NAME TP - M# SER - BLK - MF

SERIAL #

AF

BG

BS

SC RCL/# V#-P

PHOTO CREDITS

QUEEN BEE

B

-

24

H

-

10

-

CF 42-64461 15 449 718

~

21 01-1

OREN PURDY

Port (Left) Side - Control #553 - Lost 23 Apr 44, AUT - MACR 4200 - Pilot Martin S. Rouse

Contributor - Mark Coffee
Shown with Pilot Clifford Leo Stupfel & Crew (90th BG/321st BS).
Original cadre ship with the 449th BG. QUEEN BEE, with the Martin Rouse crew aboard, took seven flak hits just after the target (Schwechat, Austria - 23 Apr 44) which knocked out the #1 engine. As she fell behind the formation she was attacked by 5 or 6 fighters which shot out the #2 engine. Gunners claimed 3 fighters shot down. Radio Operator Earl P. Gorman was badly hit during the fighter attack and was parachuted out. Gorman was KIA. QUEEN BEE made a crash landing in Yugoslavia where the remaining 9 crew members contacted partisans and evaded.

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B-24 Best Web. Published on Veterans Day 11/11/97. Last modified: 27-Mar-2021