Personal File · AirmanPassed 21 Nov 1944

Peter Scott.

Co-Pilot · Hughes Crew · 330th Squadron

Peter Scott
Serial No. O-772526

The man.

§ Biography

Peter Scott flew as co-pilot alongside Walter Hughes, and the bond they developed went beyond professional trust. Hughes would later write that they had worked together long enough that he knew exactly how Scott thought and how he approached any situation — that he could rely on him completely. The Memoir of Walter F. Hughes is dedicated to him.

Scott had a quiet generosity about him. He and Ralph Hendershot went in together on a tandem bicycle and rode it around the base. He lent Hendershot $60 at some point — money that was never repaid, and that eventually bought a crib for Hendershot's son, a child Scott would never meet.

He was killed on November 21, 1944, over Hamburg, on the crew's 15th combat mission. A piece of flak roughly three-quarters of an inch across, traveling at nearly half a mile per second, came through the cockpit at the moment of bombs away. It found the one small gap in his flak vest — the angle of the clavicle at the top of his shoulder — severed the right subclavian artery, and exited through his back, where it lodged in his packed parachute. He was gone in under a minute.

That morning, Hendershot remembered seeing Scott standing outside against the building before the mission. Scott mentioned, almost offhandedly, that he and some others hadn't been required to fly that day. Hendershot recalled the moment years later as though Scott had somehow sensed what was coming.

Hughes accompanied his body to the cemetery near Cambridge. Scott left behind a wife named Lois. He was 1st Lieutenant, USAF, and he does not appear in the crew photo taken the following March — his place in the story already sealed by then.

Service record.

§ As Catalogued
Rank
2nd Lieutenant
Position
Co-Pilot
Serial Number
O-772526

Missions flown.

15 catalogued · 21 Nov 1944 — 10 Sep 1944

The missions below are those we have been able to document for this airman, drawn from flight logs, mission records, and archival sources. It is not necessarily a complete account of every mission flown; gaps may reflect missing documentation, transferred assignments, or records lost to time.