The final mission of Hell's Belle as told by the pilot, Theodore V Harwood:



It was our 37th mission, April 8th, 1945, in the afternoon. Fifty-two B-26 marauders took off toward our target in Hanover, Germany where we were to drop our bomb load on the Niemhagen oil refinery. We were still under evasive flight patterning just about to the "I.P." when our tail gunner, Anthony Cason, called "Flak at six o'clock". Just then, the thunderous roar of flak, like a hailstorm on a tin roof and the sound of tearing metal. The engineer came up. He was covered with hydraulic fluid. The flak had severed the hydraulic height pressure main hose. Flak also penetrated the ammo on the package gun in the bombardier's compartment where the ammo storage was. The radioman came up. His chest mount parachutes had been shredded by Flak (pilots had back mount parachutes). The main fuel cell on the left inner wing was punctured, spewing fuel all over the exterior panels of the plane and into the sky. I broke out of formation and turned back toward base. We thought about bailing out but with one parachute short, we all decided to go down with the ship. At that point, the flight engineer cranked open the bomb bay doors by hand. We had no hydraulic power at all. We manually jettisoned the bombs and flew on. We came in sight of a secondary field and went in for a landing. With no hydraulic pressure the main gear would not lock down. We came into the landing strip, touched down, and violently skidded to a stop. The crew got out so fast that I didn't even know they had exited the craft and they exited right over my body! When I realized I was alone, I quickly got out. That night we spent sleeping on the ground beneath the wing of the disabled B-26 that had brought us safely to earth.