“Hell's Angels”

Hell's Angels, piloted by Lieutenant Roy C. Harms of Grafton, Wisconsin, took a four-foot hole in her left vertical stabilizer from German flak over Ploesti on August 1, 1943, and enemy fire went on to shatter the nose and tail sections. Top-turret gunner Arnold Holen was hit, and fire breaking out aft sealed gunner Michael Doka off in the tail from the rest of the crew. Waist gunner John Shufritz kept firing despite serious wounds while his partner, Jack Reed, made his way forward through the bomb bay - past bombs still hung in their racks - as Harms and co-pilot Earl Ferguson fought to climb the crippled aircraft to 300 feet. Reed jumped and came down hard on the refinery grounds, badly hurt but alive; he was taken prisoner. The nine others aboard, including Harms and Ferguson, were killed in the crash.