At 11:47 a.m. on November 29th, 1943, Staff Sergeant Eugene Moran crouched inside the tail section of B17F Ricky Tickabi as German Flack tore through the fuselage 20,000 ft above Bremen. The 19-year-old tail gunner was flying his fifth mission with the Eighth Air Force’s 96th Bomb Group. Eight of his nine crew mates were already dead.

 The mission had started 4 hours earlier at RAF Snetterton Heath in England. 346 B7 flying fortresses lifted off that morning, bound for Bremen’s industrial targets. Bremen’s anti-aircraft batteries had destroyed 64 bombers in the previous month. Moran squadron had lost 11 tail gunners since September. The formation crossed the German coast at 23,000 ft.

 Moran scanned the sky through his twin 50 caliber Browning machine guns. The tail position offered the widest view, but also meant being alone. No one could reach him through the narrow crawl space. If something went wrong, he would face it alone. German fighters hit the formation first. Messor Schmidt BF 109’s attacked from above, firing 20 mm cannons.

 Moran tracked the fighter closing from 6:00 and squeezed his triggers. The guns hammered. Spent brass casings clattered around his boots. The Messormid rolled away, trailing smoke. Then the flack started. Black bursts exploded across the formation. Each burst sent shrapnel fragments traveling at 3,000 ft per second.

 Moran felt the impacts shake the aircraft. The intercom went dead. Through his window, Moran watched Ricky Tickavi slide backward from the formation. German fighters swarmed. More cannon rounds hammered the fuselage. Moran returned fire, but the fighters came from every angle. A massive explosion shook the aircraft. The nose section disappeared in flames.

 The bombardier, navigator, pilot, co-pilot, and flight engineer were gone. Three more crewmen in the waist section died when another shell tore through the radio compartment. Only Moren and the navigator remained alive. The navigator bailed out. Moran was alone. He grabbed his parachute. It was shredded.

 Bullet holes riddled the silk canopy. The harness straps were torn. It would not open. He had no way out. Then came the hit that changed everything. A direct flax strike severed the tail section. The explosion was deafening. The entire tail assembly broke free from the fuselage. Moran felt the sudden lurch as gravity took over.

 He was falling, still inside the tail section, 20,000 ft above Germany with no parachute. The tail did not drop straight down. The vertical and horizontal stabilizers acted as air foils. The section began to glide, spinning slowly. Moran gripped his gun handles. No manual covered what to do when your aircraft breaks in half. Through his window, he saw German fighters circling.

 They assumed everyone was dead, but Moran was alive and his gun still worked. He aimed at a measurement that swooped past. He fired. Tracers arked across the sky. The German pilot banked away, startled that the severed tail section was shooting back. Moran kept firing. The tail section continued its strange glide downward, spinning slowly, descending through the cold German sky.

 If you want to see how this tail gunner survived a 4mm fall, please hit that like button. It helps us share more stories like this and subscribe if you haven’t. Back to Moran. German anti-aircraft crews on the ground saw the tail section falling. They opened fire. He was being shot at by fighters above and flack batteries below while falling inside a severed tail section. The altimeter still worked.

19,000 ft. 18,000. The ground rushed closer. Moran’s head slammed against his gunsite. Blood ran into his eyes. His ribs cracked against the gun mounts, but he did not let go of the guns. 16,000 ft. 15,000 trees below fields. The town of Psych, 12 mi south of Bremen, 14,000 ft. 13,000. He tried the escape hatch.

 It would not budge. The frame had warped. He was locked inside a metal coffin falling at over 100 mph. 12,000 ft. 11,000. The spinning pressed him against the bulkhead. Gold fillings and his mers popped out from the pressure. 10,000 ft. 9,000. The trees were close now. The tail sections glide was flattening slightly.

 The stabilizers were doing something. 8,000 ft. 7,000. Moran braced himself. No way to steer. No way to slow down. No way out. 6,000 ft. 5,000. The forest below rushed up to meet him. 4,000 ft. 3,000. The tail section plunged toward the forest outside. Psych. Moran could see individual pine trees now. Their branches reached upward like dark fingers.

 The section was still spinning, still gliding at a steep angle, but gravity was winning. 2,000 ft. 1,000. The impact came without warning. The tail section smashed into the tops of the pine trees. Branches snapped. Wood exploded. The metal framework groaned. The vertical stabilizer caught on a thick trunk and the entire section pivoted, slowing. More branches broke.

The tail cartwheeled through the canopy, shedding pieces of aluminum skin. Then it hit the ground. The impact drove Moran’s head into his gunsite. His skull cracked. Blood poured from his scalp. His ribs, already fractured from the spinning descent, broke completely. Both forearms snapped against the gun mounts.

The pain was immediate and overwhelming, but he was alive. Moran tried to move. His arms would not respond. Broken. His chest screamed with every breath. Broken ribs. His head throbbed. Crushed skull. Blood filled his eyes. He could not see clearly. He heard voices. German voices, footers crunching through the forest floor.

Someone was coming. Two men appeared through the wreckage. They wore tattered clothing, not Vermached uniforms, not Luftvafa ground crew. These were prisoners, Serbian prisoners of war who had been working nearby when they saw the tail section fall. Both men were doctors captured by the Germans years earlier.

 They had been forced to work in labor camps. When they saw the American tail section crash into the trees, they ran toward it. They expected to find a body. Instead, they found Moran, barely conscious, drowning in his own blood. The Serbian doctors had no equipment, no medicines, no bandages, but they had training.

 They pulled Moran from the wreckage and laid him on the ground. One doctor held Moran’s head still while the other checked his injuries. Crushed skull, broken forearms, broken ribs, internal bleeding likely. The doctors knew German patrols would arrive soon. They worked quickly. One of them used strips of cloth torn from his own shirt to bind Moran’s arms.

 The other applied pressure to the head wound, trying to stop the bleeding. Within minutes, their mocked soldiers appeared. They surrounded the crash site with rifles raised. When they saw Moran, barely breathing, covered in blood, they lowered their weapons. This man was not a threat. He was barely alive. The German soldiers loaded Moran onto a stretcher.

 The Serbian doctors insisted on accompanying him. The Germans agreed. They transported Moran to a military hospital in Brimman, the same city he had bombed hours earlier. At the hospital, German doctors examined Moran. They shook their heads. His injuries were catastrophic. The crushed skull alone should have killed him. The broken ribs had punctured his lungs.

 His forearms were shattered. He had lost massive amounts of blood. By every medical standard, he should have been dead. But the Serbian doctors refused to give up. They stayed with Moran through the night, monitoring his breathing, checking his pulse. German medical staff, despite orders to prioritize their own wounded, provided what supplies they could spare.

 Moran drifted in and out of consciousness. When he was awake, the pain was unbearable. When he was unconscious, he dreamed of falling. always falling, the tail section spinning, the ground rushing up, the trees. Three days passed, then four. Moran’s condition stabilized. The crushed skull began to heal, though the pressure on his brain remained dangerous. His ribs started to mend.

 His forearms remained useless, but the bones were setting. On the fifth day, German intelligence officers arrived. They wanted information. Bombing targets, formation tactics, radio frequencies. Moran gave them nothing. Rank, name, serial number. That was all. The interrogations continued for two weeks. The Germans tried everything.

 Threats, promises of better treatment, long periods of isolation. Moran said nothing. Finally, they gave up. On December 14th, 1943, German guards loaded Moran onto a truck with other prisoners. The truck traveled east through Germany for 3 days. Moran sat in the back with 14 other American prisoners.

 His arms were still in makeshift splints. His head wound had scabbed over, but infection was setting in. Every bump in the road sent pain through his broken ribs. They arrived at Stalog Luft 3 on December 17th. The camp held 10,000 Allied airmen in wooden barracks surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers. Guards searched each prisoner at the gate.

 They took Moran’s dog tags, his wedding ring, and the few personal items he still had. The barracks were freezing. Each room held 32 men in wooden bunks. A single coal stove provided heat, but coal rations were minimal. Two blankets per prisoner. Temperatures dropped to 10° below zero that winter. Food arrived twice daily. Morning ration was one slice of black bread and Öz coffee made from burned barley.

 Evening ration was thin soup with occasional potato peelings. The Red Cross sent food parcels, but German guards confiscated most of them. Prisoners received one parcel per month instead of one per week. Moran’s arms began to heal incorrectly. Without proper medical setting, the bones fused at wrong angles. He could move his fingers, but his forearms remained twisted.

 Simple tasks became impossible. Buttoning a shirt, tying boots, holding a spoon. Other prisoners helped him. The camp had a secret radio. Prisoners assembled it from smuggled parts over 18 months. They hid it inside a false wall in barracks 14. Each night, selected prisoners listened to BBC broadcasts and transcribed the news.

 The information spread through the camp by morning. In January 1944, the radio reported Allied bombing raids intensifying over Germany. In February, they learned about the bombing of Monte Casino. In March, news came of increased air attacks on Berlin. Each report meant more American bombers overhead, more crews shot down, more prisoners arriving at Staloglu 3.

On March 24th, 1944, the camp erupted in chaos. 76 prisoners escaped through a tunnel called Harry. They had been digging for over a year, going 30 ft below ground to get under the wire. The tunnel stretched 336 ft from barracks 104 to the forest beyond the fence. The escape lasted one night. German guards discovered the tunnel at dawn.

 They mobilized 70,000 troops, police, and Hitler youth to search for the escapees. Within two weeks, they recaptured 73 prisoners. The Gestapo executed 50 of them. They shot them individually in different locations on Hitler’s direct orders. The remaining 23 prisoners returned to Stalog Luft 3. German guards posted their names on the bulletin board.

 The camp fell silent when prisoners read the list of the dead. Security tightened immediately. Guards increased roll calls from twice daily to five times. They banned all prisoner movement after dark. They searched every barracks weekly. They confiscated tools, wire, anything that could be used for digging.

 Moran watched it all from his bunk. His arms were slowly regaining function, but he could not work effectively. Other prisoners included him in their activities anyway. They shared food. They helped him dress. They told him stories about home. Months passed. Summer came. The war continued. The secret radio reported D-Day on June 6th. Allied forces landing in Normandy.

Prisoners celebrated quietly. Guards increased their vigilance. By autumn 1944, the Eastern Front was collapsing. Soviet forces pushed toward Germany. The secret radio confirmed it every night. Russian tanks were 300 m away, then 200, then 100. On January 27th, 1945, German guards ordered all prisoners to evacuate.

 The Soviets were 50 mi from the camp. The march began at 4:00 a.m. in a blizzard. 10,000 prisoners formed columns on the road outside Stalog Lof 3. Each man carried one blanket and whatever food he could scavenge. Guards distributed no additional rations. The temperature was 15 degrees below zero. German guards told them they were marching west away from the Soviet advance. They did not say how far.

 They did not say where they were going. They said anyone who fell behind would be shot. The column moved out at dawn. Moran’s arm still achd from the injuries 13 months earlier. His ribs had healed, but cold air made breathing painful. He wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and started walking.

 The first man died on the second day. An American bombader from Ohio collapsed in the snow. Guards dragged his body to the roadside and kept the column moving. By the third day, four more prisoners had died. By the end of the first week, 23 bodies lay in the snow along the road. The prisoners walked 12 hours each day. Guards allowed 10-minute breaks every 2 hours.

 At night, they herded prisoners into barns or churches. Sometimes they slept in open fields. The snow continued falling. Temperatures dropped to 20 below zero. Food became the only thought. Guards provided no rations. Prisoners ate snow for water. Some found frozen potatoes and fields. Others pulled bark from trees. A few traded personal items to German civilians for bread. most starved.

 Moran’s feet blistered after the first week. The blisters burst and became infected. He could feel fluid squishing in his boots with every step. Other prisoners suffered worse. Frostbite blackened toes and fingers. Men lost parts of their feet but kept walking because stopping meant death. The march continued through February.

 The column covered 20 m some days, 10 ms. On bad days when blizzards reduced visibility to nothing, they made five miles. Guards pushed them forward regardless of conditions. By midFebruary, the column had covered 200 m. They passed through abandoned German towns. Civilians watched from windows, but offered no help. The war was ending.

Everyone knew it. Germany was collapsing, but the march continued. Some prisoners tried to escape. Most failed. German guards shot three men who ran for the woods near Shremburgg. They left the bodies where they fell as a warning. The column kept moving. Other prisoners simply gave up. They sat down in the snow and refused to walk.

 Guards shot them. 73 prisoners died during the first month of the march. The survivors stopped counting after that. Moran kept walking. His infected feet screamed with every step. His arms achd constantly. His ribs throbbed in the cold. But he kept moving, one foot in front of the other, hour after hour, day after day.

The column crossed into central Germany. Soviet artillery rumbled in the distance behind them. American bombers flew overhead, heading east. The guards became nervous. They knew the war was lost, but they followed their orders. Keep the prisoners moving. Do not let them fall into enemy hands. On March 15th, 1945, after 47 days of walking, the column reached the town of Bitterfeld.

Guards herded prisoners into an old factory building. They said this was temporary. They said transportation would come soon. The prisoners collapsed on the factory floor. Most could not stand. Moran’s feet had swollen so badly his boots would not come off. Three weeks passed in the factory at Bitterfeld. Guards brought no food.

 Prisoners survived on scraps they found in the building. Rats became targets. Men caught them and roasted them over small fires. Others ate grass and weeds growing through cracks in the concrete floor. Moran’s weight dropped below 100 lb. He had weighed 165 lbs when his B17 was shot down 16 months earlier. His ribs showed through his skin.

 His face was skeletal. His infected feet oozed constantly. Other prisoners were worse. Dysentery spread through the factory. Men too weak to stand soiled themselves where they lay. The stench was overwhelming. German guards stayed outside. They brought no medicine, no bandages, nothing. On April 8th, the prisoners heard artillery. Close artillery.

American artillery. The sound came from the west, growing louder each day. Guards became agitated. They held hurried conversations. Some disappeared during the night. By April 10th, small arms fire echoed through Bitterfeld. American infantry had entered the town. German guards abandoned the factory. They left the doors unlocked and simply walked away.

 Prisoners were too weak to celebrate. Most could not stand. They lay on the factory floor listening to the battle outside. Machine gun fire, tank cannons, the distinctive crack of M1 Garand rifles. On April 11th, 1945, at 2 p.m., American soldiers from the 104th Infantry Division kicked open the factory doors. They stopped when they saw what was inside.

 Hundreds of skeletal men lying in their own filth. The smell hit the soldiers immediately. Several backed outside to vomit. A medic entered first. He moved from prisoner to prisoner, checking pulses, assessing conditions. When he reached Moran, he shook his head. The Wisconsin farm boy was still breathing but barely.

 His pulse was weak. His feet were gangrous. His body was shutting down. The medics called for stretchers. They carried prisoners outside to waiting ambulances. Moran drifted in and out of consciousness during the transport. He remembered seeing American flags. He remembered hearing English. He remembered crying.

 The field hospital was 15 mi west. Army doctors worked through the night treating freed prisoners. They cut away Moran’s boots. His feet were black with necrosis. The doctors considered amputation but decided to try saving them first. They pumped Moran full of sulfa drugs and penicellin. They cleaned his wounds. They gave him plasma.

 They stabilized his condition. On April 13th, they transferred him to a larger hospital in France. Recovery took months. The infection in his feet slowly cleared. His weight climbed back to 120 lbs by June. His arms regained most of their function, though they remained slightly twisted from improper healing. On July 3rd, 1945, doctors cleared Moran for transport to the United States.

 He boarded a hospital ship at La Hav. The crossing took 8 days. On July 11th, the ship docked in New York Harbor. Moran stood on deck as the Statue of Liberty came into view. He had been gone for 2 years and 9 months. He had flown five combat missions. He had fallen 4 miles inside a severed tail section.

 He had survived 17 months as a prisoner of war. He had walked 600 m through a German winter. He was 21 years old. The ship docked at Pier 90. Army personnel helped prisoners down the gang way. Crowds cheered from behind barriers. Someone played the national anthem over loudspeakers. Moran could not stop crying. He was home.

 From New York, Moran traveled by train to Camp Kilmer in New Jersey. Army doctors conducted full medical examinations on all returning prisoners. They documented every injury, every scar, every lasting effect of captivity. Moran’s medical report filled 11 pages. Crushed skull with healed fractures. Both forearms improperly healed at 15° angles.

 Six ribs with old fracture lines. Chronic pain in lower back from spinal compression during the fall. Nerve damage in both feet from frostbite and infection. Malnutrition induced organ damage. Post-traumatic stress. The doctors recommended 3 months of additional treatment. Moran refused. He wanted to go home. He wanted to see his family.

 He had not seen them since October 1942, nearly 3 years earlier. On July 25th, the army granted him 30 days leave. He took a bus to Wisconsin. The ride took 2 days. He slept most of the way, still recovering his strength. His family met him at the bus station in Soldiers Grove. His mother did not recognize him at first.

 The skeletal man climbing off the bus looked nothing like the son she remembered. When she realized it was Eugene, she collapsed. His father caught her. Moran spent August at home, sleeping in his old bed, eating his mother’s cooking, walking the farm he had left 3 years earlier. Neighbors visited daily. They asked questions.

 What was it like? Were the Germans cruel? Did he kill anyone? How did he survive the fall? Moran answered some questions, others he could not. Some memories were too raw, the spinning tail section, the screaming wind, the bodies of his crew mates, the death march, the factory at Bitterfeld. On September 1st, 1945, Moran returned to active duty at Camp McCoy in Wisconsin.

The war with Japan had ended two weeks earlier. The army was demobilizing rapidly. Millions of soldiers were being discharged. Moran’s discharge papers arrived on December 1st. Final rank staff sergeant. Service dates October 1942 to December 1945. Combat missions five. Status honorably discharged.

 His medals arrived separately. Two purple hearts for wounds received in combat. The air medal with gold leaf cluster for aerial achievement. The European Theater Medal for service in the European campaign, the Good Conduct Medal, the Prisoner of War Medal. No medal existed for falling four miles inside a severed tail section while shooting at enemy fighters.

 Moran returned to Soldiers Grove as a civilian. He was 22 years old with no college education and no job prospects. The farm needed help, so he worked there planting, harvesting, tending livestock. the same work he had done before the war. But everything felt different. The weight of tools in his twisted arms, the pain in his feet after long days standing, the nightmares that woke him every night, the sound of aircraft engines that made him freeze.

 In 1947, he met a woman named Helen at a church social. They married 6 months later. Over the next decade, they had nine children. Moran worked construction jobs to support his family. He never complained about his injuries. He never talked about the war unless directly asked. For decades, his story remained largely unknown.

 His crew mates were dead. The navigator who bailed out had moved to California and lost contact. The Serbian doctors who saved him had disappeared into post-war chaos. German records of the incident were scattered or destroyed. In 2007, a local newspaper in Wisconsin ran a short article about Moran.

 The headline read, “Local veteran survived impossible fall.” The article caught the attention of John Armster, a military historian from Iowa. Armster had been researching ETH Air Force bomber losses over Germany. When he read about Moran’s survival, he drove to Wisconsin to interview him. Moran was 83 years old. He still lived in Soldiers Grove.

 His wife Helen had died 3 years earlier. His nine children visited regularly. His hands still bore the crooked angles from his broken forearms 64 years earlier. Arm Brewster spent three days interviewing Moran. He recorded everything. The mission briefing on November 29th, the fighter attacks, the flack, the moment the tail section separated, the fall, the Serbian doctors, Stalag lof 3, the death march, all of it.

 Moran spoke slowly, carefully, remembering details he had not discussed in decades. He showed Arm Brewster his discharge papers, his medals, photographs from the war, a letter from the navigator who had bailed out sent in 1946 and never answered. Armster began researching the incident. He contacted the American Air Museum in Britain.

 They had records of Ricky Tikitavi, serial number 4230359, assigned to the 339th Bomb Squadron, missing an in action, November 29th, 1943. Crew 10, killed in action 8, prisoners of war. Two, he found the missing air crew report number 1392. It listed the crew names, the mission details, the location where the bomber was last seen near Brimman. Cause enemy aircraft.

Armster traveled to Germany. He located the town of Psych, 12 mi south of Brimman. He interviewed elderly Germans who remembered November 1943. Several recalled seeing a tail section falling from the sky. One man, then 6 years old, had watched from a bomb shelter as it crashed into the forest. German researcher Ulf Kac had independently documented the crash.

 He had found the impact site in the woods. Pieces of aluminum skin still lay buried in the ground 70 years later. He had interviewed witnesses. He had mapped the debris field. Arm Brewster and CAC combined their research. In 2018, they organized a commemoration in Psych. They invited Moran’s family.

 Six of his nine children made the trip to Germany. The town of Psych erected a memorial plaque at the crash site. It listed the names of all 10 crew members. The dedication ceremony took place on November 29th, 2018, exactly 75 years after the crash. Moran’s children stood in the forest where their father had landed.

 They saw the trees, the clearing, the spot where the tail section had finally stopped. German citizens who had witnessed the crash stood beside them. They shared their memories. They expressed gratitude that Moran had survived. The children met German researchers who had preserved the story. They met the grandson of one of the Serbian doctors who had saved Moran’s life.

 They visited the hospital in Bremen where German doctors had treated him. They stood on the road where the death march had passed. Moran was not there. He had died 4 years earlier on March 23rd, 2014. He was 90 years old. He had lived 69 years after falling 4 miles inside a severed B7 tail section. But his story survived.

In 2022, John Armster published his book about Moran. He titled it Tail Spin. The book documented everything. The mission, the fall, the survival, the captivity, the death march, the long life that followed. The book included photographs Armster had collected. Moran as a young airman in 1943, the crew of Ricky Ticky Tavi standing beside their bomber.

 The impact site in the German forest. The memorial plaque in psych. Moran in his 80s sitting in his Wisconsin home holding his purple hearts. Arm Brewster interviewed aviation experts to understand how Moran survived. Aeronautical engineers analyzed the tail section structure. The vertical stabilizer measured 13 ft tall. The horizontal stabilizers spanned 43 ft.

 Together they created enough surface area to generate lift. The tail’s weight distribution was critical. The guns, ammunition, and Moran himself were positioned at the forward end. This created a natural balance point. The stabilizers acted as wings. The section did not drop straight down. It glided, spinning slowly, descending at roughly 70 mph instead of terminal velocity.

 The trees provided the final element. The pine forest outside Psych had trees over 80 ft tall. The tail section hit branches at the top of the canopy. Each broken branch absorbed energy. The vertical stabilizer caught on a thick trunk. The impact slowed the descent from 70 mph to perhaps 30. Still enough to kill most people, but the combination of factors gave Moran a chance.

 Only two other documented cases exist of airmen surviving similar falls. British tail gunner Nicholas Alchemade fell 18,000 ft without a parachute in March 1944 and survived. American ball turret gunner Alan McGee fell 22,000 ft and crashed through a train station roof in January 1943 and survived.

 All three men had certain factors in common. They remained with wreckage that created drag. They hit objects that broke their fall. trees for Alchemade and Moran, a glass roof for McGee. They were young and physically fit, and they were extraordinarily lucky. Moran never considered himself lucky. He lost eight crew mates on November 29th, 1943.

 He spent 17 months as a prisoner of war. He endured a 600-mile death march through a German winter. He carried physical and psychological scars for the rest of his life. But he lived. He came home. He married. He raised nine children. He worked. He built a life. He lived to be 90 years old.

 On October 18th, 2008, the town of Solders Grove dedicated a street in his honor. They named it Moran Way. Eugene attended the ceremony with his family. He was 84 years old. He stood beside the new street sign, smiling, surrounded by his children and grandchildren. Someone asked him how it felt to have a street named after him. He said it felt strange.

 He had only done what he had to do. Survive, come home, live his life. That was Eugene Paul Moran, a farm boy from Wisconsin who fell four miles and refused to die. If this story moved you, please hit that like button. It genuinely helps us continue sharing these forgotten histories with more people who need to hear them.

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 Thank you for watching. And thank you, Eugene Moran, for showing us what the human spirit can endure. We won’t forget.