“Hot Stuff”
Hot Stuff was captained through most of its career by Capt. Robert 'Shine' Shannon, a former fighter pilot known as a sharp formation flier. On an anti-submarine patrol over the Bay of Biscay in the fall of 1942, Shannon dove out of the clouds on a ship he mistook for an enemy vessel and radioed it a mock ultimatum before realizing it was a British battleship. On a separate occasion off Portugal, Shannon chased down a fleeing Ju-88 and drove it off with the aircraft's .50-caliber guns, a feat that earned the ship the nickname 'P-24' for what was reputed to be the first recorded case of a four-engine bomber running down an enemy fighter.
Hot Stuff's regular co-pilot, Lt. John H. Lentz of Chicago, was the crew's instrument specialist. In late April 1943, Gen. Frank Andrews selected Shannon's combat-seasoned crew to fly him back to the United States for meetings with Gen. Marshall and the Joint Chiefs, making it the first intact heavy bomber crew rotated home from the Eighth Air Force after finishing a combat tour. The flight, however, was loaded with VIP passengers rather than the usual crew; Lentz and three other regulars were bumped to make room, and Andrews himself took the co-pilot's seat for takeoff from Bovingdon on May 3, 1943.
Approaching Reykjavik, Iceland, in zero-visibility weather after losing radio contact, Hot Stuff struck a mountainside. Thirteen of the fourteen men aboard were killed, including Shannon and Andrews. Tail gunner Sgt. George Eisel, thrown into the severed tail section, was the sole survivor, pulled from the wreckage after 42 hours of exposure with both legs broken.