u/USAAFoverPOLAND

Missions to Blechhammer are commemorated in an excellent private museum, run by the Blechhammer-1944 Association. It is located in a WWII-era air raid bunker, walking distance to the Blechhammer North complex, in Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Poland.
The missions, the factories, slave labor and POW camps are presented in much detail, and you can see a lot of historical artifacts there.
I have been working with this group since 2000. Back then, they had a lot of info about American crash sites, but could not link them to any particular aircraft. I had a lot of archival documents, but did not know where exactly the American planes went down. This, and the fact they are good people, made it a natural collaboration and friendship between us.

Check their Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/share/18pZ6HK16M/?mibextid=wwXIfr

And subscribe to my substack, and find out more stories about the USAAF over Poland.

https://substack.com/@usaafoverpoland

This Memorial Weekend will be very special to me.

I have been supporting for 25+ years the US government efforts to recover WWII MIAs from Poland, and imagine this!!!

Yesterday, one of the identified MIAs from Poland was reburied in Omaha, Nebraska (8 MIAs in his crew, 5 were identified and returned to families in the last 10 years, and I gave my humble contribution to this effort).

And, TODAY!!!, an airman from another crew shot down over Politz (today Police, Poland) is buried in Praire du Rocher, Illinois! There were four MIAs in his crew, allegedly buried in one grave. We passed this information to the US government years ago, they worked with my friends from Szczecin, found the grave, and the identification process was finished on two men.

I will write more about each airman on the Memorial Weekend.

Meanwhile, the second part of my In The Air On The Air story is published on Substack.

Although I am linking plane names to songs and movies of the 1940s, this was a cruel war, and there were people dying on these planes, too.

My special thoughts go to Walter Shimshock (born Wladek Szymczak), who bailed out of the „I’ll Be Seeing You/‚Til We Meet Again”, landed safely near Warsaw, Poland, on September 18th 1944, and was brutally killed by German soldiers. Indeed, Til We Meet Again.

https://sserwatka.substack.com/p/in-the-air-and-on-the-air-part-2

On March 22, 1945, a few B-17s were damaged by German flak over Ruhland, and the crews decided to fly east to reach a Soviet/controlled emergency airfield in Poland. Three of the Fortresses never made it, as they were shot down by Soviet P-39s. The Russians not only downed the planes but strafed the airmen floating down helplessly in their parachutes.

During my research, I managed to identify crashsites of two of the three, and a good friend of mine identified the third one. This information was passed to the US government back in the 2000s.

One of the crash sites (B-17 #44-8191, with 8 MIAs) qualified for an escavation, and last year remains of four men were officially identified. Rae DeMatteis, Stephen Fatur, Donald Dorman, Robert Keuchel were returned to their respective families.

Robert Keuchel will be buried this Friday in Omaha, Nebraska.

https://www.heafeyheafey.com/obituaries/Robert-A-Keuchel?obId=48321494

I will write up this story in more details on my substack.

https://substack.com/@usaafoverpoland

The Photo of the #44-8191 is from https://www.reddit.com/r/WWIIplanes/s/KEhrH7eMUS

The local community funded and maintain the memorial dedicated to this crew:

https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/monument_details.php?SiteID=2728&MemID=3583

You will find more about American planes named after movies and songs in this story on Substack:

https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka/p/in-the-air-and-on-the-air-part-1

The Part 2 of this story (including the “I’ll be Seeing You”) is coming to my Substack on next Saturday, May 16th.

Photo: Joseph Cotten and Ginger Rogers in an ''I'll Be Seeing You'' (1944) press photo. Source: wikipedia

Seeing the Blechhammer North and South the way the B-17 and B-24 crews saw them is easier than you think.

If you are flying from the west to Krakow, Poland - with a bit of luck - you can see the Blechhammer complexes about 20-25 minutes before landing. If you are flying from Krakow towards west, keep your eyes open same time after take-off. Appreciate there is no flak there today.

You can find some Blechhammer stories on my Substack:

https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka

This is one of the most famous WWII photos, and it is virtually unknown it was taken over Blechhammer, which is today in Poland. Borders were moved in 1945, and Blechhammer became Kedzierzyn-Kozle.

The below link is to the story I wrote about this photo. It describes what it meant and how it was like to fly through German flak. It is a tribute to 15th Air Force crew which flew missions in WWII.

https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka/p/the-true-story-behind-a-famous-photo?r=42ks37&utm_medium=ios

I am not the only person researching USAAF over Poland. We are quite a few! Janusz Wrobel is one of these people, and he recently wrote this nice Facebook post about bombing of the refinery in Trzebinia, Poland (50 km west of Krakow). This was one of very few bombing missions the USAAF performed from the bases in Soviet Ukraine.

The photo is the fire in the Trzebinia refinery as an aftermath of the American mission. The source is the public library in Trzebinia.

https://www.facebook.com/share/1G79hPKbwh/?

Happy Weekend!

What do the B-24 “All Meat No Potatoes”, the B-17 “Star Dust”, the P-51 “Arkansas Traveller” have in common?

All these planes flew missions to Poland in WWII and their names are related to 1940s song or movie titles!!!

In 2011, we organized an exhibition with live music concerts in Krakow, Poland. The idea was to present the connection between WWII aviation and popular music and movies of that time. I was responsible for providing the content for the USAAF over Poland.

This new Substack story presents a refreshed version of my contribution to the “ In the air and on the air…” project. :)

https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka/p/in-the-air-and-on-the-air-part-1

Enjoy!

“Alley Oop” was a 15th Air Force Liberator which opted to fly to Soviet controlled territory after receiving damage over Blechhammer. She landed at Rzeszow in eastern Poland. A local historian, Jakub Kubas, researched the story and the landing location:

https://www.facebook.com/share/1CKf3pxMRh/

Many American aircraft landed in Soviet controlled territory in 1945, and one of my next Substack stories will tell what happened with them. :)

https://substack.com/@usaafoverpoland