“Kickapoo”

Kickapoo, piloted by Robert Nespor, was one of several Circus aircraft lent to Killer Kane's 98th Bomb Group for the Ploesti raid, launched from Benghazi on August 1, 1943. Heavily loaded for the mission, she lost an engine shortly after takeoff; Nespor banked into blinding desert dust attempting an emergency landing, and the aircraft crashed and burned. Two men survived - Lieutenant Russell Polivka and Sergeant Eugene Garner - who, though injured, freed themselves from the wreck and crawled clear. The rest of the crew died in the crash and subsequent fire; they were buried in the American Cemetery at Benghazi.