Lloyd Herbert Hughes Jr., better known to his friends, as "Pete," flew his fifth mission, as pilot of a B-24D Liberator bomber in an attack against the Axis oil refineries in Ploesti, Romania. He was killed August 1, 1943 when his plane was severely damaged by enemy ground fire prior to his reaching his target just north of Ploesti at Campina, Romania. He was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery and absolute determination to carry out his mission to bomb the Campina Refinery Complex with no thought of his own safety, no matter what the cost would be.

Lloyd Hughes was born on 12th July 1921 in Alexandria, Rapides Parish, Louisiana, to Lloyd Herbert Hughes, Sr. and Mildred Mae Rainey. But, by 1923, his father was out of the picture, and his mother was working as the Post Mistress in Onalaska, Polk County, Texas. While still living there, Mildred married her second husband, John Raymond Jordan, Sr. in 1924.

Based on the children's births after this marriage, the family lived in Onalaska, Texas, in 1925, Oakhurst, Texas in 1927, and Huntsville, Texas in 1929. They lived in Trinity County, Texas at the time of the 1930 Census, and their last child together was born Josser and, Trinity County, Texas in 1931. According to the 1940 Census, the parents and five children were living in Refugio, Texas in, in 1935. Hughes graduated from Refugio High School in 1939, attended Corpus Christi Junior College in Corpus Christi, and enrolled at Texas A&M to study petroleum engineering.

Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, in January 1942, Hughes enlisted as an aviation cadet with the Army Air Forces in San Antonio, Texas. He trained at several bases in Texas and Oklahoma over the next year. In November 1942, he married Hazel Dean in San Antonio. Two days later in Lubbock, Hughes received his pilot's wings and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S Army Air Corps.

Hughes was assigned to the 8th Air Force, the 389th Heavy Bombardment Group, the "Sky Scorpions", and the 564th Bombing Squadron. Maj. Philip Ardery, the 564th's Squadron Commander, described Hughes in his book, "Bomber Pilot: A Memoir of World War II", as, "a laughing, youngish, handsome lad, and a much better than average pilot." Hughes was stationed at airfields in Utah, Texas, Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska, before being sent overseas in June 1943.

Lt. Hughes and the crew of the B-24D Liberator named by his co-pilot, Ole Kickapoo, flew to England in early June 1943, along with the rest of the 389th Bomb Group. At the end of the month, the bomb group was on the move again to Benghazi, Libya. They flew in four bombing missions that July, one over Greece and three over Italy. Hughes' and his crew's last raid was Operation Tidal Wave, the mission to destroy the Germans' oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania.

On Aug. 1, 1943, B-24 Liberators of the 9th Air Force, the 98th, the 44th, the 93rd, and the 376th Bombardment Groups, and Pete Hughes' 389th Bomb Group, left bases near Benghazi, Libya, to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Romania to bomb and destroy the German held oil refineries at Ploesti. Military officials expected a high number of casualties. Hughes' Squadron Commander Major Philip Ardery wrote what many of the American flyers thought : "The raid could almost be characterized as a suicide mission.", except they would have left out the word, "almost" !

Approaching his bombing target at the Steaua Romana refinery complex at Campina, Romania, German flak guns made two direct hits on Lt. Hughes' plane, blowing large holes in his left wing and in one of the two 300 gallon aux gas tanks in his bomb bay. Gushers of raw gasoline began streaming from Hughes' left wing and fuselage, his top turret, and his waist gun windows and bomb bay. His close friend, Major Phillip Ardery, following Hughes, hoped he would decide to climb, withdraw, and drop his bombs from a higher altitude because, close ahead, they were about enter a "solid room of fire" above the already burning oil tanks and refineries in their flight path. But Hughes and his co-pilot, Lt. Ron Helder, drove their B-24 straight into the wall of fire and emerged from the high wall of flames with their left wing and fuselage streaming long sheets of fire. Still, severely on fire, Hughes and Helder, staying with their squadron at low level, continued onto their target and released their bombs successfully, hitting the Steaua Romano refinery. Only, then, as Ardery watched, did Hughes attempt to pull up to slow his plane and make a crash landing in the dry Prahova River Valley. As Hughes and Ron Helder settled, their right wing spar folded from the the intense heat of the plane’s fire and hit the Prahova Valley’s riverbank. The plane cartwheeled and crashed into the ground in a ball of fire. Hughes, his copilot, Lt. Helder, and crew died in the crash, minus two gunners, who, somehow, escaped from the burning crash, and survived with terrible burns. (2-POW/ KIA/ RTD. 1 Aug 43. 

Pete Hughes was awarded the Medal of Honor for his leadership, his skill, bravery, sacrifice, and, determination to carry out his mission with no thought to his own safety. Lt. Ron Helder and the rest of the ten member crew all received the nation's second highest honor and award, Distinguished Service Crosses.

"Pete had given his life and the lives of his crew to carry out his assigned task," Ardery wrote in his memoir. "To the very end he gave the battle every ounce he had."

Eight months after he was killed in action, on April 18, 1944, Pete Hughes' Medal of Honor was presented to his wife, Hazel. Hughes was the first of seven Texas A&M alumni to receive the Medal of Honor for his actions during World War II. On March 30, 2009, his family loaned the medal to the Sanders Corps of Cadets Center on the Texas A&M campus.

Pete Hughes' official Medal of Honor citation reads: "For conspicuous gallantry in action and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. On August 1,1943, 2d Lt. Hughes served in the capacity of pilot of a heavy bombardment aircraft participating in a long and hazardous minimum altitude attack against the Axis oil refineries of Ploesti, Rumania, launched from the northern shores of Africa. Flying in the last formation to attack the target, he arrived in the target area after previous flights had thoroughly alerted the enemy defenses. Approaching the target through intense and accurate anti aircraft fire and dense balloon barrages at dangerously low altitude, his plane received several direct hits from both large and small caliber anti aircraft guns, which seriously damaged his aircraft, causing sheets of escaping gasoline to stream from the bomb bay and from the left wing. This damage was inflicted at a time prior to reaching the target when 2nd Lt. Hughes could have made a forced landing in any of the grain fields readily available at that time. The target area was blazing with burning oil tanks and damaged refinery installations from which flames leaped high above the bombing level of the formation. With full knowledge of the consequences of entering this blazing inferno when his airplane was profusely leaking gasoline from two separate locations, 2d Lt. Hughes, motivated only by his high conception of duty, which called for the destruction of his assigned target at any cost, did not elect to make a forced landing or turn back from the attack. Instead, rather than jeopardize his formation of bombers and the success of the attack, he unhesitatingly entered the blazing area and dropped his bomb load with great precision. After successfully bombing the objective, his aircraft emerged from the conflagration with the left wing aflame. Only then did he attempt a forced landing, but because of the advanced stage of the fire enveloping his aircraft his crippled plane shed it’s left wing, crashed into the ground, By 2d Lt. Hughes' heroic decision to complete his mission regardless of the consequences in utter disregard of his own life, and by his gallant and valorous execution of this decision, he has rendered a service to our country in the defeat of our enemies which will everlastingly be outstanding in the annals of our Nation's history."