It was a hard-luck bomber nobody wanted — a battered B-17E scarred by oddball accidents and passed from unit to unit until its tail number gave it a new name: Old 666.

A misfit pilot named Jay Zeamer requisitioned the wreck, rebuilt it into a private gunship, and on 16 June 1943 flew it alone, deep into Japanese airspace, to photograph the beaches of Bougainville. What his crew flew home from is one of the most extraordinary air actions of the Second World War.

Two Medals of Honor. A Distinguished Service Cross for every other man aboard. No single American air mission has ever been decorated so heavily.

The plane nobody wanted, the crew nobody could fault

B-17E serial 41-2666 was built in early 1942 and shuttled through bomb groups, picking up damage and a reputation as a jinx. By May 1943 it had landed with the 65th Bombardment Squadron at Port Moresby, New Guinea. Captain Jay Zeamer — an engineer who had struggled to check out as a first pilot but volunteered relentlessly — claimed the derelict for his own hand-picked crew, the self-styled “Eager Beavers.”

They stripped weight, fitted new engines for speed, and bristled the aircraft with heavy machine guns — contemporary records credit it with sixteen active .50-calibre guns. Two days before their last mission, Zeamer officially named the Fortress “Lucy.” But to the crew it was always “666.”

16 June 1943: the run over Bougainville

The mission was daunting on its own: a solo B-17, some 600 miles over open ocean, to photo-map the west coast of Bougainville ahead of planned Allied landings. Accurate mapping demanded a long, dead-straight, level run of around 22 minutes over hostile territory. Zeamer twice refused orders to add a reconnaissance of the Japanese airfield at Buka, judging it too likely to trigger interception. Arriving early, he put the Buka question to his crew; they voted to do it.

Unknown to Allied intelligence, the Japanese had just moved hundreds of fighters into the area. Near the end of the mapping run, Zeros — plus a twin-engine fighter — hit Old 666 in a coordinated pass from below and front, denying Zeamer his usual defensive turn.

Sarnoski’s guns and Zeamer’s shattered legs

The first pass was devastating. Bombardier 2nd Lt Joseph Sarnoski, firing the nose guns, was blown out of the nose compartment by a 20 mm shell, horribly wounded. He dragged himself back to his gun and drove off the attacking twin-engine fighter before collapsing at his post, where he died. In the cockpit, cannon shells destroyed Zeamer’s instrument panel and rudder pedals and broke his left leg above and below the knee, with shrapnel wounds to both arms and his other leg.

Bleeding and slipping in and out of consciousness, Zeamer fought a running battle of roughly forty minutes, repeatedly banking into the Zeros’ firing lines so his gunners could fire back, until the enemy broke off. Too badly hurt to reach Port Moresby over the mountains, the crew nursed the Fortress to an emergency landing at Dobodura. Old 666 had taken five 20 mm hits and 187 bullet holes.

Two Medals of Honor — honestly counted

Zeamer received the Medal of Honor from General Henry H. Arnold in January 1944; Sarnoski’s was awarded posthumously. Every other member of the crew received the Distinguished Service Cross — making this the most highly decorated single air mission in American history. It is the only WWII action in which two men of one bomber crew each earned the Medal of Honor.

One honest footnote the best histories keep: the crew claimed five Zeros shot down, but surviving Japanese records show none lost to gunfire in the fight — a reminder that combat claims and enemy records rarely match. Zeamer survived fifteen months of recovery, became an aerospace engineer, and died in 2007 aged 88, the last living Medal of Honor recipient of the US Army Air Forces.

Sources: Wikipedia; Air & Space Forces Magazine (John L. Frisbee), “Valor: Battle Over Bougainville”; Zeamer’s Eager Beavers research archive; Drury & Clavin, “Lucky 666” (2016); Associated Press / Los Angeles Times obituary (2007).