People Believed this WWII Bomber Was Cursed – But Then One Pilot’s Exploit Proved Them All Wrong

What was in store for Hard Luck Hattie on the fateful day of June 1943? From where did it get a fancy name like this? During WWII, the Flying Fortress was crossing the Pacific island that was under the Japanese at that time and was hence being being spotted by the Japanese. Now, the pressing question is, does the pilot abandon the aircraft or decide on some other plan of action? The aircraft, B-17E41-2666 was said to be jinxed and rightly so because of the number it carried. 666 is said to be the number of Satan and if an airplane carries that number then it is bound to invite all the bad luck. In 1942, the Old 666 was made into a photoreconnaissance plane and for that 6-inch Bausch and Lomb lenses along with trimetrogon camera was fixed to the aircraft. This arrangement helped the aircraft capture a broad range. Its first assignment was to cover Lae in New Guinea that was under Japanese control. During this assignment, a life raft inflated in the plane itself, then the tail was damaged and even the waist window was also destroyed. Even after so much of damage, the aircraft made it to the base safely. Then in December, again the Japanese attacked the plane when it went on an assignment to Rabaul, but again it came back to base without any major mishap. In 1943, Captain Jay Zeamer seemed to make friends with the aircraft when it was assigned to Fifth Air Force’s 65th Bomb Squadron. The team of Zeamer’s was known as the ‘Eager Beavers’ because of their appetite for taking on the dangerous mission and completing it successfully. When the Eager Beaver met Old 666, they knew that they have to remodel the plane to suit their taste. It was loaded with 16 heavy-duty machine guns along with a new engine to make it the most formidably-armed Flying Fortress. Once Zeamer took charge of the aircraft, it completed two successful mission of mapping unknown Japanese base. Zeamer was assigned a high-risk mission where it needed to map Empress Augusta Bay accurately so that a future amphibious invasion can be chalked out. The proper mapping would require the plane to fly over Japanese-occupied territory for about 22 minutes. It was while covering the Buka island that the crew noticed 20 Japanese flights were ready to take off because the Flying Fortress has been spotted. The Japanese aircraft made every possible try to bring down the Old 666, but Zeamer made sure that it landed at its base with all crewmembers. Zeamer was severely injured and Sarnoski was dead, but the rest of the crew members were not severely injured. Everybody received the bravery award and were considered the most decorated U.S. flight crew of all time.