The man who saved New York

"The man who saved New York by Ray Cummings" is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. Blending wartime adventure with speculative fantasy, it follows a man whose roaming ego can possess other beings, culminating in an extraordinary intervention that thwarts a Nazi attack on New York. The narrator’s friend Porky discovers he can slip his consciousness into strangers and control them, a power he nervously demonstrates by making an old woman direct traffic. Seeing a chance to help the war effort, the group schemes to have Porky possess a U-boat commander and sabotage enemy submarines. On a moonlit beach, as an air raid approaches, Porky instead slips into a colossal green sea giant that rises offshore and destroys several Nazi bombers, saving the city. Afterward, Porky and Lisbeth fall in love, and his strange ability vanishes, ending any hope of using it to end the war, even though it has already averted disaster for New York.