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S/Sgt Gilbert F. Andrews enlisted in Richmond, Virginia on 20 June 1942.

The aircraft took part in a bombing mission to the Focke Wulf Plant at Bremen, Germany, 17 April 1943, at which time several aircraft were lost. Three or four minutes after the target there was a very hard jolt under the left side of the plane, close in to the fuselage. An anti-aircraft shell had exploded just under "Hellsapoppin". Flak ripped into the left front side of the aircraft, flaking off chunks of metal from the fuselage and throwing them through the interior of the plane. At the same time, three feet of the right wing tip was blown off by a flak burst. A one and one-half foot hole appeared in the nose compartment and all the nose window Plexiglas blew out. There was fire in the left wing and nose compartment. The radioroom became engulfed in fire from broken oxygen lines.

Five bodies were recovered from the wreckage, and were buried at the Waldfriedhof Cemetery in Vechta, Germany. They were moved after the war.