“Flying Cock / Doodle Bug”

During the Group's first Bizerte mission, Flying Cock's bombardier, John T. Sparks, was fatally wounded by flak; several other crew members were reported killed in action about a month later. Returning from a strike on Tripoli, flak set the Number Three engine ablaze and destroyed its feathering mechanism. Believing the ship doomed, four crewmen bailed out prematurely; all four were killed. Pilots Lew Brown and Bob Quinlivan fought the crippled aircraft down from 16,000 to 6,000 feet, and after the hydraulics failed, the crew cranked the landing gear down by hand for a safe landing at Gambut, with more than 500 holes counted in the airframe afterward.

The aircraft survived the low-level Ploesti raid of August 1, 1943, after which she was renamed Doodlebug and transferred to the 9th Air Force's 376th Bomb Group. She was later transferred again to the 15th Air Force's 449th Bomb Group, where her armament was removed so she could serve as a utility and transport aircraft.