At 11:47 a.m.
on November 29th, 1943, Staff Sergeant Eugene Moran huddled in the cramped tail of B7F Ricky Tiki.
The sky above Bremen was a deadly lattice of fire and smoke, and Moran, just 19, was flying his fifth mission with a 96th bomb group.
Eight of his nine crew mates were already dead.
4 hours earlier 346 B17s had lifted off RAF Snetton Heath in England bound for the industrial heart of Germany.
Breman’s anti-aircraft batteries had already shredded 64 bombers the previous month and Moran squadron had lost 11 tail gunners since September.
Now alone in the tail, he faced the same fate that had claimed his friends.
The formation crossed the German coast at 23,000 ft.
Morand scanned the sky through his twin caliber Browning machine guns.
The tail position gave him the widest view, but also meant total isolation.
No one could reach him if something went wrong.
And that he was about to find out was exactly what would happen.
The first to strike were the German fighters.
Messersmid BF 109’s dove from above, spitting fire from 20 mm cannons.
Moran tracked one swooping in from 6:00 and squeezed the triggers.
Spent brass clattered around his boots as the guns hammered.
The fighter rolled away, trailing smoke.
Then the flack began.
Black bursts exploded all around, sending shrapnel ripping through the fuselage at 3,000 ft pers.
The intercom went dead.
Through his small window, Moran watched Ricky Tikabai slide backward from the formation.
Surrounded by German fighters, cannon rounds hammering the fuselage from every angle.
A massive explosion ripped through the plane.
The nose section vanished in flames.
The pilot, co-pilot, bombardier, navigator, and flight engineer were gone.
Another shell tore through the radio compartment, killing three more in the waste.
Only Moran and the navigator remained alive.
The navigator bailed out.
Moran was now completely alone.
He grabbed his parachute, but it was shredded, riddled with bullet holes, the harness straps torn.
There was no escape.
Then the hit that would change everything came.
A direct flack strike severed the tail section entirely.
The explosion was deafening.
Moran lurched violently as gravity took hold.
He was falling 20,000 ft above Germany.
Still inside the tail with no parachute.
But the section did not drop straight down.
The vertical and horizontal stabilizers acted as air foils, and the tail began to glide, spinning slowly.
Moran gripped the gun handles, unsure if he could survive.
Through his window, he saw German fighters circling, assuming he was dead, but he was alive and his guns still worked.
He fired at one swooping past.
Tracers arked through the sky.
The enemy pilot banked sharply, stunned.
As the tail section spiraled downward, German anti-aircraft crews on the ground opened fire.
Moran was trapped in a spinning coffin, falling at over a 100 mph, caught between flack and fighters.
The altimeter ticked down 19,000 ft.
18 000.
the ground rushing up.
His head slammed against the gun sight, blood running into his eyes.
Ribs cracked, the force crushing him against the bulkhead.
He tried the escape hatch.
It was jammed.
The metal coffin was unyielding.
Below the forest near the town of Psych stretched like a sea of dark green.
6,000 ft.
5 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 The tail plunged through the trees, branches snapping and cracking.
At 2,000 ft, Moran braced.
The section hit the treetops, pivoting and slowing, shedding pieces of aluminum skin.
Finally, it slammed into the forest floor.
His head struck the gun site with bone crushing force.
Skull fractured, ribs broken, forearms snapped.
Pain surged everywhere.
But he was alive.
Voices approached.
Not German soldiers in uniform, but two Serbian men, prisoners of war, forced to labor nearby.
They saw Moran, barely conscious, drowning in his own blood.
With no medical supplies, they worked quickly, binding his arms with strips of cloth, applying pressure to his head wound.
Minutes later, German soldiers arrived.
Seeing Moran, they lowered their rifles.
He was barely alive, no threat.
The Serbians insisted on accompanying him to the hospital in Bremen.
At the hospital, German doctors shook their heads at the injuries.
crushed skull, broken ribs, shattered forearms, massive blood loss.
By every measure, Moran should have died.
Yet, the Serbian doctors refused to give up.
They stayed with him through the night.
Over the next few days, his condition slowly stabilized.
By the fifth day, he was conscious enough to resist German interrogators, giving only his name, rank, and serial number.
On December 14th, Moran was transported east with other prisoners.
Over the next three days, he endured the brutal conditions of the road.
His arms still in makeshift splints, head wound, scabbed, but infected.
He arrived at Stallagluff 3 on December 17th, 1943.
A camp of 10,000 Allied airmen.
Winter was harsh.
Temperatures fell to 10 below zero.
Food was scarce.
medical care minimal.
Moran’s arms healed improperly, leaving him partially disabled.
Prisoners helped him with every task, tying boots, dressing, surviving.
Months passed.
Secret radios brought news of Allied bombing raids.
Monty Casino, Berlin.
In March 1944, the camp erupted with a famous tunnel escape known as Harry.
76 prisoners tunnneled 336 ft under the wire to freedom, though most were recaptured.
Moran watched from his bunk, two injured to participate.
Time stretched on.
He witnessed D-Day in June 1944, Soviet forces closing in on the Eastern Front, the Winter March of 1945 that would kill dozens of men in the blizzards and snow.
Through it all, he kept moving.
one foot in front of the other.
Day after day, after 47 days of grueling forced marches, they reached Bitterfeld.
Prisoners collapsed in an abandoned factory, starving, infected, skeletal.
Rats and weeds became food.
Dysentery spread.
The war was ending, but survival was uncertain.
On April 11th, 1945, American soldiers finally entered Bitterfeld.
They found Moran and hundreds of other emaciated men.
Medics rushed to stabilize him, treating frostbite, gangrine, broken limbs, infections.
Weeks later, he was transported to a hospital in France.
Recovery was slow.
His arms remained twisted from improper healing, his feet damaged by frostbite and infection, his ribs still tender from the fall.
By July 3rd, 1945, Moran was cleared to return home.
On July 11th, he arrived in New York Harbor, seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time in nearly 3 years.
At 21, he had flown five missions, fallen four m inside a severed tail section, survived 17 months as a P, walked 600 m through German winter, and endured unimaginable injuries.
He returned to Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, where his family barely recognized him.
Life slowly resumed.
He married, had nine children, worked the farm and later construction, and quietly bore his injuries.
For decades, his story remained largely unknown, scattered among lost crew reports, German witnesses, and fading memories.
In 2007, a local newspaper ran a short piece, catching the attention of historian John Armster, who spent days recording Moran’s recollections.
He uncovered every detail.
The mission briefing, the flack, the tail section separation, the Serbian doctors, stallagluff 3, the death march, Bitterfeld, and Moran’s postwar life.
In 2018, Moran’s family traveled to Germany for a memorial in Psych, where a plaque now honors the 10 crew members of Ricky Tiki.
Pieces of the aircraft still lie buried in the forest.
Witnesses recounted the crash and the descendants of those who saved him shared their stories.
Moran himself had passed away in 2014, aged 90, having lived 69 years after falling 4 miles inside a severed B17 tail.
His story, now preserved in the book Tail Spin, stands as one of the most extraordinary tales of survival in aviation history.
Engineers analyzed the tail section.
The stabilizers combined with Moran’s position created just enough lift to slow his fall.
Trees, branches, and sheer luck spared his life.
Only two other airmen survived similar falls, making Moran’s experience almost miraculous.
Eugene Moran, the farm boy from Wisconsin, had seen the very edge of death and refused to die.
He flew, fell, was captured, marched, starved, and healed.
He married, raised a family, and quietly endured a lifetime of pain.
In 2008, Soldiers Grove named a street in his honor, Moran Wayi.
He attended the dedication at 84, smiling, surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
He did not consider himself a hero.
He had only survived.
But the story of Eugene Moran shows what the human spirit can endure.
It is a testament to courage, resilience, and sheer determination.
And though he is gone, the memory of that boy in the tale firing his guns while falling through the German sky will never be forgotten.
