B-17 on a wing and a prayer

Badly shot up and with two engines out, a United States Army Air Forces "Flying Fortress" heads for a crash landing at RAF Hethel in Norfolk in January 1944.

B-17F 42-5804 "Hell's Halo", OR-R of the 323rd Bomb Squadron, 91st Bomb Group, was returning from a big raid involving 177 B-17s on Oschersleben in the heart of Nazi Germany, which had run into heavy Luftwaffe fighter opposition.

The operation was led by Lt Col Theodore R Milton, who was in this aircraft flying as co-pilot to Capt Leroy B Everett. Both of them were wounded but pressed home the attack. When they returned to England, bad weather forced the bomb wing to scatter to diversionary airfields.

All 10 men aboard this 'plane returned to duty.