United States Air Force First Lieutenant Wulff was killed in action in World War II. Orville was killed piloting a B-24 Liberator "Ruth-Less" on a mission to destroy German oil fields. Orville served in the 506th Bombardment Squadron, 44th Bomb Group.
Orville Wulff was killed on a hillside at Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK when his B24D Liberator named Ruth-Less crashed while attempting to land at a small airfield near the village of Friston.
The crew had departed from their base at Shipdham, Norfolk for an attack on a V2 missile assembly bunker at Watten, in the Foret d'Eperlecques near St Omer, northern France. The aircraft sustained damage from flak on its bombing run and could not make it back to its base. An emergency landing was attempted in southern England, but in very poor weather conditions and with the loss of one engine, the aircraft could not outclimb the cloud shrouded hill in front of it.
Wulff initially survived the crash, and slid down an embankment away from the blazing wreckage and rested in a 'bridal path'. One of the aircraft's engines then broke free and rolled on top of him, crushing him to death.
Initially Wulff and the rest of the crew were interred at Brookwood Cemetary near Woking in Surrey, but after war some of the crew's families had their bodies repatriated back to the USA.
There is a book called "Ruth-Less and Far From Home" that tells the story of what happened to Wulff. Many of the families had no idea that their loved ones had been killed on English soil, but due to the secrecy at war time, were simply informed they had died "somewhere in the ETO (European Theatre of Operations).
Orville Wulff was killed on a hillside at Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK when his B24D Liberator named Ruth-Less crashed while attempting to land at a small airfield near the village of Friston.
The crew had departed from their base at Shipdham, Norfolk for an attack on a V2 missile assembly bunker at Watten, in the Foret d'Eperlecques near St Omer, northern France. The aircraft sustained damage from flak on its bombing run and could not make it back to its base. An emergency landing was attempted in southern England, but in very poor weather conditions and with the loss of one engine, the aircraft could not outclimb the cloud shrouded hill in front of it.
Wulff initially survived the crash, and slid down an embankment away from the blazing wreckage and rested in a 'bridal path'. One of the aircraft's engines then broke free and rolled on top of him, crushing him to death.
Initially Wulff and the rest of the crew were interred at Brookwood Cemetary near Woking in Surrey, but after war some of the crew's families had their bodies repatriated back to the USA.
There is a book called "Ruth-Less and Far From Home" that tells the story of what happened to Wulff. Many of the families had no idea that their loved ones had been killed on English soil, but due to the secrecy at war time, were simply informed they had died "somewhere in the ETO (European Theatre of Operations).
United States Air Force First Lieutenant Wulff was killed in action in World War II. Orville was killed piloting a B-24 Liberator "Ruth-Less" on a mission to destroy German oil fields. Orville served in the 506th Bombardment Squadron, 44th Bomb Group.
Orville Wulff was killed on a hillside at Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK when his B24D Liberator named Ruth-Less crashed while attempting to land at a small airfield near the village of Friston.
The crew had departed from their base at Shipdham, Norfolk for an attack on a V2 missile assembly bunker at Watten, in the Foret d'Eperlecques near St Omer, northern France. The aircraft sustained damage from flak on its bombing run and could not make it back to its base. An emergency landing was attempted in southern England, but in very poor weather conditions and with the loss of one engine, the aircraft could not outclimb the cloud shrouded hill in front of it.
Wulff initially survived the crash, and slid down an embankment away from the blazing wreckage and rested in a 'bridal path'. One of the aircraft's engines then broke free and rolled on top of him, crushing him to death.
Initially Wulff and the rest of the crew were interred at Brookwood Cemetary near Woking in Surrey, but after war some of the crew's families had their bodies repatriated back to the USA.
There is a book called "Ruth-Less and Far From Home" that tells the story of what happened to Wulff. Many of the families had no idea that their loved ones had been killed on English soil, but due to the secrecy at war time, were simply informed they had died "somewhere in the ETO (European Theatre of Operations).
Orville Wulff was killed on a hillside at Eastbourne, East Sussex, UK when his B24D Liberator named Ruth-Less crashed while attempting to land at a small airfield near the village of Friston.
The crew had departed from their base at Shipdham, Norfolk for an attack on a V2 missile assembly bunker at Watten, in the Foret d'Eperlecques near St Omer, northern France. The aircraft sustained damage from flak on its bombing run and could not make it back to its base. An emergency landing was attempted in southern England, but in very poor weather conditions and with the loss of one engine, the aircraft could not outclimb the cloud shrouded hill in front of it.
Wulff initially survived the crash, and slid down an embankment away from the blazing wreckage and rested in a 'bridal path'. One of the aircraft's engines then broke free and rolled on top of him, crushing him to death.
Initially Wulff and the rest of the crew were interred at Brookwood Cemetary near Woking in Surrey, but after war some of the crew's families had their bodies repatriated back to the USA.
There is a book called "Ruth-Less and Far From Home" that tells the story of what happened to Wulff. Many of the families had no idea that their loved ones had been killed on English soil, but due to the secrecy at war time, were simply informed they had died "somewhere in the ETO (European Theatre of Operations).
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1LT, 506 AAF BOMB SQ WORLD WAR II
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