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1st Lt Paul R. Hibbard graduated from Queen Anne High School and attended the University of Washington.

The mission was to drop supplies for the besieged Polish resistance Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising.

The airplane was attacked by enemy fighters and suffered severe damage, which knocked out most of the instruments and #1 supercharger. Lt Hibbard was killed in the attack, two other crew members were wounded. The co-pilot was able to fly the airplane to the intended destination airfield in Poltava, Ukraine. The airplane was repaired and flown back to England.

A crew member, Lt James R. O'Neil, wrote a letter to his parents, telling the story of the mission: "We had taken off on a shuttle mission to Russia. We were carrying supplies to be dropped to the partisans in Warsaw. On the way, Paul and I were joking about what an easy mission this was going to be and that we would only have to put in a few more, and we would be on our way home.
It was about five minutes before target time when the airplane was hit by enemy fighters. Lt Hibbard was hit in the thigh by a 20 mm cannon shell and the cockpit was set on fire.
Even though Paul was mortally wounded, his first thoughts were about his plane and crew. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and put out the fire on his side of the cockpit. He died shortly after, from shock and internal injuries, the doctor in Russia told me. The fellows did everything they could to try to save Paul. The fighters kept on hitting us and during the fighting the tail gunner and the navigator were wounded. The crew succeeded in shooting down seven enemy fighters, and the top-turret gunner shot down the fighter that hit Paul."

This story was published in the Seattle Daily Times of 24 December 1944. In this article, it is also mentioned that Lt Hibbard was initially buried at an "American cemetery in Russia, with a three-bladed propeller at the head of his grave". The correctness of this statement cannot be verified.

He is remembered at the Evergreen Washelli Cemetery in Seattle, King County, Washington.