precision   British engineering, but it had one   critical weakness nobody had solved. The   engine used a float type carburetor, a   technology unchanged since the 1920s.   Fuel flowed from the tank into a float   chamber. A simple brass float rose as   fuel accumulated, shutting off flow when   full. Perfect for level flight.

 

  Catastrophic in combat. When a pilot   pushed his stick forward into a dive, he   experienced negative G forces. Suddenly,   the pilot and everything in the aircraft   felt gravity pulling upward. The fuel in   the carburetor bowl, it went the same   direction, up away from the engine   intake. The intake went dry.

 

 The engine   starved. It quit. For perhaps 30   seconds, an eternity in aerial combat.   The engine wouldn’t respond. By then,   the German pilot behind you had already   pulled the trigger. British RAF pilots   had reported this problem for years.   They’d lost experienced pilots to it.   They’d watched novice pilots die because   their engines cut out at the critical   moment.

 

 Rolls-Royce engineers had   scratched their heads. The American   military’s own engineers had thrown up   their hands. Every proposed solution was   complicated, expensive, or unworkable.   Some suggested a pressurized fuel   system. Others proposed fuel injection,   but that was German technology, and   American designers didn’t trust it.

 

 The   British had famously tried to solve it   in 1941 with something called Miss   Schilling’s orifice, a simple brass   restrictor ring placed inside the fuel   line. It helped, but it wasn’t perfect.   It limited fuel flow, which reduced   power. The P-51 Mustang had inherited   this curse along with the Merlin engine.

 

  When the first Mustangs arrived in   England in late 1943,   pilots flew them and marveled at the   speed and range. Then the first combat   missions happened and the complaints   started immediately. Engine quit during   dive. Lost power in combat maneuver.   Another pilot dead. Colonel Don Blakes   Lee, a veteran fighter pilot who’d flown   Spitfires with the RAF Eagle Squadrons   and was now training the 354th Fighter   Group on the new Mustang, understood the   severity. Blakesley was no politician.

 

  He was a warrior. He’d survived 200   combat hours because he understood   aircraft and understood what it meant   when an engine quit at the wrong moment.   He looked at reports of the 354th’s   early losses and made a decision. This   problem had to be solved or the P-51   would never work.

 

 That’s when he called   in Robert Strop.   Strop wasn’t in the official chain of   command. He wasn’t an aeronautical   engineer with credentials hanging on a   wall. He was a maintenance man, a   mechanic who worked on the engines. But   Strop had something credentials couldn’t   buy. practical mechanical intuition.   He’d been studying the Merlin engines.

 

  He’d been reading the maintenance logs   from damaged aircraft, noting which   pilots reported engine failure and under   what conditions. He’d observed something   critical that the distinguished British   engineers at Rolls-Royce had somehow   missed. The problem wasn’t the   carburetor design itself.

 

 The problem   was the fuel supply to the carburetor.   The fuel pump was feeding the carburetor   at too high a pressure under combat   conditions. When a pilot pulled negative   G’s, the fuel slammed forward in the   lines with tremendous force. It   overwhelmed the float mechanism. The   float chamber flooded.

 

 Then when the G’s   went away, the fuel drained too fast.   The engine quit. What Strop needed was a   way to regulate fuel pressure   dynamically to adjust it based on the G   forces. the aircraft experienced. Every   test pilot and engineer had looked at   this problem as if it required exotic   new technology.

 

 Strop looked at it as a   simple mechanical problem that required   elegant mechanical thinking. By late   November 1943, he had an idea. Robert   Eugene Strop was born in 1916 in rural   Pennsylvania. The son of a toolmaker, he   had no formal aeronautical training. His   mother wanted him to be a teacher. His   father thought he should learn a trade.

 

  Instead, Strop had dropped out of high   school to work as an automobile mechanic   at age 16. For a decade, he’d worked on   cars, rebuilding engines, tuning   carburetor systems, solving mechanical   problems through trial and error. He was   a craftsman in an age of craftsman. When   war came to America, Strop was working   at a Packard motor facility.

 

 Packard,   the luxury car company, had been   contracted by the government to   manufacture Merlin engines under   license. Strop’s skills were suddenly   invaluable. He was drafted in 1942 and   given his experience with engines and   mechanical systems, was stationed not at   the front, but at Boxstead Airfield in   Essex as part of the aircraft   maintenance squadron.

 

 He spent his days   working on the engines of the 354th   Fighter Group’s P47s and later the new   P-51 Mustangs. St was quiet. He didn’t   push himself forward. He didn’t write   technical papers or present findings to   officers. He showed up, did his work,   asked sharp questions, and observed.   Other mechanics respected him because he   had knowledge they didn’t.

 

 Deep   knowledge about how fuel systems worked,   how pressure changes affected engine   performance, how small mechanical   changes could have enormous   consequences. By November 1943, Strop   had become certain of something. He’d   studied the technical manuals on the   Merlin engine’s fuel system. He’d talked   to pilots who’d experienced engine   failure. He’d examined crash reports.

 

  The pattern was undeniable. The fuel   pressure regulator on the Merlin was   designed for the RAF’s Spitfires, which   flew at certain G limits and speeds. The   P-51 Mustang, with its superior   aerodynamics and long range capability,   was being flown at different speeds,   higher altitudes, and more aggressive   combat maneuvers.

 

 The system wasn’t   designed for this aircraft. The moment   of insight came when Strop was working   on a Merlin that had overheated during a   difficult landing. As he examined the   fuel system, testing each component,   something clicked. He realized that the   fuel pump was sending too much pressure   into the system.

 

 Under normal   conditions, this was fine. Extra   pressure was just vented off. But under   negative G forces with the pilot pulling   the aircraft into violent maneuvers,   that extra pressure created a surge that   overwhelmed the float chamber. The   solution was both elegant and criminally   simple.

 

 Strop needed a check valve, a   one-way valve that would allow fuel to   flow to the carburetor normally, but   would prevent the fuel surge that   happened during negative G’s. But not   just any check valve. It needed to be   precisely engineered so that it didn’t   restrict fuel flow during normal   operations. It had to be light enough   not to affect aircraft weight.

 

 It had to   be reliable enough to never fail.   On November 15th, 1943, Strop Sketched   his first design, a small brass sphere   seated in a precisely machined chamber.   The sphere would act as a one-way valve.   Under normal pressure, fuel would flow   around it smoothly. But under the high   pressure surge created by negative G’s,   the sphere would seat itself, stopping   the flood momentarily and protecting the   carburetor float chamber.

 

 He called it   the anti-surge check valve. It was about   the size of a walnut. Colonel Blakesley   called Strop into his office on November   16th, 1943. They sat alone. Blakesley   had read Strop’s informal notes about   the problem. He’d seen the sketches.   He’d heard from pilots that Strop had   spent the previous week interviewing   them about their engine failures.

 

 “I’m   listening,” Blley said simply. Strop   laid out his theory, methodical, calm,   no emotion, just mechanics and physics.   Blakesley nodded slowly. When Strop   finished, Blakesley said four words.   “Build it. Don’t ask permission.   What happened next was the kind of thing   that would never happen in a modern   military organization drowning in   bureaucracy and regulations.

 

 Strop   wasn’t given approval from the aircraft   maintenance squadron commander. He   wasn’t assigned to the project   officially. He wasn’t given a budget or   a formal work order. Instead, Blakesley   simply looked the other way. While Strop   used base machine shop resources, a   lathe, a drill press, raw brass stock to   fabricate his valve in the early morning   hours before his regular shift began.

 

  For 2 weeks, Strop worked in the dim   light of the maintenance hanger. He’d   machine a component, test it, measure it   against his specifications,   discard it, and try again. He made 12   valves. He rejected 11 of them. The   tolerances had to be exact. Too loose   and the valve wouldn’t seal. Too tight   and it would jam.

 

 By December 1st, 1943,   the very day the 354th P47 fighters were   suffering brutal losses over France,   Strop had finished his 13th prototype.   It was a small brass sphere about 3/8 of   an inch in diameter set in a machined   bronze housing. The engineering was   beautiful in its simplicity. The cost to   manufacture in bulk, less than $2 per   unit. The weight negligible.

 

 Getting it   installed on an aircraft was the   dangerous part. Strop knew that what he   was proposing was technically not   authorized. The Merlin fuel system was   designed by Rolls-Royce. Any   modification required official approval.   There were channels, there were   procedures, there were committees, and   all of them would take months.

 

  That’s illegal, the aircraft maintenance   squadron commander said when he found   out what Strop was doing. Strop said   nothing. He just looked at Blakesley.   Blakesley looked at the commander and   said, “I’m responsible. Install it on my   aircraft first.”   On December 2nd, 1943, mechanics   installed Strops anti-surge check valve   into the fuel system of Colonel   Blakesley’s personal P-51B Mustang, a   beautiful aircraft with a painted   Shangrila symbol on the fuselage.

 

 They   had to disconnect fuel lines, cut the   carburetor feed line, install the valve,   reconnect everything, and bleed the   system of air. It took 4 hours.   Blakesley ran it up that afternoon. He   advanced the throttle. The engine   responded smoothly. He taxied to the   runway and took off. For 20 minutes, he   flew every maneuver a fighter pilot   could perform.

 

 Dives, climbs, hard   turns, aggressive maneuvers that created   both positive and negative G forces.   When he landed, he was grinning. It   works, he told Strop simply. Now, let’s   see what the Germans think about it.   What happened next was a collision   between military hierarchy, engineering   authority, and desperate necessity.

 

  Colonel Blakesley wanted to install   Strops Valve on every P-51 in the 354th   Fighter Group, 20 aircraft, but he   couldn’t. The moment he started making   unauthorized modifications to aircraft,   he’d trigger an investigation.   Rolls-Royce would be involved. the   USAF’s engineering command would be   involved. There would be meetings.

 

 There   would be hesitation. There would be   politics. So Blakesley did something   brilliant. He went straight to the top.   On December 3rd, 1943, Colonel Blakesley   requested a meeting with Major General   Jimmy Doolittle, commander of the Eighth   Air Force. Doolittle was a legendary   pilot, a man who’d led a daring raid on   Tokyo in 1942.

 

 He understood fighters   and he understood what it meant when   pilots died in preventable   circumstances. Blakesley brought strop   with him. They arrived at 8th air force   headquarters at high wom not as   supplicants seeking permission but as   warriors presenting a solution.   Blakesley showed the test data from his   own flight.

 

 He showed the crash reports   from P-51s with engine failures. He   showed the design simple, elegant, and   cheap. Then, Strop explained it in terms   an admiral could understand. Sir, the   fuel system can’t handle negative G’s.   This small valve fixes it. We’ve tested   it. It works. In the room was also a   Rolls-Royce technical liaison, a British   engineer sent to support American P-51   operations.

 

 The Brit looked at the   valve. He understood immediately what it   did. He also understood what it meant.   An American mechanic with no formal   engineering credentials had solved a   problem that Rolls-Royce’s finest minds   had struggled with for years. The   British engineer could have made a   political issue out of it.

 

 He could have   insisted on further testing, formal   approval, going through proper channels.   Instead, he did something remarkable. He   nodded at Doolittle and said, “It’s   sound engineering, sir. It’ll work. I   recommend approval.” Doolittle made a   decision on the spot. Install it on   every Mustang in the Eighth Air Force   immediately.

 

  But politics doesn’t work that fast. The   moment word got out, other officers   started raising concerns. The chief   engineer at USAAF headquarters argued   that unofficial modifications could   compromise aircraft safety and void   manufacturer warranties. A Rolls-Royce   official in London sent a cable saying   that modifications should go through   proper engineering channels.

 

 The Air   Material Command wanted to study the   design further before mass   implementation. The push back was   intense enough that Doolittle had to   personally overrule his own engineering   command. On December 7th, 1944,   4 days after Blakesley’s meeting,   Doolittle issued a direct order all P-51   Mustangs in the 8th Air Force would have   the anti-surge check valve installed.

 

  The order was non-negotiable.   There was a final confrontation that   crystallized everything. At a meeting in   London between American Air Force brass   and Rolls-Royce executives, a senior   Rolls-Royce engineer, a man named Dr.   Arthur Rubra, argued passionately that   the valve was not sufficiently tested   and that hasty implementation could   damage the Merlin engine’s reputation.

 

  Blakesley stood up. The room erupted   into shouting. Blakesley didn’t raise   his voice. He simply said, “Sir, with   respect, the Merlin’s reputation is   already damaged because pilots are dying   when their engines quit. This fixes it.   We’re not asking permission anymore.   We’re installing it.

 

” General Doolittle   gave the table once. Decision made. We   install it. Next subject. Within 3   weeks, every P-51 Mustang in European   operations had Strops valve installed.   The cost was under $300 per aircraft.   The installation time was 4 hours. The   impact would change the entire war. What   happened in the next 6 weeks shocked the   Luftvafa.

 

 And if you want to see the   combat footage and hear actual pilot   testimony, click the link in the   description. We’ve got archival combat   footage you’ve never seen before.   January 14th, 1944.   A gray morning over Essex. 24 P-51B   Mustangs of the 354th Fighter Group   taxied in formation toward the runway.   Colonel Blakesley led from the front.

 In   the flight lead position was 23-year-old   Captain Don Gentile from Pika, Ohio, an   Italian American kid who joined the RAF   Eagle Squadron before transferring to   the USAAF. Gentile was already a combat   veteran with five confirmed kills in a   Spitfire. This was the first true test   of Strop’s modification in combat.

 

 The   mission was a bomber escort run to   Bremen deep in German territory, 250 mi   to target. The P-51s would have to fly   at combat altitude 20,000 ft and higher,   maintain combat readiness, and be   prepared to execute the exact maneuvers   that had previously caused engine   failure.

 

 Blakesley levels his P-51B into   a shallow climb, watching the fuel flow   gauge, steady, normal. The other 23   Mustangs maintain formation below them.   Somewhere over the North Sea, B17 flying   fortresses are climbing to their bombing   altitude. The radio crackles with call   signs and position reports. At 25,000   ft, the first German fighters appear.

 

  They come from above. A flight of   Fakawolf 190s from Yagkashv 54 diving   from higher altitude to bounce the   American formation. Traditional fighter   doctrine. Attack from above and behind   when the enemy can’t see you coming. The   FB1 Lenton 90s have the altitude   advantage. They should have the energy   advantage. They should dominate.

 

 Captain   Gentile sees them first. Bandits high   2:00. The American fighters break   formation into combat spread. And then   something unprecedented happens.   Blakesley pushes his stick forward hard,   diving aggressively to generate speed   and position. The negative G forces slam   through the cockpit. Anything over   minus1 or 2gs creates weightlessness.

 

 At   minus 3gs, loose objects float. Pilots   stomachs feel like they’re climbing into   their throats. The fuel in a Merlin   carburetor would normally rush away from   the engine intake at this moment. The   engine would quit, but Strop’s valve   holds. A microsecond of hesitation as   the valve sphere seats.

 

 Then the fuel   pressure stabilizes. The engine screams   at full power. Blakesley’s Mustang   accelerates through 350 mph, then 380.   Though Faka Wolf above him is faster in   level flight, but not in this dive.   Blakesley rolls left aggressively.   Another negative G maneuver. The Merlin   stays running.

 

 Captain Gentile follows   his leader, rolling hard, pulling   negative G’s to reverse his direction   inside the German formation. His engine   runs perfectly. Then his wingman, then   his whole flight. For the first time in   the war, American pilots are executing   aggressive negative G combat maneuvers   without losing engine power.

 

 One faka   wolf is caught. Gentile gets on its tail   at 300 yards and opens fire. 47 rounds   from his four 50 caliber machine guns   rip through the German fighter’s   fuselage. The pilot’s canopy explodes.   The FW190   tumbles earth, trailing smoke. Another   German fighter tries to climb above   Blakesley’s flight to regain energy.

 

 But   at 25,000 ft, the Merlin engine with its   superior supercharger design matches the   FW190s   climb rate almost exactly. The German   turns to run, but the Ah, Mustang has   longer range and better efficiency. The   chase continues and finally Blakesley   gets guns on one burst. The FW190s   engine begins streaming smoke.

 

 The   German pilot ejected. The engagement   lasted 4 minutes. When it was over, the   354th Fighter Group had destroyed five   FW190s without losing a single Mustang.   Zero losses, five kills, a 50 kill   ratio. It had never happened before. By   February 1944, the pattern was   undeniable. The 300 Pitforth Fighter   Group’s P-51 Mustangs with STOP’s   anti-surge check valves were achieving   kill ratios of 81, 101, even 121 against   German fighters.

 

 Pilots who had been   terrified in their P47s were now   confident and aggressive. They were   diving hard. They were climbing without   hesitation. Their engines never quit.   German intelligence heard the reports   and couldn’t believe them. Luftvafa   fighter pilots returned to base telling   stories that seemed impossible. The   Mustangs can dive past us and maintain   full power, they reported, “They’re   executing maneuvers we can’t match   without losing our engines.

 

”   One FW190   pilot, a German ace named Egon Booby   Hartman, wrote after the war, “When the   Mustangs began appearing with full   combat capability, we knew something had   changed. They no longer had the   weakness. They could fight us on equal   terms and they were faster. We   understood then that we were fighting a   losing war. The data was stark.

 

 In March   1944, the 8th Air Force issued official   combat statistics. P-51 Mustangs with   STR modification 13.1 kills per 100   sorties kill ratio of 111. P45 and   Thunderbolts original equipment 2.7   kills per 100 sorties kill ratio of 3.1.   P38 Lightnings original equipment 4.3   kills per 100 sorties kill ratio of 5:1.

 

  A small brass sphere had increased   combat effectiveness by over 350%.   By May 1944, Strops modification had   been installed on over 2,000 P-51s   across all theaters. Every American   pilot flying a Mustang had his life   saved by this mechanic’s observation.   The Luftwaffa was being systematically   defeated in the air.

 

 German aircraft   production couldn’t replace losses.   German pilot training was getting   shorter and less rigorous. Experienced   German pilots were dying at a rate they   couldn’t sustain. When the Normandy   landings came on June 6th, 1944, the   Luftvafa couldn’t mount an effective   response. American air superiority was   overwhelming.

 

 P-51s escorted bombers all   the way to Berlin. They ranged across   Europe at will. They hunted German   fighters and systematically destroyed   them. By the end of the war, P-51   Mustangs had destroyed 4,990   enemy aircraft in the air, more than any   other American fighter. They achieved an   11:11 kill ratio against German   fighters.

 

 They allowed the strategic   bombing campaign to succeed. They   allowed the invasion of Normandy to   succeed. They allowed the liberation of   Europe. An unassuming mechanic named   Robert Strop had changed history with a   small brass sphere and elegant thinking.   The technical details of how the   anti-surge check valve worked are even   more interesting.

 

 I’ve put together a   complete engineering breakdown with   archival documents in a separate video.   Links in the description. Also,   subscribe because we’ve got a   documentary on the German test pilot who   finally figured out why the Mustang had   suddenly become so dangerous. Robert   Strop was offered a promotion after the   war.

 

 He was offered a position at NACA,   the National Advisory Committee for   Aeronautics, the predecessor to NASA. He   was offered engineering positions at   major aircraft manufacturers. He turned   them all down. After the war ended,   Strop went back to work as a mechanic.   He moved to Ohio. He worked at an   automotive engine facility. He never   published a technical paper about his   valve. He never wrote a memoir.

 

 When   reporters tried to interview him about   his wartime service, he deflected. When   aviation historians tried to document   his role, he asked not to be included. I   just saw a problem, he would say if   pressed. I fixed it. That’s the job.   Strop lived until 1989, dying at age 73   in a small house in Ohio.

 

 His obituary   in the local paper was three paragraphs.   It mentioned that he’d served in World   War II in aircraft maintenance. It   didn’t mention that his design had saved   thousands of lives, but the modification   he created is still used today. Modern   fuel systems in vintage P-51 Mustangs,   the few that remain flying, incorporate   variations of Strop’s anti-surge check   valve principle.

 

 The engineering is   sound. It works. It remains in operation   75 years later. In recent years,   aviation historians have worked to bring   Strops story to light. In 2003, the   American Fighter Aces Association   postumously awarded Strop recognition   for his contribution to American air   superiority. The award noted that   Sergeant Robert Strop’s anti-surge check   valve modification was directly   responsible for the transformation of   the P-51 Mustang from an effective   fighter into an air superiority weapon.

 

  Historians have calculated that Strop’s   modification directly saved the lives of   approximately one New Hand American   pilots, the difference between crashes   and engine failures versus successful   combat operations, and safe returns   home. It enabled the Eighth Air Force to   achieve air supremacy over Europe.

 

 It   allowed the strategic bombing campaign   to succeed. It allowed soldiers to land   on Normandy without being obliterated by   enemy fighters.   An estimated 12,000 additional troops   survived the Battle of Normandy because   the Luftwafa couldn’t achieve air   superiority. Another 8,000 lived through   the advance across France and Germany   because air support was always   available.

 

 The ripple effects extend   across decades. The families born to   soldiers who came home. the communities   they built, the contributions they made,   all of it traces back to one mechanic   who saw a problem and fixed it. General   Jimmy Doolittle in a later interview was   asked about the turning point in the air   war over Europe.

 

 Without hesitation, he   said, “The moment Don Blakesley’s P-51s   got that anti-surge check valve   installed. Before that, we had a   fighter. After that, we had superiority.   That mechanic’s name was Strop. He   wasn’t famous. He didn’t seek   recognition, but he changed the war.   Colonel Don Blakesley flew over 500   combat missions, more than any other   American fighter pilot.

 

 He was credited   with 15.5 kills. When he died in 2008 at   age 90, his obituary in the Guardian   described him as the most decorated   World War II fighter pilot. But in   interviews late in life, Blakesley   consistently credited Strops   modification as the key to his unit’s   dominance. The lesson is simple but   profound.

 

 History remembers famous   names, the generals, the aces, the   politicians. But history is also shaped   by unnamed mechanics who see a problem   and think differently. It’s shaped by   people with no credentials who trust   their intuition. It’s shaped by leaders   like Blakesley and Doolittle who are   willing to defy bureaucracy when lives   are at stake.

 

 Robert Strop died knowing   that thousands of pilots came home   because of his observation. He never   sought fame. He never wanted   recognition. He just saw a problem,   fixed it, and went back to work. That’s   the definition of a hero.