This B-24 Attacked Hitler’s Oil Fields at 50 Feet — The Deadliest Raid in History JJ

0 0647 August 1st 1943 Lieutenant Colonel Addison Baker climbed into B24 Liberator Hell’s Wench near Benghazi, Libya as 178 bombers prepared for the lowest bombing raid in history. 36 years old, 14 years in the cockpit, commander of the 93rd bomb group. The target, Pesti, Romania. Nine oil refineries producing 1/3 of all fuel feeding Hitler’s war machine, ringed by the heaviest anti-aircraft defenses in Europe outside Berlin. Pesti was no ordinary target. In June of 1942, 13 B-24s had attacked the refineries from

high altitude. They caused almost no damage. But the raid had a devastating consequence. It told the Germans exactly what the allies wanted to destroy. In the 12 months since, General Alfred Gerenberg, the Luftvafa commander in Romania, had transformed Pesti into a fortress. Over 200 anti-aircraft guns now surrounded the refineries. Barrage balloons floated above the smoke stacks on steel cables thick enough to slice a wing. Machine guns hid inside haystacks, railroad cars, and fake buildings. Nearly 300 fighters waited on

surrounding airfields. Any highaltitude raid would face a wall of flack and interceptors. So, the Allied planners chose a different approach. 178 B-24 liberators would fly 1,200 m from Libya, cross the Mediterranean, pass over occupied Greece and the mountains of Yugoslavia, and attack Powesti at treetop level, 200 ft off the ground, below radar, below the heavy flack batteries calibrated for high altitude bombers. But at 200 ft, the B24s would fly directly into the kill zone of every rifle, machine gun, and 20

mm cannon in Romania. The B-24 Liberator was never designed for this. It was a high alitude heavy bomber built to fly at 25,000 ft. At 200 ft, it became a 4engine target the size of a barn moving at 200 mph with 4500 g of aviation fuel in its tanks. One tracer round in the right place would turn a Liberator into a fireball. The crews had spent weeks training low-level approaches in the Libyan desert. Flying over a full-scale replica of the Plowesti refineries built from tent poles and oil drums. Sitting

in the co-pilot seat of Hell’s Wench was Major John Gerstad, 25 years old, a former school teacher from Rine, Wisconsin. He had already flown more than his required 25 combat missions with the 93rd Bomb Group. His tour was finished. He had earned the distinguished flying cross, a silver star, and a ticket home. His war was over. Nobody would have questioned him for leaving. Gerstad did not leave. When he learned that his old bomb group was planning a low-level attack on the most defended target in Europe, he

volunteered. He signed on as operations officer to help plan the mission. Then he climbed into the co-pilot seat of the lead aircraft, the first bomber in formation, the one that every anti-aircraft battery would target first. Mission planners estimated 30% losses. At least 50 aircraft would not return. 500 men would be killed or captured. The round trip covered 2400 m, 18 hours of flight time, most of it over access occupied territory. All of it without fighter escort. 1750 men crammed into 178 bombers knew

the arithmetic. One in three would not make it back to Benghazi. Baker and Jerstad are about to fly a burning bomber into the most defended target in Europe. Hit like if you want to see what happens. Every like helps this story reach more people. Subscribe if you haven’t. Now, back to the desert. At 0713, 178 B-24 Liberators lifted off from five air strips in the Libyan desert. The dust was so thick that trailing pilots flew on instruments for the first 3 minutes. Baker’s Hell’s Winch led the

93rd bomb group as the second of five formations in the strike column. 1,200 m of open sea, enemy fighters, and mountain passes lay between them and nine oil refineries that fueled a third of the German war machine. Somewhere over the Mediterranean, the aircraft carrying the mission’s lead navigator would vanish into the sea, and Operation Tidal Wave would start to come apart. The strike force climbed to low altitude and formed up over the Libyan coast. Five bomb groups arranged in a loose column stretching miles across the sky.

The 376th bomb group led carrying the mission commander, Brigadier General Usuzal Int, and the lead navigator for the entire formation. Behind them flew Baker’s 93rd, then the 98th, the 44th, and the 389th. Radio silence was absolute. From the moment the wheels left the sand until the bombs hit Plesti, not a single aircraft could transmit. The Germans monitored Allied frequencies. One intercepted transmission could alert Gerenberg’s fighters hours before the bombers arrived. Every pilot understood

the rule. Every crew accepted it, but radio silence meant that if anything went wrong, there was no way to warn the rest of the formation. Something went wrong almost immediately. 90 minutes into the flight, as the formation crossed the Mediterranean south of Corfu, a B-24 from the 376th suddenly pitched forward and dove into the sea. It hit the water at over 200 mph and disintegrated. 10 men vanished in seconds. Trailing crews watched the impact point pass beneath them. White foam, fuel slick,

nothing else. No survivors. The aircraft carried Lieutenant Brian Fll, one of the mission’s most experienced navigators. The cause of the crash was never confirmed. Some accounts attributed it to mechanical failure. Others to a faulty autopilot that pitched the nose down while the crew rested. What mattered to the 177 remaining bombers was the consequence. Fll’s navigator had been responsible for coordinating the final approach to the target. his charts, his calculations, his timing gone to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

Baker flying Hell’s Wench in the second formation had no way to know the full impact. He could see the gap in the lead group ahead. He could count the aircraft, one missing, but under radio silence, he could not ask what happened, who was lost, or whether the primary navigation plan was still intact. The formation pressed north. They crossed the Greek coastline and climbed to clear the Pendis mountains. Cloud banks forced the groups apart. Pilots strained to maintain visual contact with the

aircraft ahead while avoiding mountain ridges hidden in the overcast. The tight column that had left Libya began to stretch. Gaps appeared between groups. The 98th bomb group, third in line, fell behind, first by minutes, then by miles. The five group strike force was splitting into two separate waves. Baker held Hell’s Wench steady at the front of the 93rd. 37 Liberators followed his aircraft, using his position as their reference point. The formation’s nickname was Ted’s Traveling Circus,

named for the group’s previous commander. They had flown combat missions across North Africa, Sicily, and Norway. Baker had led them since May. He knew his pilots. They knew his flying. In the dust and confusion of the Libyan takeoff, in the clouds over Greece, in the widening gaps between groups, the 93rd held formation behind Hell’s Wench. Gerstad sat in the right seat, monitoring instruments, cross-checking fuel consumption. Every gallon mattered. The B24 burned roughly 200 gall on four engines. The round trip

pushed the aircraft near its maximum range. Any deviation, headwinds, detours, extra climbing ate into the fuel reserves that would bring them home or not. They cleared the mountains and descended over Yugoslavia. The scattered cloud cover broke. The formation crossed into Romanian airspace south of the Danube. Flat farmlands stretched to the horizon. The five groups were supposed to converge here, reformed the strike column, and prepare for the final approach to Powesti, but the 98th and 44th were still miles behind. At 12,200

hours, the lead formation reached a small town in the Romanian plane. General Ant and Colonel Keith Compton, piloting the lead aircraft of the 376th, checked their maps. They identified the town as Floresi, the final turning point where the strike force was supposed to swing southeast toward Pesti. Compton banked left and turned the entire lead formation toward what he believed was the target. Baker trailing in Hell’s Wench watched the lead group turn and he knew immediately that something was

wrong. The town below was not Floresty. It was Targo Vista and Compton was leading the first wave not toward Powesti but straight toward Bucharest. Baker tried to warn the lead group under radio silence. He had no way to transmit a correction. Some accounts indicate that Baker and other pilots attempted radio calls despite the silence order, but Compton either did not receive them or did not respond. The lead formation continued its turn toward Bucharest. 36 bombers heading the wrong direction,

carrying the mission commander and the ranking general officer of the strike force. Baker had seconds to decide. follow Compton toward Bucharest and keep the strike force together or break formation, turn his 37 liberators north and attack Pyesti without the lead group. He broke formation. Baker banked Hell’s Wench hard to the left and swung the 93rd bomb group 90° north toward the smoke stacks of Pyesti. He could see them on the horizon, columns of vapor rising from the refineries. The target

was there. The plan was falling apart, but the target had not moved. Behind Baker, 36 pilots of the 93rd followed Hell’s Winch out of the strike column. One aircraft had turned back earlier with mechanical trouble. The rest held formation. They were now flying toward the most heavily defended oil complex in Europe without the lead group, without the mission commander, and from a direction they had not rehearsed. The original plan called for the five bomb groups to attack nine refineries from

the northwest, approaching in sequence so each group could bomb its assigned target without interference from smoke, debris, or other aircraft. Baker’s decision to break formation meant the 93rd would arrive at Pyesti from the southwest. A different angle than briefed. Different approach, different landmarks, different gun positions than the ones they had memorized. Every advantage of the rehearsals in the Libyan desert was gone and the element of surprise was gone with it. Compton’s wrong turn had taken the lead formation

directly over Romanian observation posts south of Pesti. Gerenberg’s defense network was already alerting every anti-aircraft battery around the refineries. Gunners who had been scanning the skies were now tracking specific formations. Fighter squadrons were scrambling. The barrage balloon operators were raising their cables to 300 ft, exactly the altitude at which the bombers would approach. Baker knew none of these details. What he knew was simpler. His group was heading toward Pesti at 200 mph, 200 ft off the ground.

The bombers behind him were counting on Hell’s Winch to lead them to the target. Jerstad sat beside him, both pilots gripping the controls, watching the flat Romanian farmland blur past beneath them at treetop level. At this altitude, there was no room for error. A momentary loss of concentration, a slight bank in the wrong direction, and the bomber would cartwheel across a wheat field. The smoke stacks of Pesti grew larger on the horizon. Baker could see the outlines of the refineries, storage

tanks, cracking towers, pipe networks. The Colombia Aquilla refinery, designated White 5, was directly ahead. It had originally been assigned to a different group, but Baker’s approach from the southwest put Colombia Aquilla in his path. He aimed Hell’s Winch at the target and descended to attack altitude. The first black puffs of anti-aircraft fire appeared ahead of the formation. Then the tracer started. Streams of 20mm rounds arcing up from hidden positions in the fields surrounding the refineries. The 93rd

bomb group was 3 minutes from the target. Baker was leading them in, and the entire defense network of Pawesti was awake, armed, and waiting. The anti-aircraft fire hit the formation before the refineries were even visible through the haze. Light guns opened first. 20 mm cannons concealed in hay stacks and rooftops along the approach route. At 200 ft, the B24s were close enough for the gunners to see the rivets on the fuselage. Tracer rounds climbed in flat arcs and punched through aluminum skin. The heavy flack batteries

calibrated for high altitude targets could not depress low enough to track the bombers. But the light weapons, machine guns, autoc cannons, rifles did not need calibration at this altitude. They simply pointed and fired. The three lead aircraft of the 93rd took the worst of it. They were the first bombers the gun crews could see. Baker’s Hell’s Wench flew at the tip of the formation. Behind him, the rest of the group fanned out into attack formation. Each aircraft searching for its assigned target

through the thickening smoke. 3 mi from the Colombia Aquila refinery. A large caliber anti-aircraft shell struck Hell’s winch. The impact tore through the fuselage and ruptured fuel lines. Aviation gasoline, 100 octane, volatile enough to explode on contact with the spark, sprayed across the interior of the aircraft. Within seconds, fire broke out in the bomb bay. Flames spread through the fuselage fed by the fuel reserves in the wing tanks. Baker and Jerstead felt the hit. The aircraft shuttered. Warning indicators across the

instrument panel lit up. Through the cockpit windows, both pilots could see flames streaming from the fuselage behind them. The fire was spreading toward the wings. If it reached the main fuel tanks, Hell’s winch would explode in midair. Directly below the burning bomber was open farmland, flat, clear, and long enough for an emergency landing. Baker was flying at 200 ft. He could have pushed the nose down, cut the throttles, and put the Liberator on its belly in a Romanian wheat field. At that

speed and altitude, a crash landing on flat ground was survivable. The crew could have evacuated. They would have been captured by Romanian forces, spent the rest of the war in a prison camp, and come home alive. Baker did not land. He kept Hell’s Wench on course. The Colombia Aquilla refinery was 3 minutes ahead. 36 Liberators of the 93rd Bomb Group were flying behind him in attack formation, using his aircraft as their guide to the target. If Baker turned away to save his crew, the lead aircraft

would be gone. The formation would lose its reference point at the worst possible moment. 3 minutes from bomb release at treetop level under heavy fire, approaching from an unrehearsed direction. The attack could disintegrate. Baker held course. Jerstad held course beside him. The two pilots gripped the controls of a 65,000lb bomber that was burning from the inside out and flew it straight toward the largest oil refinery in their path. The fire inside Hell’s Wench intensified. Smoke filled the fuselage. The crew in

the rear of the aircraft could feel the heat through the airframe. The bomb bay doors were open and flames licked around the ordinance hanging in the racks. 500lb bombs with delayed fuses designed to detonate minutes after impact so the bombers could clear the blast zone. If the fire reached the bombs before Baker could release them, Hell’s Wench would cease to exist. Behind Baker, the other aircraft of the 93rd were taking hits. Flack burst walked across the formation. Bombers trailed smoke. One Liberator

lost an engine and fell behind. Another took a direct hit in the wing route and rolled inverted at 150 ft. There was no recovery from that altitude. It hit the ground in a ball of fire and slid across a farm field. 10 men gone in two seconds. The Colombia Aquilla refinery filled the windscreen of Hell’s Wench. storage tanks, cracking towers, smoke stacks, pipe networks running between buildings. Baker could see the refinery in detail now, close enough to read the writing on the storage tanks. Flames

were visible inside his own cockpit. Smoke obscured the instruments. The heat was becoming unbearable. Somewhere behind him, his crew was preparing to die or preparing to jump. But at 200 ft, a parachute would not open in time. Baker pointed the burning nose of Hell’s Winch at Colombia Aquilla and held his course. The bomb release point was seconds away. Baker released the bombs. Hell’s Wench shuddered as 500lb ordinance dropped from the burning bomb bay and fell toward the Columbia Achila

refinery. At 200 ft, the bombs needed barely 2 seconds to reach the ground. The delayed fuses started their countdown. Baker did not he did not need to see the impact. The moment the bomb racks were empty, he pulled the control column back and pointed the nose of Hell’s Wench upward. He was not trying to escape. At this point, Baker knew the aircraft was lost. The fire had consumed too much of the fuselage. The controls were sluggish. Hydraulic lines were burning through. What Baker was trying

to do was climb, gain enough altitude for his eight crewmen in the rear of the aircraft to jump. A parachute needed a minimum of 300 ft to open. Baker had been flying at 200. He needed 100 more feet of altitude from an aircraft that was burning itself apart. Gerstead helped him pull. Both pilots hauled back on the control columns, forcing the crippled Liberator into a climb. The four Prattton Whitney engines, still running on fuel that had not yet caught fire, dragged the bomber upward. 250 ft. 270. The nose pitched

higher. The air speed bled off. A B24 Liberator needed a minimum of 120 mph to maintain controlled flight. Below that speed, the wing stopped generating enough lift and the aircraft would stall, pitch forward uncontrollably, and drop from the sky. Hell’s wench reached approximately 300 ft. At that altitude, three or four crewmen jumped. Witnesses and trailing bombers saw their bodies fall from the burning aircraft. The men were already on fire. Flames trailed behind them in the wind as they fell. At

300 ft, with their flight suits burning, there was almost no chance of survival. None of the men who jumped were recovered alive. Baker and Dristead stayed at the controls. They could not leave. Someone had to hold the dying aircraft steady while the crew attempted to bail out. Every second they kept the nose up was another second for a crewman to reach the escape hatch. But the physics were merciless. The climb had bled the air speed below stalling point. Hell’s wench, trailing fire along its

entire length, shuddered once. The left wing dropped. The bomber rolled over its right wing and pitched toward the ground. The aircraft fell 300 ft in less than 3 seconds. It narrowly missed a B-24 in the second element of the 93rd, clearing the other bomber by 6 ft. Then, Hell’s Wench hit the ground. The impact detonated the remaining fuel in the wing tanks. The explosion was visible to pilots a mile behind the formation. Lieutenant Colonel Addison Baker was killed on impact. Major John Gerstad was

killed beside him. All 10 men aboard Hell’s Wench died on August 1st, 1943 within sight of the Colombia Aquilla refinery. Baker was 36. Jerstad was 25. Jerstad had not needed to be there. His war had been over. He had chosen this seat, this aircraft, this mission. But the 93rd bomb group was still flying. Baker’s decision to hold course in a burning aircraft had kept the formation together long enough for the group to reach the target. Behind Hell’s Wench, 31 remaining liberators of the 93rd

swept over the Pesti refineries and released their bombs. Explosions rippled through the Colombia Aquilla complex. Storage tanks erupted. Cracking towers collapsed in sheets of flame. Black smoke billowed thousands of feet into the air, so thick that trailing aircraft flew through it blind. 11 B24s of the 93rd were shot down over the target. More than 100 men from Baker’s group were killed or captured within minutes of his death. The refinery burned. The bombers that survived the target area

pulled up, gained altitude, and turned south toward Libya. Behind them, Pesti was a wall of flame and smoke. But the raid was not over. The 93rd and the 376th had already passed through. Now the 98th and 44th bomb groups, the ones that had fallen behind over Yugoslavia, were approaching from the northwest on the original heading. They were about to fly into a target that was already burning, defended by gunners who were already firing and crowded with bombers coming from the opposite direction.

The 98th bomb group arrived over Powesti at 1212 hours, 20 minutes behind the 93rd. Colonel John Kaine led 39 Liberators on the correct heading from Fuesti, the approach the entire strike force had rehearsed, but the scene ahead was unrecognizable. The Colombia Aquilla refinery was a wall of fire. Black smoke from Baker’s attack rose thousands of feet, turning the target area into a canyon of flame and zero visibility. Through the smoke, Kane could see explosions still rippling across the refinery complex. And somewhere in that

inferno, aircraft from the 93rd were still clearing the target. Kane did not turn away. He took his 39 bombers directly into the smoke. The 98’s assigned target was the Astro Romana Refinery, a separate complex on the eastern edge of Pesti, but the smoke and confusion made target identification nearly impossible at 200 ft. Cain held his formation together and pushed through. Anti-aircraft guns that had already been firing at the 93rd now had fresh targets. Gun crews who had been tracking bombers heading southwest

suddenly faced new aircraft approaching from the northwest. Some batteries were firing in two directions simultaneously. 14 B24s of the 98th were shot down within minutes. Sand colored liberators, still wearing their desert camouflage from North Africa, tumbled out of the smoke and hit the ground around the refineries. Most burned on impact. Few crews survived. Right behind Cain came the 44th bomb group under Colonel Leon Johnson. 16 liberators aimed at White 5, the same Colombia Aquilla refinery that

Baker’s 93rd had already bombed. It was still burning. Johnson’s pilots flew through flame and smoke so thick that several aircraft emerged with scorched paint. At treetop level, the heat from the burning refinery was strong enough to buffet the bombers in turbulence. Johnson’s group dropped their ordinance on a target that was already destroyed and fought their way clear. Five of his 16 aircraft were shot down over the target. On the northern edge of the complex, Major James Posey led 21

aircraft from the 44th on a separate run against the credul minier refinery south of Pesti. His bombers carried heavier,000lb bombs. Posy’s approach took his formation through the same anti-aircraft corridor that had shredded the 93rd, but he pressed through and hit his target. He lost two aircraft. The last group to attack was the 389th, the least experienced of the five. Colonel Jack Wood led his formation to the Stoya Romano Refinery at Campina, northwest of Pesti. The 389th had separated from the

main force as planned and followed its own route to an independent target. Their approach was closer to the original plan than any other group, but the defenses at Campina were waiting. Second Lieutenant Lloyd Hughes flew his B-24 Old Kickapoo toward the Campina refinery at 200 f feet. Anti-aircraft fire hit his fuel tanks. Aviation gasoline streamed from the punctured wing, leaving a visible trail of fuel behind the aircraft. Hughes was flying directly toward a refinery that was already on fire from preceding bombers.

The fuel streaming from his aircraft would ignite the moment it touched flame. Hughes held course. His bombader released the bombs on target. Then the fuel trail caught fire. Old Kikapoo became a torch. Hughes attempted a crash landing in a riverbed beyond the refinery. The aircraft broke apart on impact. Hughes and five of his crew were killed. The remaining four were captured. Lloyd Hughes was 21 years old. He received the Medal of Honor postumously, the third of the mission alongside Baker and Jerstead. Kain and

Johnson both survived the target area. Both had led their formations into a burning smoke-filled flax saturated hellscape without deviating from their assigned targets. Both received the Medal of Honor, the only two awarded to living recipients that day. Five Medals of honor for a single mission. It had never happened before in American military history. It has never happened since. The surviving bombers turned south, damaged, burning, leaking fuel, missing engines, carrying dead and wounded crew. The return trip to

Benghazi was 1,200 m across enemy territory. Romanian and Bulgarian fighters were already in the air hunting stragglers, and most of the surviving B-24s were flying on less than half their fuel. The surviving B-24s straggled south in ones and twos. The tight formations that had crossed the Mediterranean that morning no longer existed. Bombers flew alone or in groups of three or four, trailing smoke, missing chunks of wing and tail, engines feathered or burning. Some aircraft had dead men still at

their gun positions. Others carried wounded crewmen lying on the floor of the fuselage, bleeding onto spent shell casings. Romanian fighters found them over the plane south of Pli. Messers 109s and Romanian IAR8s dove on the damaged bombers from above. At low altitude, the B24 was slow and unmaneuverable, lumbering across the Romanian countryside at 5,000 ft with half its guns jammed or unmanned. Gunners who were still alive and unwounded fired back. Some liberators took additional hits and went down over

Romania. Others crashed in Bulgarian territory as they crossed the border. Three Messid 109s from Carlo, Bulgaria, intercepted a group of stragglers. 10 more Bulgarian fighters, older Avia B534 biplanes, joined the attack. The Bulgarian pilots scored their first kills of the war against the crippled Americans. Two B-24s went down over Bulgaria. Over Yugoslavia, two Liberators collided with each other while trying to evade fighters. Both crashed. Over the Ionian Sea, five more B-24s were shot down by Messor Schmidtz

from Yagd Gishvador 27. The fuel calculations that had been marginal at takeoff were now catastrophic. Aircraft that had deviated from the planned route, climbed to avoid mountains, or circled over the target, had burned through their reserves. Pilots watched their fuel gauges drop toward zero over the Mediterranean. Some made it to Allied airfields on Cyprus. Others landed in what is now Syria. 23 B-24s diverted to emergency fields across the eastern Mediterranean. 78 crewmen landed in neutral Turkey and were interned for

the duration of the war. One liberator limped back to Libya with 365 bullet holes in its airframe. Its survival was attributed to the fact that most of the damage came from Bulgarian biplanes armed with smallc caliber machine guns. Too light to bring down a 4engine bomber, but heavy enough to riddle it with holes. As the afternoon turned to evening, ground crews at the five airirst strips near Benghazi counted the returning aircraft. They had watched 178 bombers take off that morning. Now they counted the ones that came back. The

numbers came slowly. Aircraft straggled in over hours. Some landing after dark, some landing on fumes, some landing with dead pilots in the left seat while co-pilots brought the aircraft home. 88 B24s returned to Libya. 55 of them carried battle damage. 54 aircraft had been lost, shot down over Romania, crashed in Bulgaria, ditched in the Mediterranean, or destroyed on forced landings across the eastern Mediterranean. 310 crewmen were confirmed killed or missing. 108 were prisoners of war in Romanian and German

camps. The total casualty count exceeded 500 men from a force of 1750. It was the highest loss rate of any major American air mission in the European theater. The date August 1st, 1943, became known as Black Sunday. Every surviving participant in operation title wave received the distinguished flying cross. 56 men received the distinguished service cross. The allies estimated that the raid destroyed 40% of Pesti’s refining capacity, but the damage was not permanent. German and Romanian repair crews worked around the

clock. Within weeks, several refineries were partially operational again. Within months, Pesti was producing at near pre-rade levels. The strategic objective, crippling Hitler’s oil supply in a single blow, had failed. The sacrifice of 500 men had bought weeks, not months. The Allies would return to Bomb Pyesti again and again through 1944 before the refineries were finally destroyed. But the cost of August 1st was not measured in barrels of oil. Baker and Jerad had been listed as killed in action, but their remains were

not recovered from the wreckage of Hell’s Wench. The crash site near the Columbia Aquila refinery had been consumed by fire and explosions. Addison Baker, the man who had held a burning bomber on course to keep his formation together, was officially missing. His body had vanished into the ground of Romania. Jerstad’s Medal of Honor was awarded on October 28th, 1943, less than 3 months after his death. The citation praised his voluntary acceptance of a mission he was not required to fly and his refusal

to land when a safe field was available. Baker’s Medal of Honor took longer. It was not awarded until March 11th, 1944, more than 7 months after the raid. According to military records, higher ranking officers debated whether Baker’s decision to break formation and attack a target of opportunity rather than follow the mission commander disqualified him from the nation’s highest award. In the end, the evidence was clear. Baker had led his group to the target. He had held a burning aircraft on course so 36

bombers behind him could complete their bomb runs. He had then tried to climb to give his crew a chance to survive. The Medal of Honor was awarded postumously. Cain and Johnson, the two living recipients, returned to the United States as decorated heroes. Cain continued to serve and eventually retired from the Air Force. Johnson rose to the rank of Brigadier General. Lloyd Hughes, the 21-year-old pilot of Kikapoo, who had flown a leaking bomber into a burning refinery, received his Medal of Honor postumously in February

1944. His family accepted it on his behalf. Five medals of honor for one mission, three postumous, two living. It remains the most medals of honor ever awarded for a single air action in American military history. No mission before or since has matched it. Gerstad was buried at the Arden American Cemetery in Belgium. His grave was identified from remains recovered in Romania after the war. A school in his hometown of Rine, Wisconsin. Gerstad Aggerholm Elementary bears his name alongside another Medal of Honor

recipient from the same city. Baker’s fate was different. His remains were never positively identified after the war. The crash site of Hell’s Wench near the Columbia Aquila refinery had been so thoroughly consumed by fire and subsequent explosions that recovery teams could not distinguish individual remains. Baker’s name was inscribed on the tablets of the missing at the Florence American Cemetery in Italy, a wall listing the names of more than 1,400 Americans who disappeared in the

war and were never found. For nearly 80 years, Addison Baker remained missing. In 2017, the Defense PMIA accounting agency began a project to identify the unknown remains associated with Operation Title Wave. More than 80 sets of unidentified remains believed to be from the Peshi raid had been buried as unknowns at American military cemeteries in Belgium. DPAA exumed the graves and sent the remains to a laboratory at Offford Air Force Base in Nebraska. Using DNA samples provided by Baker’s surviving relatives, forensic

anthropologists matched bone fragments from one of the unknown graves to the commander of the 93rd bomb group. In 2022, 79 years after Hell’s Wench crashed into the fields near Pesti, Lieutenant Colonel Addison Earl Baker was identified. ; Well, it’s a story of service, sacrifice, love, and determination that spans almost 80 years. ; A bronze rosette was placed beside his name on the tablets of the missing in Florence, indicating that he had finally been accounted for. His remains were

transported to Arlington National Cemetery where he was laid to rest with full military honors. Baker was 36 when he died. Gerstad was 25. One had spent 14 years in the Army Airore and risen to command a bomb group. The other had been a school teacher who enlisted 7 months before Pearl Harbor. One had no choice but to lead. The other had every reason to go home and chose not to. Together, they held a burning B-24 on course for 3 minutes so that 36 bombers behind them could destroy Hitler’s oil supply. Those

3 minutes cost them everything. If this story stayed with you, hit that like button. That one click tells YouTube this story matters and it pushes it to people who have never heard of Baker or Jerstad. Subscribe and turn on notifications. We put out new stories every week and not one of them is made up. Drop a comment and tell us where you are watching from. United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia. We have viewers on every continent and every comment keeps this community alive. If someone in your family served in the

Second World War, tell us about them. We read every single one. Thank you for being here. Addison Baker lay in an unmarked grave until 2022. Now you know his name. That matters. Thank you for watching. We will see you in the next