u/USAAFoverPOLAND

Happy the Fourth of July!

Freedom, justice, democracy, respect of human rights, don’t come free. Let’s enjoy our freedom wisely, and remember those who paid a high price so that we live as free people.

This 500 lira canteen coupon is a sober reminder of the young American airmen who came to Europe to liberate this continent from tirrany.

Only 95 lira of the coupon value were used before its owner landed in Krakow and became a POW in December 1944.

You are more lucky as you can learn the complete story of this crew, as the second and final part of story of the B-17 44-6337 crew from the 301st BG is released today:

https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka/p/a-flying-fortress-for-christmas-part

This happened on October 2nd 1944. The photo is taken minutes after the B-17 landed, as you can see other bombers peeling off the formation into the landing pattern.

This incident was not this Fortress’ only adventure. A few months later, in March 1945, it landed in Bydgoszcz, Poland, and its white stars were overpainted red. She was taken over (stolen) by Russians, and flown in the Soviet Air Force.

The B-17s in Soviet service will be covered on my Substack in very near future. :)

https://substack.com/@usaafoverpoland

The locals ran to the plane trying to save the crew, but….. there was noone on board. This gave room to wild speculations, including a one where, just after the landing, a local man guided the crew and walked them - undetected - to West Germany (250 km just to West Berlin, as the crow flies). What really happened, read in my Substack story:

https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka/p/the-ghost-flying-fortress-

The B-17 42-3322 Full House was one of a few shot down by Luftwaffe over the Baltic on April 11th 1944.

This crew was lucky as some of the crew survived the air battle and the ditching in the sea. The survivors managed to reach the shore near Darlowo, and were captured by the Germans. 4 men from this crew are still MIA.

The local community in Darlowo, Poland worked with families of survivors and unveiled on April 11, 2026, a memorial board to remember the MIAs.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DvkXqHKn5/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Happy Weekend!

This new story on my Substack is very special to me.

This was the very first American plane in Poland I was ever aware of. I was 14 back then, and I could not sleep after reading about this plane. I did not think there was ANY American planes in Poland in WWII. Communists took special care that any trace of American planes in Poland was erased.

But when the Iron Curtain fell apart, my friends and I started researching, and we documented hundreds of US planes which flew missions in our part of Europe. And this B-17 became one of the very first ones I researched.

I am very happy and excited to share this story with you!

https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka/p/a-flying-fortress-for-christmas-part?r=42ks37&utm\_medium=ios

I am always happy to share news about American aircraft from WWII commemorated in Poland. This B-17 landed in Poland after a mission to Zwickau on March 19th, 1945. You could still find quite big pieces of it back in the 1990s. This recent FB post shows the local memorial:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1bYWMLq1ot/?mibextid=wwXIfr

I wrote about another B-17 from the 452nd on my Substack. Its crew was the only American crew who joined the Polish Home Army.

https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka/p/from-an-american-airman-to-a-polish?r=42ks37&utm_medium=ios

Peter van Kaathoven is my co-author of the story of Nazi aircraft salvage yards at Vught (Netherlands), and Auschwitz (Poland). He recently built these models using LEGO-style sets, and we thought to share these photos with you. I personally like them a lot, and they look very much like the wrecks brought by train to Vught or Auschwitz.

Here is the story about Vught:
https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka/p/zerlegebetriebe-nazi-wreck-salvage?r=42ks37&utm_medium=ios

And here is the one about Auschwitz:
https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka/p/zerlegebetriebe-nazi-wreck-salvage-cf8?r=42ks37&utm_medium=ios

Share and subscribe to my Substack for more WWII stories!

On May 16th, Edgar W. Nevois was laid to rest in Praire de Rocher, IL. He was one of the MIAs from the 401st BG B-17 „Son of a Blitz” which was hit on the bomb run to Politz (today Police near Szczecin, Poland) on Oct 7th 1944. German flak blew off the front of the plane, the Fortess went into a vertical dive, hit the ground and exploded. 1 to 4 parachutes were seen to come out during the dive, but noone survived.

The graves of the gunners, engineer, radio-operator were found directly after the war and the bodies were exhumed, but noone knew until 74 years later where other airmen were buried.

In September 2018, Andrzej Ossowski and his team located a witness account pointing to an American grave at an abandoned German cemetery. I confirmed to him the crash site of „Son of a Blitz” was closest to this location. Andrzej, being a forensic expert by trade (you can find him on LinkedIn), and with a lot of experience in WWII exhumations, worked with the DPAA at the suspected grave location.

They must have found the burial place of the men who were in the shot-off front of the B-17, as Edgar Nevois was the co-pilot. The other identified person so far was Blaine Wilcox, the bombardier. He was reburied in October 2025. And I am hearing this is a developing story!

Photos: courtesy of Andrzej Ossowski

For more stories about the USAAF over Poland, subscribe to my Substack:

https://substack.com/@usaafoverpoland

The loss of Lt. Crane’s B-17 (2nd BG) during a mission on March 22, 1945 to Ruhland, Germany, had been a mystery for decades. It was damaged over the target, the crew tried to get to a Soviet controlled airfield in Poland, and was shot down by Soviets while still over German territory. 8 MIAs and no useful hint where they could have gone down.

Back in 2003 and then again in 2010, I collated all information from the MACR and correspondence, and recreated the course of events. All hinted towards a place from which the USA recovered an unknown in 1947.

The DPAA reopened the unknown case, and identified him as George Betchley from Crane’s crew. This was the ultimate proof we finally knew where crash was. More work at the crash site followed, and DPAA announced in 2025 identifications of four more men from this crew (DeMatteis, Dorman, Keuchel, Fatur).

Keuchel was reburied by family on May 15th this year, Fatur will be reburied in August, dates for DeMatteis and Dorman still to be confirmed . Betchley was reburied in 2017.

There are still about 150 American WWII MIAs missing in Poland. Please remember them on this Memorial Day.

For more USAAF over Poland stories, subscribe to my Substack:

https://substack.com/@usaafoverpoland

Photos: courtesy of Greg Hollenbeck, who escorted Robert Keuchel to his final resting place.

On this Memorial Weekend, let’s remember the 15th Air Force airmen who flew extremely dangerous missions to Blechhammer, and paid the ultimate price for our freedom.

The B-24 All Meat No Potatoes (464th BG) was just one aircraft and one crew, but what they went through, who died, who survived, happened hundreds of times in the skies of Nazi occupied Europe.

I wrote about this crew on my Substack:

https://open.substack.com/pub/sserwatka/p/all-meat-no-potatoes-a-b-24-shot

For more stories about USAAF over Poland in WWII, subscribe to my Substack.

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