Flight Lt. John Cruickshank was at the controls of a Royal Air Force plane on submarine patrol in July 1944 when he spotted a German U-boat steaming placidly on the surface of the Norwegian Sea.

Swooping low, just 50 feet above the waves, the plane raked the submarine with gunfire, but the airplane’s depth charges failed to deploy.

As Flight Lieutenant Cruickshank returned for a second run, he was now fully in the U-boat’s sights, and the submarine fired a shell that exploded inside the airplane’s fuselage. The bombardier was killed, and Flight Lieutenant Cruickshank was lacerated by shrapnel, though he gave no indication of his grievous wounds to his crew.

He released the depth charges himself, sinking the U-boat. Wounded in 72 places, he had to be carried to a bunk as the crew braced for the five-hour night flight back to the plane’s R.A.F. base in the Shetland Islands, off the northern tip of Scotland.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, Flight Lieutenant Cruickshank refused morphine, knowing that his co-pilot did not have the skills to land their amphibious seaplane by himself. Fuel was leaking from damaged lines, and the fuselage was gashed.