After taking off in pitch darkness from Owi, Netherlands East Indies, in the middle of the night on 26 October 1944, GYPSY. B-24J # 42-100366 carried pilot Lt. Ulick Bell and his crew to the Sulu Sea in the Philippines in search of Japanese warships. Hours later, spotting his quarry, Lt. Bell pointed Gypsy toward an enemy light cruiser named Abukuma, then turned the aircraft over to his bombardier, Lt. Carmine J. Cappola, Taking into consideration the cruiser's evasive action and the time it would take for the bombs to fall, Cappola carefully adjusted the cross hairs of his bomb sight on a spot in the water and earned himself, as well as for t. Bell, the Distinquised Flying Cross. Seconds later he scored two hits amid ship and one near miss. Reportedly one of the 1000-pound bombs had fallen fell through the funnel into the bowels of the ship and detonated its torpedoes.