We all came to this forum due to our passion for football and the Saints in particular. TIL something about
what was probably the most famous play in NFL history. It was the immaculate reception by Franco Harris
on Dec 24,1972. This particular shot was filmed by Steelers photographer Les Banos. This miracle play literally
saved his life. Banos was also employed by the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team and he was a good friend
of Roberto Clemente. Banos was scheduled to be on the plane with Clemente on Dec. 31st. that was sending
relief supplies to Nicaraguan earthquake victims. That flight crashed and there were no survivors. Since the
Steelers won they had a game on Dec. 31st against the Dolphins. Banos had to work and could not make
the flight with Clemente. Banos went on to live another 39 years.
I never heard of him before a friend of mine posted it on his FB Timeline. Banos was a remarkable man.
He worked as a double agent for NATO during WW2 and gained the trust of some high ranking Nazi
officials. Banos was able to forge documents which saved some Jews from death in the gas chambers.
Here is a good article I found detailing his life.
NATO didn't even exist during WWII, it was a post-WWII military alliance between Western European nations, U.K., US, and Canada formed to combat and curb the spread of Soviet-styled communism further after pro-Soviet Communist regimes sprang up in countries liberated from German rule by Soviet forces in the final years of WWII (Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania, and briefly eastern Austria, including Vienna (which was broken up and divided up into 4 administrative regions, like Berlin was from 1946-1990). Soviet forces eventually agreed to leave their controlled parts of Austria and Vienna in 1955 in exchange for permanent neutrality status from Austria in European power politics. Interestingly enough, the foreign policy expert who sort of devised the idea for a NATO preventive alliance at the Bretton Woods Conference was a Canadian himself.
Banos likely worked for the OSS, a CIA-precursor like foreign intellegence service founded in 1942 by President Roosevelt and headed by John Foster Dulles, the future first head of the post-war CIA.
What's even sadder about Clemente's death is that after his plane crashed, his body was never recovered or found, so in a sense, it was a bit of a double death for his relatives and loved ones forced to mourn his tragic passing without being able to bury him.