“Out of Fuel, Out of Time, Not Out of Courage: The Pilot Who Chose to Fall With the Men He Saved”

 

On October 12, 1943, the Eighth Air Force launched a massive daylight bombing raid over occupied France.

The target: industrial facilities near Bremen and the surrounding Rhineland.

The mission was brutal—German anti-aircraft batteries were precise, and the Luftwaffe was waiting.

Dozens of B-17 Flying Fortresses took off from English airfields in perfect formation, each carrying ten men and six tons of bombs.

Among them was “Lucky Lass,” the aircraft of First Lieutenant Robert Hayes, a 24-year-old pilot from Iowa.

For Hayes and his crew, “Lucky Lass” was anything but lucky.

Just minutes after crossing into German airspace, flak bursts tore through the sky.

The first shell hit near the left wing, killing the No.2 engine instantly.

Moments later, another blast shredded the fuselage, disabling hydraulics and peppering the tail with holes.

Two crewmen were wounded.

The bomber began to lag behind.

Formation protocol was clear: maintain speed or fall back.

A crippled plane put the entire squadron at risk.

Within minutes, “Lucky Lass” was alone.

Hayes ordered his crew to throw everything non-essential overboard—guns, armor plating, even radios.

Still, the plane lost altitude.

The airspeed dropped to 180 knots.

German fighters saw their opportunity.

A squadron of Messerschmitt Bf 109s closed in, black crosses flashing in the sunlight.

What happened next should have been a massacre.

But somewhere in the chaos above, one pilot noticed the dying bomber on his radar.

Lieutenant James Howell, call sign “Jersey Two-Seven,” was flying escort in a P-47 Thunderbolt—a brute of a fighter known for its speed, not its endurance.

Howell had already burned most of his fuel dogfighting near Cologne.

He had fifty-eight minutes of fuel left.

The crippled B-17 needed at least ninety minutes to reach England.

The math was fatal.

But Howell ignored it.

Instead of breaking off and returning home, he radioed a simple message to the crew below: “Stay steady, Lucky Lass.

You’re not alone.

From that moment, history turned into legend.

The first wave of Messerschmitts dove in from the sun, six abreast.

Howell met them head-on, his P-47’s eight .

50-caliber guns blazing.

Tracer fire arced across the sky, slicing through one fighter and scattering the rest.

He weaved through their formation, drawing them away from the bomber’s tail.

When another group attacked from below, he rolled inverted, dove beneath the B-17, and came up firing.

“He flew like he was part of the bomber,” said Hayes in a later interview.

“Every time they came at us, he was already there.

”

The German pilots regrouped.

Twelve fighters now stalked the lone bomber and its guardian.

They took turns attacking in pairs, hammering Howell with cannon fire.

The Thunderbolt shuddered and smoked, but he refused to disengage.

Each burst of gunfire bought the B-17 a few more seconds of life.

As the fight dragged on, Howell’s fuel gauge dropped into the red.

He knew what it meant—he wouldn’t make it home.

His wingman’s voice crackled over the radio, begging him to turn back.

Howell’s reply was simple: “I didn’t come here to watch them die.

”

The running battle stretched for ninety miles.

By the time the English Channel came into view, the bomber was barely holding together.

The B-17’s right wing was scorched, one propeller windmilling uselessly.

Inside, oxygen masks had frozen, and the wounded were fading fast.

Hayes later said he didn’t think they’d make it another ten minutes.

Then, like a guardian angel in steel, Howell’s voice came through again: “You’re over water.

Keep her straight.The pilot’s fuel tanks were bone-dry.

His P-47 sputtered once, twice, then died.

But Howell didn’t eject.

Instead, he maneuvered his powerless plane beside the bomber one last time, waggled his wings, and gave a thumbs-up through the canopy.

The two aircraft drifted together, silent except for the wind.

When the B-17’s engines finally failed, Hayes aimed for the water.

Howell followed him down.

Both aircraft ditched almost simultaneously in the freezing Channel waters.

Howell’s Thunderbolt sank within minutes.

Hayes and his men escaped their bomber into a rubber raft, pulling Howell from the wreckage moments later.

His lips were blue.

His last words, according to Hayes: “Told you I wouldn’t leave.

”

RAF rescue boats found them less than thirty minutes later.

Nine men from the “Lucky Lass” survived.

Word of the incident spread through Allied command like wildfire.

Pilots and mechanics told the story in hushed tones: the P-47 pilot who stayed behind, fought impossible odds, and chose to crash beside the men he saved rather than leave them alone.

Howell’s body temperature was so low that doctors didn’t expect him to survive the night—but he did.

He returned to duty weeks later and completed another twenty-seven missions before the war’s end.

When the war was over, Howell refused public recognition.

He turned down interviews and rarely spoke about the event.

It wasn’t until 1983, when Robert Hayes—then an old man—tracked him down in New Jersey, that the story came fully to light.

The two men met for the first time since that day over the Channel.

Hayes reportedly saluted him and said, “You didn’t just save us, Jim.

You saved who we thought we were.

”

The Air Force later recognized Howell’s act as “the longest voluntary fighter escort mission in World War II history.

”

Nine men survived because one refused to follow the rules.

One pilot’s fuel ran out, but his courage didn’t.

Today, at Duxford Air Museum, a P-47 bearing Howell’s call sign—“Jersey Two-Seven”—hangs above a restored B-17 painted with the name “Lucky Lass.

”

They are displayed side by side, just as they were that day over the Channel—two aircraft bound forever by a single act of defiance.

Because in a war where obedience was survival, James Howell made the choice that broke every rule and saved every soul.

And sometimes, that’s what true heroism really is—staying when everyone else has already gone home.