B-24 Liberator #41-11591 'Lorraine' 513th BS, 376th BG, 9th AF, flew on 1st Aug 43 Ploesti oil refinery raid, piloted by William R. Zimmerman, returned safely to Libya. Renamed from 'Queen Bee'.
Later transferred to the 450th Bomb Group, was on flight from Casablanca to RAF St. Mawgan in Cornwall Mar 29, 1944. Due to fog, aircraft was unable to locate St. Mawgan and was diverted to Fairwood Common. Unable to descend because of clouds, crew was ordered to bail out. Four did so and landed safely. However, the flight engineer refused to jump, possibly due to the low altitude. The pilot had to try and crash-land the plane, the plane passed over the airfield, lost height, smashed through a guard hut, and came to rest with its nose embedded in the hedgebank. Pilot survived the crash but the flight engineer had forgotten to buckle himself into the copilot's seat was thrown through the windscreen on impact and died in hospital 3 days later.

Service

Events

Event	Location	Date
Survived Ploesti	Ploiești, Romania	1 August 1943
Flew on 1st Aug 43 Ploesti oil refinery raid, piloted by William R Zimmerman, returned safely to Libya.
Crashed	Swansea Airport, Fairwood Common, Swansea, Swansea SA2 7JU, UK	29 March 1944
Was on flight from Casablanca to RAF St. Mawgan in Cornwall Mar 29, 1944. Due to fog, aircraft was unable to locate St. Mawgan and was diverted to Fairwood Common. Unable to descend because of clouds, crew was ordered to bail out. Four did so and landed safely. However, the flight engineer refused to jump, possibly due to the low altitude. The pilot had to try and crash-land the plane, the plane passed over the airfield, lost height, smashed through a guard hut, and came to rest with its nose embedded in the hedgebank. Pilot survived the crash but the flight engineer had forgotten to buckle himself into the copilot's seat was thrown through the windscreen on impact and died in hospital 3 days later.
Assigned	Benghazi, Libya
513th BS, 376th BG, 9th AF.
Assigned
Later transferred to the 450th Bomb Group.