Here is the link to my first story about Ewart Sconiers. He was the first ever B-17 war hero of the 8th Air Force. The story below will tell you another reason why his story is extremely remarkable.

I started my research of American WWII bombing missions to targets in Poland in late 1990s. My initial research focused on documenting all missions to targets which were in Polish territory after 1945. The focus then shifted gradually towards listing and documenting all USAAF losses. The Warsaw-based NGO “KARTA” reached out to me in 2001, as I was already considered a subject matter expert on WWII US losses over Poland. KARTA was contracted by the US government agency (DPMO - Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office, merged in 2015 into DPAA - Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency) to do archival search for any information about American citizens missing in Poland from WWII.

Many of the IDPFs (Individual Deceased Personnel File) I got access to included a document dated October 13th 1954 which confirmed nonrecoverability of several missing American military personnel. One of the people in the list was Ewart Sconiers.

Ewart’s case was unique as he was not shot down over Poland, but over France. He was taken prisoner, and ended up in Zagan at Stalag Luft III. Months after his arrival, he slipped on ice, fell, suffered headaches, and was sent to a hospital in Lubin where he died. He was buried in a cemetery in Lubin.

I started searching for more information. In August 2003, I sent an email to a webmaster of a WWII POW-related website. My request was published in the October 2003 edition of an ex-POW bulletin. This action brought first results two months later. Guy Jolly sent me a letter referencing a book “Behind the Wire, Stalag Luft III, South Compound” where Ewart’s story was mentioned, and Irving Lewin sent me scans of four photos of Ewart’s burial. Irving referenced another book “Clipped Wings”, too.

With this information and burial photos, this seemed like an easy case. A quick cross check of documents confirmed the town where Ewart was buried was Lubin in western Poland. But which cemetery was it?…

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On August 21st, 1942, the 97th Bomb Group (of the VIII Bomber Command, later renamed to the 8th Air Force) sent 12 aircraft to attack the Rotterdam shipyards. Yes, you are reading it right. What would later be known as The Mighty Eighth sent just a dozen of Flying Fortresses on a bombing mission.

This was the very beginning of the American air force presence in Europe. The first symbolic American mission was on July 4th 1942, and the very first proper B-17 mission happened on August 17th, just 5 days (!) before the Rotterdam mission. The working concept of huge bomber streams was still many months away. The novelty the USAAF was bringing in August 1942 were fast heavy bombers which could precisely drop their load from high altitudes, not reachable to German fighters or anti-aircraft artillery. Well, the Luftwaffe and Flak proved them wrong very quickly.

The target on the August 21st 1942 mission to Rotterdam was the Wilton-Fijenoord shipyard in that city. Three machines returned early due to technical problems, the remaining nine were recalled by radio just before reaching the Dutch coast, as German flighter planes were spotted. It was too late….

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Dear subscribers and followers, friends,

For the past year, I've been writing about something most people have never heard of: American airmen who fell from the sky over towns that are now peaceful neighborhoods in Poland. Blechhammer/Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Odertal/Zdzieszowice, Auschwitz/Oswiecim, Politz/Police. Names that meant nothing to most readers — until you started reading.

Each story means hours in archives, digging through old crew rosters, MACR reports, and multiple conversations with fellow researchers scattered around the world — chasing down a name, a serial number, a family who still doesn’t know exactly where their relative went down. That work isn't free. It takes time, travel, and access to records that aren't sitting on Google.

A paid subscription is what makes the digging possible in the first place.

As a paid subscriber you:

• Directly contribute to keeping the memory alive of the sacrifice of American airmen over Poland in WWII

• Motivate me to put more work into researching, writing, and sharing more stories

• Get direct access to me for your own family research questions — if you’ve got a relative who never came home, or you want to find out his/her WWII history, I’ll help you dig

• Receive subscriber-only Posts every four weeks, weekly Notes with mini stories, reports about memorials, news

This isn’t just a newsletter or a blog. It’s an ongoing search — for the men, and for the truth of what happened to them.

Let’s work together to keep their memory alive!

Click here to go to Part 1.

I received additional details in late 1999 from William Nassif, who was “Candie’s” bombardier. His story about the landing near Krakow was very vivid and colorful. This is not surprising, considering that he had a successful career in show business after the war. He starred in films with Ronald Reagan, who later became the President of the USA.

This is how Nassif recalled his ‘visit’ to Blechhammer: “I had only one mission left to complete my combat tour, and I didn’t have to fly on December 26th. But one of the commanders called me, and said they needed another bombardier. He convinced me by claiming there were no anti-aircraft guns near the target, and that he would give me a Distinguished Flying Cross if I go. So I agreed. All hell broke loose over the target, and we lost two engines in the blink of an eye. We then decided to fly to Kiev in Russia. We started losing altitude, and the navigator was working hard on his maps. Suddenly he looked up - Krakow was below us, but the navigator thought it was already Kiev. So we started looking for a place to land. We could not find any airfield so we decided to make a forced landing in a grain field. Everyone, except the pilots and the flight engineer, took positions for an emergency landing in the radio room. The wheels up landing was perfect. I experienced worse commercial airline landings in Minneapolis later in my life! We disembarked thinking we were finally in Russia. We sat around, put our pistols together, and lit the cigars I still had with me.

We didn’t wait long for the Russians. When they arrived, we stood up to greet them. One of them approached me with a submachine gun. I was already smiling at him, but my smile faded when I saw the swastika on the “Russian” belt buckle. I thought we were about to die, because we were a bomber crew, and we had heard that people like us were shot on sight. The Germans surrounded us, and ordered us to raise our hands. I still had a cigar in my mouth. A German officer noticed this and joked that “capitalists smoke cigars even in war, but they don’t even have bread to eat.” He asked who the pilot was, and saluted Filer and congratulated him on the landing. He checked on the plane and was very pleased. He stated that the plane was repairable and would fly again. He then said that we were prisoners of war and that if we behaved like soldiers, we would be treated as such.”

The officers were later separated from the non-commissioned officers and sent to different camps. Filer described his traumatic experiences in captivity in great detail: “We arrived at Frankfurt Central Station just after a bombing had ended. A hostile crowd gathered around us, threatening to lynch us. It was so bad that a guard gave me his pistol and said, ‘Take this, it has nine bullets, keep the last one for yourself if things get out of control.’ Fortunately, we managed to escape unscathed. We went to Oberursel. Each of us was given our own room there. When we were done there we were told we would be taken to Breslau (Wrocław – author’s note). We were gathered in a large hall and our names were called out. All of them, except mine. I was taken back for questioning, but they learned nothing new from me.

The journey to Breslau was turbulent. First we took the train, then we had to walk along the tracks for several kilometers, then another train, and so on. Then we were put on a train to Stettin (Szczecin – author’s note). We spent three months in the camp in Barth (Stalag Luft I - author’s note). My duty there was to deliver coal to our room. I did my best, and we always had more than the other rooms. One day, we were told that Himmler wanted to organize a mass funeral for all the prisoners. I dug my own grave three times. Finally, this order was cancelled.

The Russians arrived with Marshal Zhukov. We continued living in the camp, but the Russians had removed all the barbed wire from the fence. We could go wherever we wanted. The Germans eagerly invited us to their homes, hoping that our presence would protect their women from Russian rapes. Finally, B-17s arrived and took us to Camp Lucky Strike in Rouen, France. There was plenty of bread for everyone, something we hadn’t seen in weeks. German prisoners were sharing it. When one of them made a comment there was no bread left, he was immediately killed. When I returned to the States, I weighed 99 pounds (just under 50 kilograms).”

Mark Anticola, Ernest Anticola’s son, wrote to me about his father’s memories of his time in captivity. This was his father’s 19th mission. Ernest was very worried about his parents when he got captured. He knew they would get a standard telegram with the words: “On behalf of the Secretary of War, I deeply regret that your son, Sergeant Ernest M. Anticola, was reported missing in action over Germany on December 26th. You will be informed immediately if further details or other information become available.” Ernest sent a POW postcard on January 5th to his father to tell him: “I have been taken prisoner in Germany. I am safe and sound. In a few days, I will be transferred to another camp. Do not write to me until you have my new address.“

Anticola didn’t stay long in the new camp, as the Allied ground forces were getting closer. Fleeing from the Russians, the Germans forced the prisoners on a long winter march. Many of them suffered from frostbite. Anticola luckily avoided this. He “only” lost 20 kilograms of body weight (his normal weight was 70 kg). The meals were very poor. They were usually “served” watery, tasteless potato soup and a piece of bread. Ernest Anticola and his fellow prisoners were liberated on April 29, 1945 by units of the 3rd US Army.

We do not know what happened to the B-17 “Candie”. It is very likely that Germans recovered and transported the plane out of Krakow. Otherwise we would have stories from the locals about a large, four-engine wreck. Germans must have moved the plane quickly, as it was gone by the time Soviets liberated Krakow on January 18th, 1945. Some people say the aircraft was cannibalized for spare parts for B-17s operated by KG200 (Kampfgeschwader 200 - a special operations Luftwaffe unit). Others claim that “Candie” was flown by KG200 and was shot down in March 1945 over Zuider-Zee by an American P-47. I have not seen any hard evidence for neither scenario. One thing remains certain - the Flying Fortress did her job, and protected the crew to the very end.

I would like to thank Mark Erickson, Bill Nassif’s cousin for the information he shared about Bill, and for giving permission to use photos of Bill. Also, big thanks go to Krzysztof Wielgus, who wrote the original story in “Skrzydlata Polska” in 1985, and later became a good friend and a fellow aviation history researcher.

Additional online resources:

• Analysis of documents related to Harry Filer’s crew, particularly the navigator’s log

• Bill Nassif’s story as written by Mark Erikson

• Bill Nassif telling his story in a video

• Alfred J Cryer (Co-pilot) photo

• Alfred J Cryer photo during training in the USA

A link to Part 1.

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Quite naturally, the unusual guest became the most popular destination for a walk that afternoon. Even though Germans kept the civilians away from the aircraft, it was still possible to see the big silver four-engine bird from up close. One person managed to secretly take pictures (Poles were not allowed to have cameras during Nazi occupation), and this is why we have photos showing this scene, and we know the number of the plane: B-17 #44-6337.

These photos were firstly published in 1985 in an aviation hobby magazine “Skrzydlata Polska” (“Winged Poland”). I was barely 14 then and I was soo excited reading this story. I cut it out, put in a special box where I kept cut out pictures of planes, and always remembered it. Ten-ish years later, when I started doing the aviation history research, this B-17 became the third American plane in Poland I researched. Stories of the first two Fortresses are here on Substack already: “The Ghost Flying Fortress”, and “From An American Airman to Polish Home Army Partisan”.

My initial contact regarding the B-17 #44-6337 was with the U.S. Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB. It was not very encouraging. In response to my inquiry, I only received a short note in July 1997 stating that the aircraft belonged to the 15th U.S. Air Force. I had better copies of the WWII photos which I had shared with the USAF Museum, but they did not allow for the identification of the geometric shape around the letter “Y,” so assigning this B-17 to a specific unit was impossible at this stage. The Museum kindly informed me that there was no hope of locating the crew after 50+ years.

As I am not easily discouraged, I sent a similar letter to the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell AFB. Their response could not have been more specific. They sent me a copy of the Missing Air Crew Report in short, MACR) of this aircraft. The document contained mission data, information about the aircraft, the crew, a brief description of the aircraft’s damage, and reports submitted by the airmen after their release from Nazi captivity. This was a significant step towards solving the mystery.

It became clear the B-17 belonged to the 301st Bomb Group and had landed in Krakow after bombing the Blechhammer South target – the IG Farben synthetic fuel plant in Upper Silesia. The aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire shortly after dropping bombs. Engine number 4 was hit and started to smoke. The bomber began losing altitude and fell further and further behind the main American formation. At 12:50pm, between Rybnik and Wodzisław, it was reported that the damaged aircraft was seen last, and it was heading east. The crew hoped to land in Russian-held territory.

As we already know, they did not make it. The MACR included a note produced on December 26th at 6:30pm at the Luftwaffe base headquarters in Kraków. It stated that the crew had been captured by the 51st Motorized Gendarmerie Unit at 1:00pm that day in Kobierzyn (a district of Kraków). Both MACR time of 12:50pm and the capture time of 1:00pm must have been approximate as the distance from Rybnik to Krakow is about 60 miles (100 km), so impossible to fly over 10 minutes time.

The bomber’s crew consisted of pilot 1/Lt. Harry Filer, co-pilot 2/Lt. Alfred Cryer, navigator 2/Lt. Gilbert Nesch, bombardier (togglier) T/Sgt. William Nassif, flight engineer T/Sgt. Ernest Anticola, radio operator T/Sgt. Earle Cochrane, bottom gunner S/Sgt. Edward Codo, side gunners S/Sgt. Phillip Shlom, S/Sgt. Franklin Elmen, tail gunner S/Sgt. Patrick Hicks. The plane’s proper name was “Candie”. The MACR lists it as “Kandy,” but an eyewitness to the landing saw the word “Candie,” and this version is more credible.

I wanted to know more, so the next step was to contact the surviving crew members. All I had to do was to obtain the airmen’s addresses, question them about the mission, request photos, publish the article, and the story would be closed. You can imagine my disappointment when it turned out that none of the airmen belonged to any veterans’ association, and there was noone who could provide me with their addresses. Thus, the prospect of obtaining answers to my decades-old questions receded into a hazy, indefinite future. I lost hope of reaching the surviving crew members and, discouraged, shelved the matter.

Some time later, I experienced a revelation. I remembered that I once had managed to find someone by using something very very new, online search engines! I sat down at my computer and started searching. In most cases, the results were lists of addresses for dozens of people with the same name. Other times, the internet yielded no data at all. In the end, I sent letters to a dozen of people, hoping for at least one match. A few weeks later, I received a letter from Earl Cochrane’s son-in-law. I felt so excited! The Cochrane I found was indeed a World War II veteran. I was thrilled - I found the guy! The letter continued, revealing that... this Earl Cochrane had served in the infantry, in the Philippines. So, this Cochrane wasn’t my Cochrane.

But, the biblical “seek and ye shall find” eventually worked once again. The pilot, Harry Filer, and a son of the flight engineer, Ernest Anticola, responded. Encouraged, I decided to search for more members of this B-17 crew, using the US Veterans Administration. I received confirmation from them that several of the veterans I was looking for were listed in their databases, and they said I could send them short letters through the VA, which I did.

Harry Filer was able to share information about the landing near Krakow with me. He recorded a cassette tape for me. The recording quality and Filer’s accent made it difficult for me to understand his story, and it was only in 2001 when an American friend transcribed the recording for me.

Here is Harry’s story: “Only one gunner of my original crew was with me on board of the “Candie” on December 26, 1944. For the co-pilot, Cryer, this raid on Blechhammer South was his first mission. The sky over Blechhammer was clear and shining silver from hundreds of American planes. The 301st Bomb Group did not drop bombs on the first run, because a formation of B-24s flew under them at that moment. So, our B-17s made a circle, and approached the target again. The propeller on our #3 engine was hit by shrapnel on the first run and we lost control of it. We were unable to feather it or control its speed. The hope that the propeller would fall off on its own did not materialize. “Candie” suffered a hit to #4 engine on the second run. The planes of the Group leader (Maj. Donald Ewing got to Mielec, Poland - author’s note) and his second-in-command (Lt. Ralph Kagi landed in Slovakia - author’s note) were also hit in their engines, and headed towards Russian-held territory. I radioed the pilots of both planes to slow down so I could join them. However, they had three working engines compared to my two, and I was left to my own devices and my crew very soon. As we moved eastward, the bombing spectacle at Blechhammer was still going on. The hits must have been serious and impressive – a column of thick smoke rose to an altitude of 20,000 feet (8,000 m – author’s note).“ The American post-strike analysis concluded that the main facilities of the plant were hit, but Luftwaffe headquarters assessed the damage as minor. This mission was not the best for the 301st BG: three machines were lost (Filer, Ewing, Kagi) and their bombs fell 1 km west of the target area.

Filer continued: “We flew east at minimal speed, and it soon became clear we wouldn’t reach the front line. I circled over Krakow, and we were fired upon by small arms fire. I chose a grain field for a belly landing. It was a good one as noone was hurt. When I left the plane, I used the fire of the #4 engine to burn all the documents I had. I realized at some point we were between two groups of people. There was a group of Polish civilians in front of me, and Germans and their reconnaissance vehicles were behind me. We raised our hands, and the Germans took us away.

We were taken to a building where I was interrogated. I gave only my name, rank, and registration number. All conversations were in English, as none of us spoke German or Polish. We were then taken to another room with several German officers. None of them spoke English. One of them tried to shoot our sergeant, Shlom, because Shlom was Jewish. I was still responsible for the safety of my men, so I stood between Shlom and the German, defending Shlom. Then the situation got worse when one of the Germans tried to take a signet ring from my flight engineer. He refused, and the German became angry. Since the German was smaller than me, I grabbed his hand to prevent him from drawing his pistol. At that moment, another officer, who spoke English, arrived. He asked what was going on, and I replied that someone was trying to shoot one of my men. The German then advised me not to let Shlom out of my sight.

We were taken to the second floor of the officers’ club, where we were to spend the night. I woke up at night and noticed our guard was sleeping. I went out to check how we could escape. I concluded this was not possible as we were on the upper floor, and there were ten of us, so someone would definitely notice our attempt. I returned to the crew and woke up the guard. He was so grateful that he taught me how to disassemble and reassemble his Luger pistol.

The next day was quiet. We were given Christmas leftovers to eat. A Polish man, about 35, appeared in the evening, and told me we would be liberated the following night. We were all delighted with the news. I am grateful to this man to this day, although we were taken to a train and left Krakow for Frankfurt am Main the next day. There was a central interrogation center for downed airmen at Oberursel near Frankfurt, and all prisoners were sent there before being transferred to POW camps.

Click here to proceed to Part 2.

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The link to Part 1.

In the previous part of this article, we presented the stories of four American aircraft with names related to popular music or entertainment hits from World War II. We continue these stories by presenting profiles of other aircraft named by their crews after films or songs, and which appeared on Polish skies in 1944 and 1945.

I’ll Be Seeing You/’Till We Meet Again

September 18, 1944, was a day long awaited by the people of Warsaw, as they were fighting the Warsaw Rising since August 1st. After weeks of preparation and multiple delays, a large daylight supply drop for the Rising was successfully completed. The mission was carried out by 110 B-17 Flying Fortresses belonging to the 95th, 100th, and 390th Bomb Groups of the 8th Air Force.

The route ran across the North Sea, crossed Denmark, and continued to the Baltic Sea. The formation turned toward Poland south of Bornholm Island, heading for Toruń. Just outside Warsaw, near Nasielsk, an engagement with German fighters occurred. The Luftwaffe lost four aircraft, while the Americans lost two Mustangs, and one Flying Fortress. That B-17 was from the 390th Bomb Group, and it was named „I’ll Be Seeing You/‚Till We Meet Again”. The bomber crashed near Dziekanów Leśny, northwest of Warsaw. Seven young airmen died in the crash, and three parachuted to safety. One of the survivors was killed by German soldiers soon after landing.

“I’ll Be Seeing You” was a major Broadway hit in 1938. The song was particularly popular during World War II, when its profound and wistful lyrics made it an anthem dedicated to soldiers fighting far away from home. The song found its way into the repertoire of many famous artists, from Frank Sinatra to modern artists like Rod Stewart and Iggy Pop. “I’ll Be Seeing You” was also the title of a 1944 film starring Ginger Rogers and Shirley Temple. “Till We Meet Again” was the title of numerous films, including those from 1940 and 1944.

Click here to listen to „I’ll be seeing you” by Billie Holiday on YouTube.

The September 18, 1944, airdrop was big – approximately 1,250 containers (each carrying 100 kg of supplies). Unfortunately, due to the high altitude of the drop and the already limited area controlled by the insurgents, only 25-30% of the supplies ended up in the hands of Polish soldiers. Without continued operations like these, the Rising had no chance of success. Two weeks later, Warsaw surrendered.

Nevertheless, the assistance of the American air force was important, and it boosted the morale of the insurgents. Therefore, on September 28, at Horham Air Force Base in the United Kingdom, the commanders of the American units participating in this mission received high military decorations from the Polish Commander-in-Chief, General Sosnkowski.

Lady Be Good

More and more American aircraft appeared in Polish territories from summer 1944, but no longer because of missions to targets in Poland. The USA made arrangements with Soviet Union to allow damaged aircraft to land at Soviet-designated airfields. In such cases, the aircraft and crews were then directed to three airfields near Poltava, Ukraine, which were leased from the Russians by the US Army Air Force. From there, they continued via Iran, Egypt, and Italy to their home bases. This arrangement was very convenient for the Americans, as it significantly reduced losses. This option was frequently used, as evidenced by the adventures of “Star Dust” and “Arkansas Traveler” described above.

The flights east did not always end well, as Soviet front-line units had various reactions to the arrival of US aircraft. There are known cases of American aircraft being shot down over Poland by Soviet fighter planes and anti-aircraft fire. American crews could also be taken for German spies upon landing, and only a panicked and quick display of the American flag and the fervent repetition of the word “Amerikanyets” caused the Russians to take fingers off the triggers of their submachine guns. That wasn’t always the end of the troubles, as the airmen were often treated as prisoners of war, and they were left at the mercy of local “komandirs” until Soviet higher command provided instructions what to do with these guests from the sky.

On March 18, 1945, the 8th Air Force launched an attack on Berlin. The target was heavily defended, and many bombers were damaged. The Soviet front lines were on the Oder River, just 60 kilometers from the German capital, so it’s no surprise that no less than 15 damaged American planes landed in Poland that day alone. Most landed close to the front lines, but two planes made it all the way to Warsaw, and one reached the airfield at Jasionka near Rzeszów in Eastern Poland. The bomber which landed in Rzeszów was a B-17 Flying Fortress from the 457th Bomb Group and was named “Lady Be Good.”

“Lady Be Good” is the title of George and Ira Gershwin’s 1924 hit. The song is known from the musical of the same name, which was performed on Broadway no fewer than 330 times, starring stars such as Fred and Adele Astaire. The song was also used in the 1941 film of the same name, and in 1947, its most famous recording, featuring Ella Fitzgerald, was made. From then on, the “Lady Be Good” song has been identified exclusively with this artist.

Click here to listen to Gershwin’s „Lady Be Good” on YouTube.

The B-17 “Lady Be Good” had a very interesting fate. The Russians, not without reason, allowed Americans to land on their territory. Many American aircraft were captured and assigned to the Soviet 45th Heavy Bomber Division – an experimental Soviet strategic bomber unit. “Lady Be Good” was the first Flying Fortress assigned to this division, and she the only B-17 later returned to the Americans. US diplomats generally did not claim the planes back, preferring to avoid conflict with Stalin since the Russians controlled the fate of thousands of Americans liberated from German camps by the Red Army. “Lady Be Good” returned to the US, but other B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators served with red stars on their wings until 1954. It that year, the Russians were able to produce their own Tu-4 strategic bombers, which, interestingly enough, were a rather unsuccessful illegal copy of the American B-29 Superfortress – but that’s another story.

No Name Jive

The Flying Fortress “No Name Jive” participated in the same raid on Berlin (March 18, 1945) as “Lady Be Good”. It belonged to the 390th Bomb Group and was piloted by 1st Lt. Richard C. Berryman. This crew was not as fortunate as the airmen of “Lady Be Good.” The aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft fire over the target, losing one engine. The tail gunner and both waist gunners were killed. The aircraft began to lose speed and left formation, but maintained a heading east. Berryman ordered the crew to jump, as he tried to keep the damaged aircraft flying long enough for everyone to leave. The aircraft entered a spin while some of the crew were still onboard. The pilot began his final fight for his life and that of his comrades. The crew managed to abandon the plane, but Berryman didn’t make it. His body was found in the wreckage. The final victim of this disaster was the radio operator, whose parachute was carried by the wind to a lake, and he drowned. His body was recovered three months later. The tragedy of these few young men was far from over. The survivors were captured by Russians and brutally treated, believed to be German paratroopers.

These dramatic events unfolded between Lubrza, Nowa Wioska, and Bucze, several kilometers west of Świebodzin. A monument commemorating this tragedy stands in Bucze today. The radio operator was disinterred after the war, but his former grave in Nowa Wioska has been maintained, and even renovated in 2011.

“No Name Jive” was one of the most famous swing hits by Glen Gray’s Casa Loma Orchestra. Other hits included “Casa Loma Stomp” and “Maniac’s Ball.” The Casa Loma Orchestra was one of the most popular dance music orchestras in the United States from 1927 to 1963. The best years were 1929-1935. The orchestra’s success led to a massive outpouring of competing orchestras, and the Casa Loma Orchestra lost its position. It’s likely that “No Name Jive” was one of the more familiar tunes for young Americans, and airmen danced to it during furlough, and listened to it on the radio at bases. This dynamic tune, like many others, provided a sense of normalcy during the brutal war and allowed them to dream of returning home.

Click here to listen to „No Name Jive” on YouTube.

Thanks to the Muzeum Armii Krajowej (Home Army Museum) in Krakow, Poland, Radio Krakow, and many smaller but dedicated institutions, these stories and many others have been made available to a wider audience. In 2011, an innovative aviation and history exhibition, showcasing musical themes from the 1940s, opened in the building of Radio Krakow. The exhibition was later displayed at the Home Army Museum in Krakow and here is the gallery:

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When we think of WWII, we think of horrors of war, but we also need to think about soldiers being young men who want to live their lives to the fullest, despite and perhaps because of the horrors they see every day. One of ways to express the desire for the “lightness of life” was giving song names to their aircraft…

All Meat No Potatoes

In 2001, I had the pleasure of accompanying John Ryan on a trip to Kędzierzyn-Koźle, following in the footsteps of his father who was shot down on July 7, 1944, over Blechhammer (today, Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Poland). John told me a lot about his father and his plane. I was intrigued by an unusual name of their B-24 Liberator from the 464th Bomb Group, which the crew had nicknamed “All Meat No Potatoes.” “All meat, no potatoes”? What kind of name was that? John only remembered that it came from the title of a song supposedly popular during the war.

Years later, “Uncle Google” helped me understand that “All that meat and no potatoes” was a rather rude 1940s term for an obese person, or — even more rude and even sexist — a term for a woman with a fantastic figure (”all that meat”) but small breasts (”no potatoes”). Jazz musician Thomas “Fats” Waller, unconcerned about these meanings, created a song in 1941 based on this phrase, and it quickly became a hit. Years later, Louis Armstrong recorded it himself. American airmen on the barren, sun-baked airfields of southern Italy longed for feminine charms, and the term “fat man” fit the bulky B-24 perfectly. (Some sarcastic people called B-24s the boxes in which B-17 Flying Fortresses were delivered.) It’s no surprise, then, that Lieutenant Ryan’s plane received the name it did.

This single story tells us that combat missions didn’t take place in a vacuum. Airmen of every nation, like their comrades on navy ships and in the trenches, eagerly sought oblivion and respite from the daily cruelty, horrors of war, stress, fear, and the sight of the wounded and the dying. Each side of the conflict organized entertainment for its soldiers to keep the morale up. The Germans had their Lili Marlene, the Soviets their “Vesolye Rebjata” (Happy Boys) band, and the Americans had Glenn Miller and a vast entertainment organization USO (United Service Organizations Inc.). Aircraft crews, in turn, loved to name their aircraft. And that’s how movie names and song titles found their way into European skies. Several stories of such aircraft are described in this article.

I wrote last year a Substack piece about the All Meat No Potatoes crew. Here is the link.

Click here to listen to Louis Armstrong’s „All that meat and no potatoes” on YouTube.

Ice Cold Katie

A B-24 Liberator from the 451st Bomb Group, nicknamed “Ice Cold Katie”participated in one of the last raids on synthetic fuel factories in Upper Silesia on December 17, 1944. This aircraft had served with this unit since its formation in the United States in 1943. In March, it was almost lost when a tire burst during takeoff and its landing gear collapsed. The aircraft blocked the runway so effectively that the 451st Bomb Group was forced to cancel its bombing mission. However, the B-24 was repaired and returned to service on August 20, just in time for missions to Kędzierzyn-Kozle (Blechhammer) and Zdzieszowice (Odertal). These missions were very risky and dangerous, as the targets were at the limit of the aircraft’s range. Any damage, any tiny malfunction, or any error in fuel consumption calculations meant a 100% guarantee not to make it back to base.

“Ice Cold Katie” bravely served her crew and performed her duty for the last time on December 17, 1944. Damaged by anti-aircraft fire over Odertal, she barely made it home. Airmen referred to such situations as “flying on a wing and a prayer.” Once again, ten young men owed their survival to an old, worn-out aircraft. But “Ice Cold Katie” did not survive. The damage was so severe that after this mission, she was removed from the unit’s roster.

The name “Ice Cold Katie” perfectly described the conditions inside the aircraft at an altitude of 8,000 meters (33000 feet). Only electrically heated suits protected the pilots from the minus 40-50 degree Celsius temperatures and the howling wind.

But “Ice Cold Katie” was also a pop hit. It was one of the songs from the 1943 musical “Thank Your Lucky Stars,” performed by Hattie McDaniel and Willie Best. The film was intended to help fund the war effort and featured many Warner Brothers stars. The musical was a huge hit, with one critic calling it “the loudest and most obscene of current musicals, but also the funniest.”

Click here to listen to the „Ice Cold Katie” song on YouTube.

Star Dust

The story of the B-17 Flying Fortress “Star Dust” deserves to be called an odyssey. The aircraft belonged to the 384th Bomb Group of the US 8th Air Force and participated in the raid on Berlin on February 3, 1945. It was piloted by Second Lieutenant George F. Ruckman.

The aircraft landed at the Toruń airfield in Poland after being damaged over the target. The Soviets took care of the crew, but it was not so clear what to do with these unexpected guests from the sky, especially because more Americans soon arrived in the vicinity. That same day, a Flying Fortress from the 490th Bomb Group landed in Reczyn (east of Płock) after the same mission. On February 14th, two P-51 Mustang fighters from the 78th Fighter Group, piloted by Lieutenants James S. Peterson, and Andrew R. Innocenzi, arrived at Inowrocław after a mission over Chemnitz.

It turned out that the Russians were unable to organize further transport quickly, so the Americans proposed to repair the “Star Dust” using parts from the B-17 that landed in Reczyn. The Soviets agreed, and a trip for the engines and landing gear was organized. In field conditions, without specialized equipment, the “Star Dust” engines were repaired and a wheel replaced. The aircraft was fit for further travel. She took off from Toruń with passengers on board: the crew of the B-17 from Reczyn and Lieutenant Peterson (one of the P-51 pilots). Lieutenant Innocenzi managed to repair his P-51 using parts from Peterson’s Mustang and continued his journey solo.

After a short stop at Poltava airfield in Ukraine, “Star Dust” arrived at the US 15th Air Force airfield in Foggia, Italy, on March 17, 1945, and was officially declared “Returned to Duty.” This happened almost seven weeks after its ill-fated mission to Berlin. After completing the final leg of its journey to its home base in Great Britain, the bomber served its crew until the end of the war.

“Star Dust” is also a unique song, composed in 1929, which has been recorded over 1,500 times and is considered the most frequently recorded American song of the 20th century (sic!). It was included in the repertoire of Louis Armstrong (1931), Frank Sinatra (1943), and Ringo Starr on his first solo album (1970) after the breakup of The Beatles. It was also recorded by Rod Stewart (2004) and Katie Melua (2005). Its title changed later to “Stardust”. It’s hard to imagine a party or radio show in the 1940s without this hit.

Click here to listen to Frank Sinatra’s „Stardust” on YouTube.

Arkansas Traveler

Musical themes weren’t exclusive to bombers, and they weren’t always associated with popular music. Major Henry H. Kirby, Jr. of the 355th Fighter Group flew over Poland at least twice. Once, he escorted Flying Fortresses that dropped supplies for the Warsaw Uprising on September 18, 1944. Kirby shot down a German fighter on that mission. Americans lost two Mustang fighter planes and the B-17 “I’ll Be Seeing You/Till We Meet Again” Flying Fortress in this air combat. This Flying Fortress will be presented in Part 2 of this article.

The other time we know that Major Kirby appeared over Poland in his P-51 occurred on March 15, 1945. On that day, over 500 Flying Fortresses and Liberators bombed the German command headquarters in Zossen, near Berlin, while another 600 B-17s attacked railway installations in Oranienburg. That day, Kirby’s Mustang was damaged, and he decided to fly east behind Soviet lines. We don’t know exactly where he landed, as American reports mention a location 8 kilometers west of the town of “Opochlio.” This location, or a similar one, has not yet been located – perhaps it was Opoczno.

We do know, however, that on March 15, 1945, another pilot from the 355th Fighter Group and the same squadron as Major Kirby, Lieutenant Jack H. Dressler, landed in Radom. In cases of fighter aircraft landing behind the Soviet front lines, the damaged aircraft was often escorted by another pilot. We don’t know for sure, but it seems very possible that both planes flew together and landed in the same area.

Major Kirby’s Mustang was named “Arkansas Traveler.” Kirby may have been from that state, as the song “The Arkansas Traveler” originated in the 19th century and was so popular there that it was the official state anthem of Arkansas from 1947 to 1963. But perhaps the name of the fighter plane has nothing to do with local patriotism. The melody of “The Arkansas Traveler” was frequently used in animated films in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly in the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes series. If we had a photo of the nose of Major Kirby’s Mustang, we could solve this mystery.

Click here to listen to „Arkansas Traveler” on YouTube.

Click here to go to Part 2

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This is the link to Part 1 of the story.

A few months later (still in 1998) I was sitting at my desk at work when a telephone rang. This was nothing unusual – very many people contact me by phone every day. But this caller was talking to me in great excitement that he had played as a child in “this aircraft”. At the very first moment I did not know what he was talking about. But suddenly a flash of understanding went through my mind. He must mean the Fortress that I research!

The caller, Henryk Jagielski, was a press retailer in Gdańsk and he glances through most of the magazine titles he sells. He told me he knew the bomber from his childhood when he had lived with his parents in Krotoszyn (mid way between Poznań and Wrocław). He could not confirm the aircraft markings although he remembered the letter Y on the tail. To be honest, I had mixed feelings about this news. On one hand this could have meant I have found the landing site and the B-17 flew 300 km without anybody at controls – which was a fascinating good news. On the other I had no guarantee this was ‘my’ Fortress. On March 14th 1945 the 8th Air Force bombed Oranienburg in Germany and on the following day Berlin was attacked. On both dates almost 50 American aircraft chose to land between Poznań and Wrocław behind the Russian lines. The caller’s aircraft could have been one of them and not necessarily the 44-6407.

Nevertheless I have decided to verify the information and to visit the landing site. Together with Michał Mucha, a fellow USAAF researcher, we took off for Krotoszyn on November 15th 1998. In the town we found the man Mr. Jagielski had directed us to but the man denied everything – our hearts were filled with doubt and hesitation. But we thought we had gone too far to give up and set off for the village Mr. Jagielski mentioned in his account. Since we knew nobody there we knocked at the first door and asked for people who could be old enough to remember the spring of 1945. Within several minutes we found an elderly lady. With excitement in our eyes we started asking her questions. To our disappointment she could not remember anything. Disappointed, we set up to leave her house. When we were at the doorstep she asked: “Are you looking for the large silver four motor aircraft that had landed behind the village?” YES!!! Finally we were on the right track! Apparently it took her some time to understand what we had meant. She explained us how to get to the landing site and directed us to Mr. Szubert who owned the field the B-17 had landed on.

Szubert was very surprised that there was anybody looking for this old story. We told him all we knew and our excitement was passed on to him. Szubert was a teenager in 1945. He could not remember the Fortress markings but was confident the bomber landed without crew – this made us feel closer to our objective. Our host went with us to the field where the landing took place and told us how the landing occurred: “The aircraft approached from the south-east. She hit the ground, bounced for a few hundred metres, slid on her belly, turned right and stopped.“ Moreover, Szubert gave us the address of his relative who was the first person who approached the B-17 after her landing.

The person was Henryk Zimniak, whom we visited in February 1999. He was very surprised that we wanted to talk of his childhood bomber. He shared his memories with us very gladly. In March 1945 Zimniak was just 17 years old. It was late in the day, sun was setting, when Zimniak heard a roar of engines. He ran out of the house like others did and saw a large aircraft descending from the east. The landing was just like Szubert told us previously.

For a few hours after the landing one engine was still running and the position lights were on. Three engines were with the propellers but the blades were bent. The engine without the propeller was burnt. Due to the ground being very moist the aircraft was not seriously damaged. The plexiglass nose was smashed in the landing and there was lots of mud in the aircraft.

Russian soldiers from the nearby military post set up a guard at the aircraft. They took the radiostation, gun locks and some other equipment. The guards were not very strict and allowed village boys to explore the wreck. The local villagers say lot of chocolate and other food was found in the bomber. After a few days the task of guarding the wreck was forwarded to the local civilian authorities.

Zimniak had very good access to the wreck as it laid in his uncle’s field who brought him up. Zimniak remembered that had found sandwiches in the aircraft tail turret. They tasted very good. He recalled the aircraft was still armed during Easter 1945. As the time passed by, local people began to ‘recycle’ the wreck. It laid in the field for three years and then Zimniak decided to get rid of it because they wanted to farm the whole field. Wings and engines were separated, fuselage was cut in three parts. There components were towed with horses to an unfarmed land nearby, someone took them later to a junkyard. The Fortress reminded of itself every year because each plow revealed metal parts, including gun ammunition that was handed over to the police. Components of the B-17 were used by the local farmers for a long time. The first house in the village that had electricity owed it to the equipment taken from the bomber. The last known remains of Miss BeHaven survived until 1998 when they were thrown away.

One of the most important issues in settling the aircraft identity was the presence of the crew. There were many gossips and legends, including the one the crew was secretly guided through all Germany by a secret organisation to the American forces. However no one admitted to have seen any airmen from the bomber. These gossips seem just to confirm that there was no crew – Mr. Zimniak says any capture by the Russian would have been noticed by the villagers.

Mr. Zimniak was the key person to confirm the aircraft had typical markings of the 301st Bomb Group. He remembers a letter „Y” and a digit „4” on her tail. The rudder was green. Mr. Zimniak confirms the aircraft was really combat weary – she wore a lot of pats and repair evidence.

The above findings seem to confirm the B-17 “Miss Bella” flew on auto-pilot for 300 km from Myślenice to Krotoszyn. Col. Adamiec, retired officer of the Polish Air Force confirmed an aircraft can fly such distance on auto-pilot provided there is enough fuel and no terrain obstacles. When I was back in Warsaw I found an e-mail in the mailbox from a 301st Bomb Group member who clarified the name of the bomber as „Miss BeHaven”. When I looked at the photo again, I found out what I had taken for double “l” was an “H” indeed. My happiness was endless. After 54 years I managed to achieve the impossible: the story was told to the very end with all details.

On July 1st 2000 there was a special reunion in Warsaw, Poland. Harold Whitbeck, Henryk Zimniak and myself met for a commemoration of Harold’s Polish adventure. Henryk made a gift to Harold and handed to him a 50. cal bullet, a pocket knife that was framed in B-17 skin metal and a piece of the B-17 part (unidentified). He also apologised for having eaten Harold’s lunch over half a century ago. 56 years after the landing and after 3 years of research the quest was complete.

In the meantime I had learnt there were more American aircraft in Poland than just Whitbeck’s Fortress. I have joined a team of Polish aviation history researchers in an effort to document the USAAF missions and losses to the targets in Poland. Today the database of the American aircraft crashed or landed in Poland includes hundreds of records.

This aviation adventure would have not finished so successfully without the support of very many people to whom I owe so much: 301st Bomb Group Association, Harold Whitbeck, Vince Gamal, Arthur Harris.

But the story was not finished yet! I got an email in 2006 from Mr Jany. He shared a family story He shared a family story about his father and brother having motorcycle rides to a bomber in Łąkociny in 1945. He also shared a family photo of two young men sitting on the fuselage of the plane, near the upper turret. We got another photo of the B-17!

This wasn’t the last part of this story, either. In 2014, a group of local history enthusiasts (including Michal Zimniak, a relative of Henryk Zimniak) reengaged with the B-17 story I had researched, and decided to find out what else remained of “Miss BeHaven.” They went out and found a lot! It turned out that a fairly large piece of fence on one farmer’s property was made of wing skin, and the American star was still visible! In the field where the remains of the plane were recovered, other interesting finds emerged, including engine parts. The culmination of this episode was another photo of a B-17 (shown earlier in this story), posing in a group of people dressed in their best. This photo shows the additional markings of the B-17 Miss Behaven, a colored nose ring. So far, we did not identify what color it was.

I am tempted to say that this is the end of the Miss Behaven story, but the above mentioned 2006 and 2014 epizodes suggest this story may not be over just yet :)

I would like to extend big thanks to the many people who made this story possible, in particular to Tadeusz Jany (who provided of the photos), Michal Zimniak (Henryk' Zimniak relative, and a local reporter), Sebastian Przybylski and Dariusz Sosinski (both associated with the ENIGMA historical association).

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During on of my ‘armchair aviation’ sessions (in the 1990s) I was attracted by a letter in a September 1996 issue of “Fly Past” magazine. A reader from Canada was looking for information on a B-17 that was photographed by his father in 1945. The unusual thing about the letter was that the landing site was suggested as Biała Podlaska in Poland. I have always thought the Forts had flown over Germany and Western Europe in general. This puzzle had to be solved.

As I never did any historical research before, a good question was where to begin. Fortunately, the internet was there and it proved to be the excellent tool for finding the presumably unfindable. I retrieved from the net an address to the USAF Museum in Wright-Patterson AFB and I sent a copy of the letter there. The response was both good and bad. The good thing was the photo was of good quality and it showed the Bomb Group insignia and a serial number (44-6407) - thus making the identification possible. The bad was the opinion of the archivist who wrote the reply. As a professional, he gave me a good advice to stop trying to research the B-17 history because “…there is no chance to find out the history after 50+ years…”. I was truly encouraged to prove he was wrong.

The black letter Y in a white square on a B-17 tail meant the aircraft had been from the 301st Bomb Group. The digit “4” and dark colour rudder (dark green, I learned later) indicated the 32nd Squadron of the above Bomb Group. I set on the search for contact to the 301st Bomb Group Veteran Association. The Internet proved its worth once again. The 301st BG Association sent me a list of the crew and a short information on the loss circumstances. At this time I got in contact with a British aviation fan, Arthur Harris (not that Arthur Harris ;) ) and we proceeded with the search together.

According to the official information the aircraft was lost during a mission to Komaron marshalling yards in Yugoslavia on March 14th 1945. The raid was part of the strategic support to the Russian forces who fought 20 km away from Komaron. We thought it was strange to fly a damaged bomber from Yugoslavia to Poland – Italy was much closer. On the other hand, many wartime documents had wrong names of places and wrong countries. We felt the target would have to be nearer Poland and tried to find Komaron on different maps. The more we looked for it the more it became evident there was no such place. We were in a dead end. But one day I received a photocopy of a map from Arthur where a large red circle was drawn around Komarom, a strategic Danube pass between Hungary and Slovakia. We felt this would be the true target – the name was very similar, a strategic place, the Red Army fought in Hungary at that time, Poland was much closer than Italy from that place. With time we managed to contact Hungarian aviation researchers who confirmed that Komarom had been bombed by the Americans on March 14th 1945. The Russians overrun the town two weeks later. A look into the official USAAF WW2 chronology settled this issue for good. One question was answered. But many more answers were still mystery…

It was most fortunate the 301st Bomb Group Association had among its members a tail gunner from the researched B-17. Unknown to me, the Association informed him of the research and one day I received a letter from Oregon, USA. The sender’s name was Harold Whitbeck, a tail gunner, who wrote: “...I was one of the crew of the B-17 number 44-6407 when it was abandoned over Poland on March 14th 1945....I have been wondering for fifty years what had happened to our aircraft after it had been put on auto-pilot and we had bailed out...“. It was a great excitement to read a letter from Harold. The Wright-Patterson archivist could be proud of me. The letter went on:

„The mission was the second in the tour for me. The fist one was uneventful. At breakfast we had dried eggs, coffee on milk and salted bacon. I was not very hungry and the food was blond and tasteless. The apprehension was encompassing me. At briefing it was all business. We listened to broadcast from Berlin and they indicated they knew we were coming. However they suspected the target was Regensburg. My trip to the aircraft was routine and my concern was the escape kit of forced down and the workability of my twin 50. Calibre machine guns. We took off sometime about 7:00-7:30 A.M. There was enough daylight to form squadrons easily. At take off all crew members were in their respective position. Me as tail gunner was there. At best I recall we were to fly right wing to the leader. It took approximately 4 hours after lift off to get to the target.

Over Komarom Flak was everywhere: before and during plus leaving the target area. It was just noiseless black puffs of smoke unless you were hit. The moment we were hit was very obvious as the flak is not heard unless it damages your aircraft. The impact was loud and the aircraft’s flight became very unregular. We lost #1, #2 was damaged as was #3. #4 was untouched. Also much of the nose was damaged and much more was removed in flight later on. This information was relayed to the rear and middle areas by the crew chief (upper turret) toggler (nose turret), pilot and co-pilot.

We decided to fly to Poland since we were trying to get away from German held territory and get into Russian held territory. It was better to be Russian captives as they were part of the Allied forces than to be POWs of the Axis. We were highly concerned about fire and explosion and failure of the engines #2 and #3 losing all power and #4 overheating and charring. To clear the German lines and not taken prisoners was of highest concern. It was “let the chaps fall where they may” but the Germans are not to get us. We may die first.

In briefing we knew where the front lines were. If we could actually see them would be doubtful or even identify them. It was “nip & tack” that we were over Russian held territory. The plane was becoming un-manageable & dangerous. The pilot gave the order to prepare for “bail-out”. We were never sure we were in Russian front lines until we were on the ground. We bailed out at approximately 1500-1800 feet to the best of my knowledge. It seemed less than that to me. Of the five in my area I was last to go. Officers other than the pilot followed within 10 seconds and than the “skipper” was last.

The countryside was rolling country with some steep pitches. There were buildings nearby. I remember a chapel and high steeple and hoped no one hang up. As the Russians believed that we may be the German paratroopers they were firing away. Which forced us to accilate and drop at a faster rate than we wished. This community had been taken in Russian custody for only a short time, and in the distance we could identify mortars and rifle shots and sometimes, a weapon of heavier calibre. When we were collected by the Soviet troops we were jailed overnight. We thought this was a hell of a way for the Russian to treat their allies.

After we were released a group assembled, some British & Canadians & given a guard to get us to the collecting point in Odessa, Russia the best way we could. One interesting incident happened in a tavern where I met a Russian fighter pilot named George. He said, “my name is George” That was the extent of his English. Anyway he had a pistol & fired a shot in the ceiling as a toast to Stalin, then one for Churchill and a final shot for Roosevelt. He had been shot down nine times and was physically and mentally gone. I often wondered what happened to him. We travelled to Odessa by truck, horseback, afoot and 180 km ride with George after he took the radio from his plane to make room for me.”

With the receiving of the letter I thought my research would be over. A nice quick and clean job! But when I read the letter over and over again I found out the questions didn’t disappear but grew in numbers! The aircraft from the photo seemed to have belly-landed. But Whitbeck said they all bailed out! Did the Fortress land without anybody on board? When I received a letter from another gunner of the same crew, I was sure - the answer was YES.

This was an electrifying news. The next step seemed obvious – since the crew bail out, the aircraft landing location had to be found. Finding the place where the crew landed was relatively simple. The already mentioned another crew member of the B-17 44-6407, Vince Gamal waist gunner, wrote in his letter the name of the town they had landed near. The name that he wrote was MISLENEECHA which, when read aloud made it clear it had meant Myślenice, a town south of Kraków. (Two years later, during an airshow in Góraszka near Warsaw, Poland, I met a man who lived in Myślenice. He told me his parents remembered airmen bailing out from an American bomber in spring 1945.)

The second part was more difficult – where did the bomber go down? I checked with a local museum in Biała Podlaska for a shot-down American aircraft but they had only one record of a B-17. It was a bomber shot down by German fighters on June 21st 1944 during a shuttle mission to Russia. Interesting, but this was not ‘my’ Fortress. I wrote letters to all local museums in the area but without response. In this situation the only reasonable solution was to contact the owner of the photo from the “Fly Past”. Again, the Internet helped me and soon I had an address of the sought person. Within a few weeks, I received a response from Canada.

I was really excited! Finally all questions will be received and I was bound to unsolve the WW2 mystery! With hands shaking from the excitement I torn the envelope open. And I was stunned… Michal Kuczewski, the photo owner, wrote in this letter his father had taken the photo and never told of the location before he had passed away. Mr. Kuczewski senior lived in the wartime near Biała Podlaska and was active in the resistance activities. When the Russians overran the area he lived in – he decided to flee to Lublin because the Soviet secret police (NKWD) began arresting the resistance people and sending them to Siberia concentration camps. In Lublin he joined a group of people whose task was to determine the aircraft production possibilities in the liberated Poland – in preparation to the rebuilding of the Polish economy. He travelled a lot – all over Poland and the photo was taken during one of such trips. So the photo could have been taken at any place – the area was not even restricted to Biała Podlaska vicinity! I was devastated. I was fed up with historical research and never wanted to hear of it again.

Several days later, when I recovered from this shock, I thought I would not give up so easily. The only chance would be in publishing what I found out so far in a Polish aviation magazine. I hoped someone would respond. I approached a “Przegląd Lotniczy – Aviation Revue” magazine and the story was published in July 1998. There was nothing else I could do but wait…

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The next step in Folland’s design career was the famous Gloster Gladiator. Folland repurposed the Gauntlet’s robust metal-spar structure, fabric-covered wings, and Bristol Mercury radial engine (upgraded to 840 hp IX variant). This is how the SS.37 prototype was built to meet Air Ministry Specification F.7/30 of 1931. This avoided starting from scratch, accelerating development from Gauntlet production lines.

Key changes included converting from two-seat army cooperation to single-seat interceptor: single-bay wings (removing two interplane struts for 10-15 mph speed gain), four .303 guns (two fuselage Vickers, two wing Brownings), Dowty cantilever undercarriage with spats, and an optional enclosed cockpit. The cruciform tail and adjustable incidence enhanced stability. Once the competition was won, Gloster shifted Gauntlet tooling directly to Gladiators in 1937, enabling rapid output of over 750 units for RAF service. The Gloster Gladiator was the RAF’s last production biplane fighter, and the first British biplane with an enclosed cockpit option. Gloster Gladiator saw service in early WWII, and was quickly replaced in the RAF by Hurricanes and Spitfires.

Back in the 1920s, if you wanted to sell fighter planes, you had to show what you can do. Today we have the Red Bull racing, back then they had the Schneider Trophy. Jacques Schneider, a French financier and aircraft enthusiast, announced the competition in 1912. Only seaplanes could take part, and the designers did their best to build machines to achieve higher and higher speeds. The streamlined shape and the low drag, liquid-cooled engine pioneered by Schneider Trophy designs are obvious in the British Supermarine Spitfire, the American North American P-51 Mustang, and the Italian Macchi C.202 Folgore.

Henry Folland built seaplanes for the Schneider Trophy 1924 and - after that one got cancelled - the 1925 edition. Gloster III came second in the race, after an American made Curtiss R3C, piloted by Lt. James Doolittle. Yes, it was THE James Doolittle who flew the famous Tokyo raid in 1942.

The Schneider Trophy was permanently won by the United Kingdom in 1931, following three consecutive wins by seaplanes built by Supermarine, the later maker of the Spitfire.

The Gladiator was the last aircraft Folland designed for Gloster, as the company had been bought by Hawker in 1934. While Gloster was allowed to continue with the Gladiator, Folland felt his autonomy as chief designer would be curtailed under Hawker management, which favored Sydney Camm’s monoplane designs like the Hurricane over his biplane fighters. He sought independence to pursue his own ideas without interference. Also, as he explained it to one of his friends: “I have worked and made money for other people all my life. Now I am going to do it for myself.” His departure from Gloster came as a big surprise and a loss, as he was held in real affection by all who worked with him. He liked people, and he was very proud to know first names of each and every Gloster employee.

He left Gloster in January 1937, and acquired British Marine Aircraft at Hamble, Southampton, renaming it Folland Aircraft Ltd. on December 24, 1937. During WWII, the company focused on subcontracting, producing 15,000 Spitfire rear fuselages, parts for Blenheims, Beauforts, Mosquitos, and Wellingtons.

Folland Aircraft’s first original design, the Fo.108 “Frightful” engine testbed, flew in 1940 with 12 built to Air Ministry spec 43/37. This large low-wing monoplane accommodated a pilot and two observers in a glazed cockpit/cabin for in-flight engine data collection, testing powerplants up to 2,300+ hp like Bristol Centaurus, Napier Sabre, Hercules, and Rolls-Royce Griffon via a modular nose adapter. Its size (58 ft span, 16,000 lb gross) and handling quirks led to five crashes, earning its ominous nickname – “Frightful”.​

In 1950, W.E.W. Petter joined as chief engineer and deputy managing director. In July 1951, he succeeded Henry Folland as managing director. Folland resigned because of severe health issues, but he remained on the Board until his death on 4 September 1954.

Under Petter’s management, the company designed the Folland Midge (Fo.139) which world’s first lightweight jet fighter prototype, proving the viability of compact, low-cost combat aircraft in the 1950s.

Folland Midge challenged the era’s trend toward large, expensive jets like the Hawker Hunter. At just 4,500 lb gross weight with a 20 ft 8 in swept-wing span, it used an underpowered 1,640 lbf Armstrong Siddeley Viper 101 turbojet yet broke Mach 1 in a dive. Highly agile with 600 mph level speed and 40,000 ft ceiling, it impressed evaluators from Canada, India, and the US.

Folland Midge was further developed, and resulted in Folland Gnat. Approximately 450 Folland Gnats were built in total, with most entering operational service. RAF aerobatic team “Yellowjacks” (later rebranded to “Red Arrows”) flew Gnats until 1979, when they changed to Bae Systems Hawk trainers.

Hawker Siddeley acquired Folland Aircraft in 1959, phasing out the name by 1963. It was later integrated into British Aerospace.

The Folland Aircraft location still serves the aviation industry as of 2025. Hamble Aerostructures operate there, and the house Folland bought and lived in (Sydney Lodge) still stands at the company premises. The gate guardian is a Folland Gnat in the Red Arrows colors.

If you want to know more about Henry Folland, here is a book by Derek N. James.

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One of the nicest things about your passion is that when you talk to friends about it, they can come to you with a new story that can captivate you. This is such a case. Hearing about my hobby, a work colleague of mine admitted Henry Folland was his grand grandfather. Henry Folland was a very successful British aircraft designer. His work included two iconic aircraft: WWI fighter RAF SE5, and the WWII-era Gloster Gladiator!

I told my friend: good! I will write a story about him for my substack! And here it is. 😊

Henry Folland developed his interest in aircraft design gradually, as his early engineering work drew him closer to powered flight. Born in 1889, he left school at 13 and entered the motor industry, becoming an apprentice at the Lanchester Motor Company in Birmingham in 1905, where he gained a solid grounding in mechanical engineering and design. He then joined the design staff at the Swift Motor Company, continuing to work on automobiles and refining his skills in drafting and practical engineering.

The decisive turning point came when he moved to the Daimler Company as a draughtsman in 1908. (The British Daimler Company was founded to use Gottlieb Daimler’s engine designs and the Daimler name in the UK under license from the German Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG), but it was a separate firm.) Daimler was beginning to explore powered flying machines, and exposure to this new technology shifted Folland’s enthusiasm from cars to aircraft. Working amid early experiments in aviation awakened a fascination with the possibilities of flight, encouraging him to see aircraft as the next frontier for his design abilities.​

Henry Folland joined the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough in March 1912 as a section leader. At Farnborough he first assisted senior designer Geoffrey de Havilland on types such as the B.E.2 and R.E.1, quickly proving his skill in structural design and practical problem-solving.

His aptitude led to responsibility for his own projects, notably the high-speed scout S.E.4 and later major involvement in the S.E.5 fighter, where he emerged as the leading design figure. Contemporary accounts and later biographies describe him as “lead designer” on these key types, reflecting how, by the mid-war years, he was effectively acting as chief designer on principal Royal Aircraft Factory fighters, even if the Factory’s formal hierarchy still used titles such as section leader or lead designer rather than a modern “chief designer” designation.

Henry Folland played the leading role in conceiving, designing, and refining the Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.4 as an advanced high-speed scout just before the First World War. In April 1913 he began work on a high-speed derivative of the earlier S.E.2, first sketched as the S.E.3, but this evolved into the more radical S.E.4, specifically intended to challenge world speed records and push the limits of performance.

As chief designer, Folland introduced a series of innovative aerodynamic features to minimize drag and maximize speed. These included a closely cowled 14-cylinder Gnome rotary engine, a carefully streamlined wooden fuselage, and single “I” (or T-type) interplane struts to reduce drag compared with conventional bracing. He also incorporated full-span control surfaces on both upper and lower wings that could act either as ailerons or, when deflected together, as camber-changing flaps, demonstrating his interest in variable-camber wings for both speed and landing performance.

Under Folland’s direction, the S.E.4 reached about 135 mph in 1914, making it arguably the fastest aeroplane in the world at that time, even though only a single prototype was built and it never entered service.

Henry Folland was one of the principal designers responsible for shaping the Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 into one of the outstanding British fighters of the First World War. Working at Farnborough in 1916, he led a small team, including John Kenworthy and test pilot Major Frank Goodden, to turn the new 150 hp Hispano-Suiza engine into a robust, fast, and pilot-friendly single-seat fighter.

Folland’s contribution lay in balancing stability, strength, and performance. He adopted a relatively deep, “boxy” fuselage, strong wooden structure, and generous wing area with broad-chord ailerons on all four wings, giving the S.E.5 excellent controllability and roll response without the vicious handling of some contemporaries. The staggered wings and marked dihedral provided inherent stability, making the aircraft a steady gun platform and easing pilot workload in combat.

He also integrated a powerful twin-gun armament: a synchronized Vickers gun in the fuselage and a Lewis gun on a Foster mounting above the wing, allowing both straightforward forward fire and high-angle attacks. Through this combination of layout, structure, and armament, Folland’s design work produced a fighter that was fast, strong, and forgiving, widely regarded as one of Britain’s finest war-time aircraft, frequently referred to as the “Spitfire of World War One”.

One very interesting and an extremely innovative project Henry Folland was involved in was designing and building some of world’s first UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). Britain developed UAVs during World War I primarily to counter the threat of German Zeppelin airship raids bombing London and other cities. The UAVs were officially referred to as Aerial Target (AT) drones (to confuse the enemy) and were conceived as radio-controlled flying bombs to intercept and destroy dirigibles without risking pilots.

The Ruston Proctor “drone” was one of these UAVs. It was a small wooden aircraft built in 1916–1917 and guided by Archibald Low’s early radio-control system to act as a flying bomb, intended to ram enemy Zeppelins or other targets while carrying an explosive charge. Tests in 1917 showed that it could fly under radio control, making it one of the first powered unmanned aircraft in history, though it never saw operational combat use.

Henry Folland’s key contribution to the Ruston Proctor “drone” was the design of the pilotless aircraft. He created a small wooden monoplane airframe at the Royal Aircraft Factory, powered by an ABC Gnat engine. Folland’s design provided the aerodynamic and structural platform on which Archibald Low’s experimental radio-control equipment could be installed.

Here is an interesting article about the Aerial Target by an Ukrainian engineer.

Disgruntled with RAF organization in October 1917, Folland left this company to become chief designer at Nieuport, creating the Nighthawk fighter. When Nieuport ceased operations in 1920, Gloster — having built Nighthawks under license — hired him in 1921 as chief designer. There he developed key interwar fighters like the Grebe, Gamecock, Gauntlet, and Gladiator.

The Gloster Grebe was the Royal Air Force’s first post-WWI fighter, entering service in 1923 and replacing the Sopwith Snipe (a WWI time design). Grebe featured an innovative sesquiplane layout with a thick high-lift upper wing for superior takeoff performance and a thinner lower wing for reduced drag, achieving 152 mph top speed with the 400 hp Armstrong Siddeley Jaguar IV radial engine. Its wooden construction, fabric covering, and single-bay wings with overhangs made it agile and popular with pilots. Despite wing flutter issues (fixed with Vee-struts) and Jaguar engine unreliability, 133 were built.

The Gloster Gamecock was a direct evolution of the Gloster Grebe, refined by Henry Folland to address key flaws while retaining its agile sesquiplane layout. Gamecock adopted the more reliable Bristol Jupiter VI radial engine (425 hp), boosting top speed to 155 mph from Grebe’s 152 mph and improving climb rate. ​

Vee-shaped struts braced the upper wing overhangs, eliminating Grebe’s dangerous wing flutter at high speeds; the fuselage gained steel reinforcements for strength. Twin Vickers guns were mounted internally within the upper wing for better streamlining and protection, unlike Grebe’s exposed external setup. Later Mk II variants featured a longer upper wing and revised tail for enhanced stability. Overall, these changes made Gamecock more robust and service-ready, with 240 built.

Gamecock evolved into Gloster Gauntlet, which became the RAF’s last open-cockpit biplane fighter and one of the fastest of its type, achieving 230 mph with the Bristol Mercury VI engine. Gauntlet outperformed contemporaries like the Bristol Bulldog by 90 km/h, reaching 20,000 ft in under 10 minutes and a service ceiling of 33,500 ft, thanks to refined aerodynamics and a lightweight metal-spar structure. ​

Henry Folland’s single-bay sesquiplane layout with cruciform tail enhanced stability and aerobatics. The Gauntlet featured twin synchronized Vickers guns, short takeoff (under 100 yards), and gentle 50 mph landing speed, ideal for overseas bases. Over 220 built from 1934, and it equipped 14 squadrons.

Which aircraft will open the second part of this story, you can already start making guesses. :)

Meanwhile, the paying supporters on BuyMeACoffee can read how I used AI to research and write this story. Enjoy!

Continue to Part 2

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Co-written with Peter van Kaathoven.

This is the link to the first part of this story.

In the East, a Zerlegebetrieb was organized near the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in late 1943. Like any other similar facility, the ZLB Auschwitz was staffed and managed by the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe rented slave labour from the Auschwitz camps (prisoners had to walk every day from and to the Birkenau camp), and hired SS guards from there, too. The ZLB was expanded in March of 1944 when prisoners had to build accommodation barracks for the Luftwaffe personnel. The Luftwaffe had only a canteen onsite up to that time.

The Luftwaffe made some very minor concessions towards the prisoners. For example, Luftwaffe did not allow work in the ZLB if temperatures dropped below -15 Celcius. The attitude of Luftwaffe soldiers towards prisoners was more relaxed than that of the SS guards, with many known cases of sharing food with prisoners, or helping to send letters. The Luftwaffe also reprimanded the SS several times for brutality against the prisoners. One post-war prisoner statement mentions a Luftwaffe Gefreiter (corporal) Vogler who was a decent man, and liked talking to the prisoners. Vogler’s family died in Germany during an allied bombing raid. Other Luftwaffe personnel would sometimes leave food under metal sheets, and then secretly point these out to prisoners. Some of the Luftwaffe staff could still have a bad reputation, like the main engineer of the ZLB, a major of the Luftwaffe, who was known of beating prisoners with a thick aluminium pipe. From the SS personnel, prisoners remembered Unterscharfuhrer Schulz who was a Kommandofuhrer. He had a passion for knocking-out prisoners in a boxing fashion. Others, like another SS-Kommandofuehrer, cared more about booze than discipline.

The way of working was similar to that in ZLB Herzogenbusch or ZLB Utrecht, with a dedicated rail siding leading into the facility, separate piles of aircraft wreckage for scrapping or reuse, narrow gauge rail tracks used to push carts with equipment into wooden workshops where further disassembly or repair for reuse was performed. The prisoners assigned to the work were Soviet prisoners of war and Polish inmates of the concentration camp Auschwitz I. The work was performed in two shifts of 1300-1400 people each. These shifts were divided into companies of 100 men, with one commander (Kapo) and 10 deputies (Vorarbeiter). Some companies were assigned to chop aircraft into smaller sections, some worked on removing cables, others removed machines guns, or engines. All wreckage were piled up in two groups: for melting, and for further recycling.

The death rate was very high due to hard labor. The prisoners were being killed by kapos and the SS-men, died due to emaciation and because of accidents that would happen during work. Working outside made many prisoners sick, and the SS conducted so called “selections” on Saturdays, when they determined who was still fit to work and who would be killed in a gas chamber.

A fragment of testimony by Władysław Szmyt, a Polish-Roma and former Auzchwitz inmate number 150321:
“On September 14, 1943, I was brought to Auschwitz on a transport from Radom. At the camp I received the prisoner number 150321. They wrote down my first and last name, date and place of birth, and then the above-mentioned number was tattooed on my left arm. I did not work for about two weeks, as it was said – I was in the camp, but I was in quarantine. We were taught how to line up in fives, remove and put our caps back on when ordered to do so, and sing German songs. I also had to learn my prisoner number in German very quickly. During the quarantine, the SS and Kapos tormented prisoners with hours of aerobic exercise, so-called sport. I was badly beaten up many times. Next, I was transferred to the men’s camp, section BIId in Birkenau. I soon started work in the Zerlegebetriebe Komando. The work was relatively good there and we were not punished with beatings very often. As I mentioned before, they put me into sector BIId, next to the Zigeunerlager. Many members of my family were there in the Zigeunerlager: my sister, daughter, brother-in-law, and several of my male and female cousins. I managed to talk with my sister or brother-in-law through the barbed wires often. However, this did not last long. Soon, along with my other brothers, all of them were murdered in the gas chamber.”

When dismantling the planes, the prisoners were able to find various things like money, food, medical kits, etc. They were able to trade them with the Luftwaffe soldiers and the fellow prisoners. The SS-men were well aware of this fact; therefore they would search the prisoners very often. The punishment for smuggling those things in the camp was being sent to the penal company. Some materials were used in a different way though as the resistance movement in the Auschwitz camp recognized ZLB as a source of supplies. Sometimes compasses were smuggled out of the ZLB – they could assist to those trying to escape. There were rumors that ammunition was smuggled out of ZLB, too.

Prisoners frequently tried to escape from the ZLB, hiding under the wreckage on outgoing train cars. Soviet prisoners attempted escapes almost daily. The Auschwitz Study Group recorded a story of a Polish prisoner of Auschwitz, who attempted an escape disguised as a Luftwaffe soldier. He bribed the German soldier with food and alcohol, but was eventually betrayed, captured, and sent to hard labor in the Auschwitz camp. The prisoner companion, a female prisoner working in the Luftwaffe canteen, was less lucky. The girl was sent to a penal company in Budy, where she died.

It was decided towards the end of 1944 that the ZLB Auschwitz will be moved west, further away from the advancing Soviets. Großkoschen in Brandenburg Was selected as the new location. The first transport of prisoners from ZLB Auschwitz arrived on November 11^th. The second and last transport arrived on January 1^st 1945. The camp in Großkoschen was evacuated on February 24^th, 1945.

The aircraft at ZLB Auschwitz seemed to come from all over Europe, as some survivors claim they could recognize aircraft types from Germany, UK, Soviet Union, France, United States, Croatia, or Romania. An archeological survey was conducted in 2023 because a new road was being planned in the direct vicinity. The survey revealed remains of unspent cal 50 ammunition (US made) and some ammunition used on Luftwaffe aircraft. American aircraft parts that were found came most probably from B-17 or B-24 aircraft. Other pieces could be attributed to a German Ju-87, Do-217, Ju-88, Ju-52, Bf-109, and Fw-190. Some Italian aircraft parts were found (SM 82), French (unknown aircraft types).

Postscriptum

As of 2025, the location of the SS concentration camp Vught (and the ZLB Herzogenbusch) is commemorated with the National Monument Kamp Vught (established in 1990). Parts of the rail line leading to the camp were restored in November 2016, and two old freight train cars were installed in May 2022 to remind of the tragic history of this place. Such train cars were used at the end of the war to transport prisoners to extermination camps in Poland.

The location of ZLB Auschwitz was used as a metal junkyard for many years after the World War Two. There are stories among Polish aviation enthusiasts about WWII aircraft wrecks lying there around even in the early 1980s. One of the stories is about a He 177 Greif wreck (none survived the WWII). Apparently, there were attempts to transfer it to the Polish Aviation Museum in Krakow, but no agreement was reached, and all the wrecks were finally scrapped. As of 2025, a recycling company is located at the previous ZLB premises.

The authors are expressing gratitude to the Auschwitz Study Group who kindly provided a lot of source materials and the camp gate photo, and directed to very useful further resources.

This is the link to the first part of this story.

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To summarize 2026 - we started end of May, and have 11 distinct stories on substack by now (including 4 big enough to be published in two parts). There are 88 regular subscribers, and the stories were visited and read 5200+ times this year!

The stories will continue in 2026, and will be published every three weeks, as I have as much fun writing them as you have fun reading 😊.

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Szymon’s Aviation History Substack

I am passionate about aviation history. I want to share my research through this substack. Enjoy! :)

We have sometimes have good discussions on whatsapp or in 121 exchanges, and it will be great to share these with others. 😊

Happy New Year 2026!

Szymon.

Co-written with Peter van Kaathoven.

The World War Two posed a lot of logistical and industrial challenges to the Nazi Germany. One of them was a constant shortage of aluminium and other non-ferrous metals, as the import was no longer possible. Looking for alternative sources, the Luftwaffe quickly realized a need to salvage and recycle shot down aircraft, both Axis and Allied.

Initially, the dismantling and recycling of wrecks happened at the Luftwaffe maintenance depots (Werftabteilung) in the Netherlands, at Deelen, Gilze-Rijen, Leeuwarden, and Schiphol. The salvage of wrecks was originally done by Luftwaffe teams assigned to the maintenance depots, which were later organized into salvage companies and battalions (Bergekompanien, Bergebataillone). Some work was subcontracted to civilian companies, too, but these were almost never tasked with working on Luftwaffe wrecks.

The first regular wreck disposal company (Zerlegebetrieb or ZLB) was set up in Utrecht at Cartesiusweg. The crew was around 80 workers, half of them Belgian contractors, and the other half being Dutch assigned by local labor agencies (so called Arbeidsinzets). Wrecks from all over Western Europe we brought here, and the transportation was convenient because of vicinity of railways and a water canal. The amount of aircraft wrecks grew and grew, and new capabilities to recycle were needed.

The concentration camp Vught seemed to be a convenient location, with a lot of slave labour available, mostly Dutch Jews. Major Jakob Mairitsch, the commander of the Zerlegebetrieb Utrecht visited the camp at the end of 1943, and the preparations for a new Zerlegebetrieb Herzogenbusch were set in motion. (The SS concentration camp was in Vught, and Hertogenbosch is the nearest bigger town. Germans renamed it to Herzogenbusch.)

A weekly report from Dec 20, 1943 indicated an initial German crew of one clerk, four non-commisioned officers, and 3 soldiers, equipped with 5 trucks, 1 personal car, 1 Krad with a trailer, 2 flat trailers, and a crane. This team was tasked with organizing the proper office and recycling facilities with the administration of the SS concentration camp. 20 toolboxes and 20 axes were ordered as tools for the SS concentration camp prisoners assigned to the Zerlegebetrieb.

A railway siding was built by camp prisoners in February and March of 1944, so that the train cars with wrecks could be brought into the camp. By April 1944, the facility was operational, and - together with other Zerlegebetrieben - changed the name to Rorück-Betrieb (most probably from Rohstoffrückgewinnung Betrieb - raw materials recovery facility). Camp Vught was abandoned by most of the German crew within two weeks before September 5th, 1944.

The work was organized into a transportation commando of approximately 150 men, who unloaded and loaded train cars, and the actual recycling commando, with approximately 500 people. The work was hard and manual, and prisoners got frequently injured. All valuable equipment was removed from wrecks, repaired, and reused. Parts made of valuable non-ferrous metals were removed, separated, and prepared for transportation. Remaining airframes were cut to smaller pieces with axes, and the reclaimed aluminium was sent to mills for melting.

Archival German documents and photos taken in the camp after the liberation allow to identify a few aircraft which were sent to the ZLB Herzogenbusch for disassembly:

B-24H, #42-95326, CT-P, 448BG/712BS - had engine trouble during a bombing mission to Bernburg, Germany on June 29th, 1944. Crash landed Wormerweg near Middenbeemster.

Spitfire LF.IX, MJ832/DN-T, 416 RAF Sqn - was shot down during a Ramrod mission on May 21st, 1944. The aircraft was hit by flak while strafing a train, and crash landed between Etelfay and Lignieres. The pilot, F/O. Sten T. Lundberg, was captured and became a prisoner of war.

Republic P-47D-10-RE Thunderbolt, #42-75141, CV-I, 359FG/368FS – The aircraft lost oil pressure. The pilot, 1st Lt. J.R. Pino, performed a belly-landing and was taken prisoner of war. The Thunderbolt was flying a bomber support operation to Germany, in support of the USAAF operation against Oschersleben, Sorau (Żary, Poland) and the Pölitz oil refinery at Police, Poland. The date was April 11th, 1944.

B-17G 42-31972, FO-F, “Gamecock”, 379BG/526BS - took part in the missions to Stettin (today Szczecin, Poland) on May 13th, 1944. The originally intended target was an aircraft factory in Poznan, occupied Poland, but bad weather made the bomber formation change plans to attack Stettin. The bomber was hit 12 minutes after dropping bombs. Engine #1 caught fire, and the aircraft left the formation. The pilot decided to perform an emergency landing in Denmark, near Eiland Funnen. The crew of 9 was captured by German soldiers. The aircraft was salvaged and transported to the ZLB Herzogenbusch. This website has another photo of this aircraft at ZLB Vught.

Further photos from ZLB Vught, taken after the camps liberation:

The second part of this story is focusing on a similar ZLB site located near the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

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Brazil was initially neutral in WWII, but in January 1942, under diplomatic and economic pressure from the United States, it severed relations with the Axis Powers. The next step was to declare war on the Third Reich and Italy in August 1942.

Brazilian Navy units fighting in the Atlantic and the 1st Division of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force operating in Italy participated in military operations. In October 1944, the 1st Fighter Group (1ş Grupo de Aviação de Caça), equipped with P-47D Thunderbolt aircraft arrived in Italy, too. It was assigned to the 350th Fighter Group of the 12th Air Force.

The Thunderbolt on display at the Sao Carlos museum is P-47D-25-RE #42-26760, which was restored in 2005 as a “B-5” (#42-29265) to honor the only veteran of the 1st Fighter Group to live in the Sao Paulo province (and near Sao Carlos), Fernando Correa da Rocha. It was in #42-29265 that Rocha flew most of his 75 missions.

The emblem of the 1st Fighter Group was an ostrich wearing a white cap typical of Brazilian pilots, holding a shield with the symbol of the Brazilian Air Force, and a rifle symbolizing the power of the eight Thunderbolt machine guns. Another symbol of Brazil in the emblem is the gold and green border. The motto “Senta a Pua” loosely translates to “Fight as hard as you can.”

The 1st Fighter Group, providing tactical air support to Allied ground forces from 11 November 1944 to May 1945, completed 2,550 sorties in 445 missions and logged 5,465 flight hours.

The TAM Museum, also known as the “Wings of Dreams” Museum (Museu Asas de um Sonho), opened in 2006. Its expansion between 2008 and 2010 allowed for a worthy exhibition of the 90 aircraft in its collection.

Click here to view the gallery of the actual P-47 at the TAM Museum.

I took these photos during a visit in 2011. The museum remains closed since a few years, plans are in progress to transfer the collection to a new location.

Meanwhile, a P-47 in Brasilian colors was restored with an operating engine, making it possible to display taxi runs during airshows.

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Click here to access Part 1 of this story.

John started asking around in 2001, and came in touch with Michal Mucha and myself. I contacted Waldemar Ociepski, a passionate aviation history researcher. Waldemar lives in Kedzierzyn-Kozle and has a lot of interest in the USAAF bombings in the area of Blechhammer and Odertal. Back then we were just a bunch of individuals obsessed with WWII history. But Waldemar’s achievements since 2001 to this day are remarkable. He managed to pull together a team of like-minded people, arranged a German WWII air-raid shelter to be available to set up a WWII museum, and set up the Blechhammer 1944 association (the Facebook page). Waldemar and his friends firmly put Blechhammer on the map of important WWII museums in Poland.

Waldemar made available a number of interviews taken from the witnesses of different American aircraft crashes in August of 1944. Some of the interviews came from the area of Gora Swietej Anny (Annaberg) and all of them pointed to a crash site near a village of Lichynia.

One of the witnesses, Alfred Biela, remembered that the day when the bomber fell near Lichynia was very warm. The aircraft were seen from far away as they reflected sunshine. Mr. Biela remembered an aircraft coming down in circles, because the engines on the left side have been damaged. He saw airmen bail out. When the bomber was still about 500 metres above ground, an engine fell off. When the plane finally crashed, it caught fire and the ammo began to explode. According to this witness, the fallen airmen were buried in a village of Zalesie Slaskie. The documents stored in the local Catholic church confirmed that five American airmen have been buried there on August 9^th 1944, and they died two days earlier.

The witness accounts could relate to the All Meat No Potatoes but there was no certainty about this. The key pieces in the puzzle were a map produced by Waldermar and a copy of a German report provided by John Ryan, where the capture of his father was documented. Both documents pointed at the same location – a field near Lichynia.

The B-24 All Meat No Potatoes was well remembered by Mr. Gerard Ciupka. He rode his bicycle on that day to see if his aunt was OK after the refinery in Odertal had been bombed. The aunt was fine and they both walked to the crash site near Lichynia. The wreck was burned out and two burnt corpses could be seen in the fuselage near wings. Mr. Ciupka directed Waldemar to another witness, Mrs. Helena Janda. She worked as a nurse in a hospital that was located where the Pilgrim House is today in Gora Swietej Anny. Mrs. Janda could remember two American airmen that were brought to the hospital. Although she could not remember any names, they must have been Capt. Tudor and Sgt. Kramer – the German capture report mentioned they had been taken to this hospital (Rezerve-Lazarett Annaberg). Mrs. Janda remembered one of airman to tell her the Gora Swietej Anny had been an orientation point for the American crews.

Mr. Maksymilian Makosz was another witness of the crash. He and his uncle were the first locals at the crash site – they arrived there so quickly that an American airman landed in his chute next to them after their arrival. He was tall and very fit. He looked happy that he had survived. Taking into account that Tudor was wounded, Valente and Hollman landed far away from the aircraft, and James Ryan surrendered only a few hours after landing, the person who landed near Mr. Makosz must have been Sgt. Kenneth Kramer. The witness remembered that when the airman took off his chute harness, a policeman on a bicycle appeared shouting from the distance to the American to surrender. They went to the village of Lichynia. Mr. Makosz met the airman again in the village. The American was waiting at the steps of a small chapel near the house of the local administration head. Mr. Makosz went back to the burning wreck and he noticed 22 small bombs painted on the nose. It was the 24^th mission of Capt. Tudor’s crew and the 23^rd bomb must have not been painted yet.

John Ryan came to Lichynia on August 10^th 2001 to visit the place where his father had been shot down. He and his family flew to Warsaw, rented a car, I took mine. We drove all the way south to Blechhammer to meet up with Michal Mucha, Waldemar, and his friends. Back then, Polish roads were old and narrow, and older/smaller/slower (whichever combination) cars used to pull to the side of the road to allow being passed. Certainly, John was not used to that - he thought I was pushing these cars from the road, as I was driving first, and he was behind me. :)

When we arrived at Kedzierzyn-Kozle, we met our friends. For me, this was the first time I met Waldemar in person. We had been exchanging letters (not everyone had emails back then) for a few months, and we were still addressing each other as Mr. Ociepski and Mr. Serwatka. When we finally met, this changed quickly to Waldek and Szymon, and I am so happy and honored to have Waldemar as my friend.

We took John and his family to Lichynia. Many locals gathered to welcome guests from the United States. Some people came up who remembered the crash of John’s father’s B-24. Someone brought an oxygen tank from an American bomber (we later found out it was from another plane, not from the “All Meat No Potatoes”). We then went to the actual crash site. Since the place was in the farm fields, Waldemar arranged a tractor with a trailer, and we took off in this unusual mean of transportation.

We soon arrived at the crash site. It was so green, quiet, and serene. Everybody went silent as John looked around the place where his father escaped death many years ago. Waldemar arranged a trumpeter to play taps. We all got very emotional. Then Waldemar took in his hands something he had been hiding all the time: a part from the “All Meat no Potatoes” which had been found at the crash site. He presented it to John as a souvenir and something to remember that day. This was a very moving moment, too.

We went back to Lichynia, spent some time together, and then John and family departed towards Zagan, where the museum of the Stalag Luft III was. This was the POW camp he father ended up. He later told us he got pieces of bricks from the prisoners’ huts as souvenirs.

In very early November 2001, John reached out to us (Waldemar, Michal, myself) by email again. He told us that his father, who suffered from Alzheimer, was not expected to live the next 24 hours: “…Another member of the Greatest Generation will be gone. I took the piece of his B-24 to him after we returned from Europe and he seemed quite fascinated with it. After many explanations to him about what it was, he finally said “damn Germans”. Thank you again for everything that you all did. It was really something to see him holding a piece of his aircraft that he had not touched since he was a young man...”

James Ryan passed away on November 3^rd.

John sent us another email the next day, even though his mind must have been occupied with more important matters than three strangers in far Poland. “…I feel so lucky to have had such a brave man for my father. He was destined to live a full life, which he did. He was not meant to have given his life that day over Blechhammer during WW II, and I feel very blessed that he was meant to live on, build a life after the war and become my father. I truly miss him very much.

The trip to Poland in August has become more important than ever now to us. Even though I only had several months after we returned with him, I really understood much more after re-tracing what he did on that last mission. I thought what a great man, who humbly went about the rest of his life after war, and what heroic things he and all the many others did to keep our world free…”

This November exchange with John was a life changing experience for me. Before that, I thought that researching and writing my aviation histories was about documenting the past, and kind of a fun activity. Now I began to understand that these stories have a deeper meaning. They were personal, more personal than I ever imagined. I am humbled to see how this story got a son closer to his father, and I have seen other very personal experiences with other stories, too.

A grandfather who never talked to his family about his wartime experience (despite multiple requests) until he got a photo of his B-17 from me.

A cousin of a killed airmen who remembered the silence at family table whenever his name was mentioned.

A B-17 pilot who stopped writing to me when I asked his wife name – I learned many years later she had divorced him while he was a POW, and she never allowed him to see his son. This was shared with my by the son (who was in his 60s), who wrote me an email and said he had just recently learned who his real father was, as the pilot finally told his daughters his story, and they found their missing brother.

I understood how bad war is, and how the feeling of loss, and trauma continue for decades, and sometimes go from one generation to another. And I understood how important it is to continue my research, to remember the sacrifice of the wartime generation, to help families find closure. And so, the stories continue…

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There are many internet sites dedicated to WWII history and to the US Air Forces that are full of posts from families asking for help in finding details of the wartime service of their fathers and grandfathers. Sometimes, a family looks for the service details of the recently deceased in order to commemorate him in the family archive. Sometimes, a dusted box found in a forgotten corner in the attic reveals the wartime past of the ancestor and wakes up a desire to learn more.

This story goes back to 2001 when Michal Mucha, my dear friend specializing in 8^th Air Force over Poland in WWII contacted John Ryan. John made an internet site dedicated to the wartime service of his father who was in the 464^th Bomb Group, 15^th Air Force. This site included information that Ryan senior had been shot down during a mission to Blechhammer North (today Blachownia Slaska, Poland). The crash site was in the area of Annaberg (Gora Swietej Anny, Poland). Ryan junior immediately agreed to help in locating the exact crash site of his father’s B-24 and we wanted to find local witnesses to the event.

According to the materials John shared, his father, James Ryan, was a co-pilot in the crew of Captain Tudor on August 7^th 1944. Their B-24 Liberator #42-78318 was nicknamed “All Meat No Potatoes”. The nick name came from a title of one of popular songs of that time.

„All Meat No Potatoes” is a kind of impolite term used to describe an obese person. Strangely enough, Fats Waller wrote a song with this title in 1926. It became very popular in the US in the 1940s. Even Louis Armstrong recorded it in 1955. The term „All Meat No Potatoes” could fit the big bulky shape of a B-24. Others called the B-24 „the box in which B-17s are delivered”. Still, the B-24 was a sturdy workhorse which helped deliver heavy blows to the Nazi industrial potential. The Ploesti raids are just one example.

The mission.

The B-24, which Ryan flew on August 7th, 1944, fell victim to the intensive heavy flak fire. According to the accounts of three other aircraft crews from the same formation, the B-24 received a direct hit in the left outboard engine over target. The bomber then turned on its back and began going down in a spin. A moment later the hit engine fell off. This is when other crews lost sight of the damaged aircraft. The time recorded in the Missing Air Crew Report was 11:31am. Capt. Tudor’s formation saw no parachutes, but the bomber formation following them did see a few.

Lt. James Ryan told his son after the war that, while the crew had been trying to leave the falling aircraft, Capt. Tudor (pilot) and himself were fighting to stabilise the machine in order to minimise the centrifugal force, so that the crew could get out. Thanks to the pilots’ efforts the B-24 came out of the spin and kept falling in slow clockwise circles. Five airmen managed to bail out. The remaining five were either already dead, or wounded to the degree which made the bail out impossible.

The casualty questionnaire James Ryan filled out after returning from captivity had a more detailed story. Ryan admitted that Tudor who was wounded and three others bailed out ahead of him. He levelled the plane and tried to contact the crew at the back of the place but there was no communication. The flight engineer, Anderson, was killed instantly when flak him in the head. Ryan reported that Germans told Tudor they found Kolzer dead in the tail turret, with both legs broken, Adams was found dead in the ball turret, and Hickson and Patrick were thrown our of the plane, and both were found dead.

While hanging under the silk canopy, Lt. Ryan observed the falling bomber and thought what would happen next. The chance of avoiding the capture was very small and he was seriously afraid of the hostile German population.

He soon landed near an abandoned farm, far away from his crewmates. He hid the parachute, the flying suit, and other equipment that he no longer needed. He decided to wait until evening – darkness would increase his chances to evade. Then, dressed in a jacket and a straw hat he found in the barn, he left his hiding and tried to get as far as possible from the crash site. It did not last long before he was spotted by a German army patrol and was captured. The German capture report says James Ryan was captured around 8:30pm. Other airmen from the crew were captured within minutes from being shot down. The German capture report (ME-1887) gives the time of capture of Capt. Tudor as 11:40am local time (and remember, the shot down time reported by other US crews in the MACR was 11:31am).

Louis Valente was the bombardier in Lt. Tudor’s crew. He described the event of August 7^th in great detail in an interview given to John Ryan:

„...I was suddenly thrown against a side wall of the bomber. I could not move. It seemed like eternity but the time when I was pinned to the wall by the centrifugal force must have been short. I wanted to help the front gunner (Sgt. Kramer) and open his turret’s door but I could not. Then the gunner opened it from the inside. We knew we were in trouble and wasted no time. I began to wind the nose wheel door open but it was very difficult to do because of the the slip stream and we had to force the door open with all our strength. The aircraft was falling down upside down or was in a spiral – it was difficult to judge accurately in our small compartment.

Captain Tudor gave the bail out order. Kramer and myself already had our chutes on so we immediately dived into the open nose wheel bay. Tudor got out through a top hatch in the cockpit. Ryan and Hollmann got out through the bomb bay. No-one else managed to leave the aircraft. I learned later that Anderson, our engineer and top turret gunner, died from a direct hit from Flak. I do not know what happened to the rest.

I was falling without opening my chute. The bomber was going down at the same speed in a clockwise spiral. I was afraid the aircraft could hit my chute so I waited until the B-24 was slightly below me. I still remember how quiet and peaceful was up there. I knew what would await me on the ground so I enjoyed the moment as long as I could. I landed close to Lt. Hollmann, in a farmfield. There was no sight of anyone else nor the aircraft.

I drew my Colt cal. .45 after landing although I could not hit a barn with it. Hollmann lost his gun a month earlier (June 16^th) when he had to bail out over Yugoslavia, so he was now unarmed. He advised me to put the gun down because it could cause more trouble than help us. As soon as I did it, a few German soldiers appeared led by an old man in a German WWI style helmet. He shouted something like „Hans Hauk” („Haende hoch” – hands up) which must have been a request to surrender. We were searched, and they searched Hollmann a bit longer because they could not find his gun. I wanted to get a cigarette from my pocket but one of the guards pointed his gun at me – I understood it was not the best moment to smoke.

We were taken to a battery of 88 mm flak guns. The crew claimed they were the ones who had shot us down. It was almost noon, so they gave us sandwiches. Two Luftwaffe officers arrived soon and took us through a village – its name was Annaberg, I think. When we walked through the village, a woman ran towards Hollman and hit him on his head. I had still a piece of the parachute on my arm and a small boy took it from me. We boarded a train and joined two other Americans who had been shot down, too. Strangely, the Germans did not take my watch from me and I managed to keep it through the POW time, and it came home with me...”

Valente joined a large crowd of shot-down airmen who were picked up from all over occupied Europe, and taken to Oberursel near Frankfurt am Main where the central interrogation camp was located. Together with Ryan, Hollman and Kramer he was then taken to Stalag Luft III in Sagan (today Zagan, Poland). They survived the 600-kilometres-long death march when, in January of 1945, the Germans evacuated the camp ahead of the advancing Soviet Army. They were liberated at Moosberg, Germany. Then, they were taken by aircraft to France where they stayed until the end of hostilities. In the end, they boarded ships and headed for home.

After the war.

An American exhumation team arrived at Zalesie on September 4th 1947. They had the MACR and copies of German capture reports. These documents, the church records, and interviewed witnesses, indicated that 5 killed members of the “All Meat No Potates” must have been buried in a common grave in the village cemetery. The American team opened the grave and found three caskets. One casket had one set of remains – these were given the ID of X-6780, and the other two had two sets of remains each. They were given IDs of X-6775, X-6776 and X-6778, X-6779, respectively.

The X-6780 was buried in October 1947 in the military cemetery at Neuville, Belgium, in Plot DD Row 2 Grave 30 as unknown. Later examination allowed to identify X-6780 as S/Sgt. Kolzer. The match of height, hair color, dental records were favourable, and the dental records of X-6780 were not fitting to any other set of remains recovered from Zalesie. The identification was approved on June 7^th, 1949. S/Sgt. Josepf F. Kolzer rests today at the Ardennes American Cemetery, Plot A, Row 42, Grave 25.

The other four sets of remains were buried in Neuville, Belgium in four separate graves: Plot FF Row 1 Grave 25, and Plot DD Row 2 Graves 26, 28, 29. However, although all four names of the airmen were known, it was not possible at that time to positively identify any of the four. Therefore, the military took a decision for a group burial in the US, and the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery at Louisville, Kentucky, was selected in order to minimize the travel burden for any of families wishing to attend the burial ceremony. This plan was communicated to relevant families in November 1949.

This is the 1944 chapter of this story, and the next part will focus on John Ryan’s memorable trip to Poland in 2001. Click here to go to Part 2.

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This article describes several flak battery locations at Blechhammer and Odertal (important targets for the 15th USAAF back in 1944) which are still visible today. I will use Google Earth pictures, and LIDAR maps to visualize them and explain how they look like today. LIDAR is a laser-based technology which allows to see the terrain below vegetation. Blechhammer is called Kedzierzyn-Kozle today, and Odertal is Zdzieszowice. Both places were in Germany during WWII, and are in the south of Poland today. Click here to access Part 1 of this story.

Solarnia

This battery was located in a forest 4 km east of Solarnia and 3 km south of Kotlarnia, around 7 km SE of Blechhammer South. As such, it is located within the anti-aircraft defense ring around Blechhammer, described in the previous part of this story. The LIDAR shows 24 gun positions in the center, connected with trenches. There is a trench going south into a set of smaller entrenchments – this must have been the command post for the battery. The distances between the guns are approximately 35 meters, and the command post is around 135 meters from the nearest flak gun emplacement. These data match the typical dimensions and distances of a flak battery described previously. You can see the central part of the battery are six guns located in a circle, which most probably was the original 6-gun battery, and it was later expanded to 24 guns in the pattern you see in the LIDAR picture. This layout of three batteries with 8 guns each is a very good example of a Gross-Batterie (a large battery). The other rectangles are remains of support structures. The anti-aicraft gun crews were frequently billeted close to their battery.

This is a very good example of how a battery looked like, and – because it got covered by a forest after the war - the embarkments still seem to exist. You will see later that the batteries located in farmfields got their embarkments leveled. But in both cases – forest batteries and farm field batteries – you can still see gun positions in photos, because each gun had a concrete foundation a few meters in diameter. The guns were screwed to the foundation, and the foundation had canals (covered with wood planks) to house cables connecting guns to the command post and to power supply.

These concrete foundations were rarely removed as they very large and heavy. Sometimes they were left as they were, sometimes were covered with soil, but in all cases, vegetation is much smaller to non-existent over the foundation. This is why you can see the gun positions in Google Earth photos, depending on the season when the photos were taken.

Rudziniec

The battery in Rudziniec is located in an similar configuration to the Solarnia battery: 3 batteries of 6 guns each, expanded from an original 6 gun battery, controlled from one command post. The distance between gun positions is the standard 35 meters, and the command post is located 130 meters southeast of the nearest gun position. The Gross_Batterie is located 8 km east of the Blechhammer North. Interestingly, local historians say one of the flak rail batteries was stationed at the Rudziniec train station. So it is likely Rudziniec was a convenient location for a flak battery. Germans first built a 6-gun battery, then brought a rail flak to temporarily boost anti-aircraft defenses, while the 6-gun battery was expanded to 18 guns. This battery is situated in a farmfield, and you can see the gun positions as perfect white circles.

By now you know that these circles are concrete gun foundations. 😊 You can see that the whole area is farmed, which was not always the case, if you compare to another Google Earth photo from 2011. Six gun positions and the command post were then clearly overgrown with bushes and agricultural equipment drove around them. This means these gun positions were not leveled after the war like the other ones. These positions and the command center were cleared for farming by 2016, but even today the whole battery can be see in aerial and LIDAR photos

Długomiłowice

The battery was located in the fields on the north side of the Długomiłowice-Naczysławki road, 10 km west of Blechhammer South. It is another example of a classic Gross-Batterie built around a hexagon, with guns spaced 35 meters apart. Here, as in Rudziniec, some of the gun foundations remain, and crops grow less well on them than elsewhere.

An additional thing you can see here are dark circles around concrete gun foundations. While the gun emplacements were leveled, the ground below them was compacted by the presence of emplacements. This makes soil absorbs water differently there, and corn grows differently, too. (This phenomenon is visible on the 2025 photo of the Rudziniec battery above.)

The best picture of this battery is offered on Google Earth as of May 1st, 2017. You can see positions of 17 guns, and possibly a trace of the command post to the west (left) at the corner of the field.

Popice

This battery east of Popice and south of Klucze has an irregular shape. We do not know why it is irregular as there seems to be plenty of open space to build a battery similar to the ones described above. We can count traces of two seven-gun batteries on the north side, with cannons arranged in a hexagon with one cannon in the center, and additional gun positions on the south side. The hexagons are irregular, 50 by 35 meters.

Quite exceptionally, it is known which units were stationed there: 3rd Battery 606th schwere Flak-Abteilung , 5th Battery 531st schwere Flak-Abteilung , and 6th Battery 232nd schwere Flak-Abteilung. During the first American bombing on 7 July 1944, they fired a total of 312 shells.

Lubieszów

This is another example of an irregular Gross-Batterie, but it is clear why – it is squeezed between a river to the west and a forest to the east. It is a two-battery position between Lubieszów and Dziergowice. On the western side of the road, at least 11 anti-aircraft guns were positioned in a small area: six at the north side, and five at the south side. There may be three additional gun positions to the east of the road. The distance between the guns is again approximately 35 meters. There are two regular rows of small structures further east, which may be what remains of the battery crew's living quarters. The guns of this battery were most likely of the 105 mm caliber. A part of such detonated gun was found in 2016 during an excavation close to the flak battery location. As of 2025, most of the battery is leveled, and there is new construction above it. LIDAR shows only the two southernmost gun positions.

If you want to check other flak batteries in the Blechhammer area, including some that are visible on American bomb strike photos from 1944, become a member on my bymeacoffee site.

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This story is about visible traces of German anti-aircraft defenses of the Nazi synthetic fuel plants in Odertal (Zdzieszowice), Blechhammer South (Kędzierzyn-Koźle) and Blechhammer North (Blachownia Śląska). These plants were critical to the fuel supply for the German armies duiring WWII, and as such became targets of intense bombings from the 15th Air Force of the USAAF.

The first part of the story will present the historical context of the bombing of the above-mentioned plants and outline the anti-aircraft defense system of the Blechhammer/Odertal area. The other two parts of the story will focus on ten anti-aircraft batteries. Their WWII photos will be presented, and referenced to what you can find today on Google Maps, and on LIDAR maps. Part 2 will focus on five flak1 batteries, and the Part 3 (describing the remaining 5 flak batteries) is published on buymeacoffee, and is available for members only.

It was decided at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 to use heavy bombers to destroy the economic potential of the Third Reich. The plan for the so-called Combined Bomber Offensive envisaged that the British RAF would attack German cities with carpet bombings, while the USAAF would strike selected plants in key industries, including oil and synthetic fuel.

The task of implementing this offensive in the south of Europe was given to the US 15th Air Force. Established on November 1st 1943, in Tunis, it was transferred to bases in southern Italy a few months later, bringing all of southern Europe within range of American bombers. The June 8th 1944 directive to the American Strategic Air Force designated oil refineries and synthetic fuel production plants as the highest priority targets. The 15th Air Force received a list of specific targets two days later. They were:

- oil fields in Ploesti (Romania)

- refineries in Budapest and Vienna area

- synthetic fuel plants in Silesia (Odertal, Blechhammer North, Blechhammer South) and occupied Czechoslovakia

The Odertal and Blechhammer plants in Silesia were targeted to be bombed already on June 30, and then July 2, 1944. Poor weather in the target area prevented that in both cases. The planes dropped bombs on alternative targets and returned to bases. The first successful raid was carried out on July 7, 1944. Nineteen bombing missions were performed up to and including December 26, 1944. Blechhammer South was bombed 13 times, Blechhammer North 9 times, and Odertal 8 times.

Until 1944, the anti-aircraft defense of targets in Silesia was weak, and consisted primarily of Heimatflak (home anti-aircraft defense) batteries. Such batteries were staffed by mixed reserve military and civilian personnel. The first Heimatflak batteries were formed there in the second half of 1942. In the winter of 1943, they were organized into two anti-aircraft regiments, the 106th and 107th, and in May 1944, these regiments were assigned to Flak Brigade XV (anti-aircraft brigade). The headquarters of Flak Brigade XV was transferred from the Hanover to Silesia, and assigned the following anti-aircraft units:

Four fully military anti-aircraft regiments:

• Flak-Regiment 106 ( Flakgruppe Oberschlesien-West)

• Flak-Regiment 107 ( Flakgruppe Oberschlesien-Ost)

• Flak-Regiment 150 ( Flakgruppe Breslau)

• Flakscheinwerfer-Regiment 84(o) ( Flakscheinwerfergruppe Oberschlesien) – a searchlight regiment

Three local anti-aircraft regiments:

• Heimat-Flak-Abteilung 47./IV

• Heimat-Flak-Abteilung 50 - 58./VIII

• Heimat-Flak-Abteilung 62./VIII

Two anti-aircraft formations responsible to defend cities in occupied Poland

• Flakgruppe Posen (Poznan)

• Flakgruppe Litzmannstadt (Lodz)

Following first American bombing missions, these anti-aircraft defenses were constantly reinforced. In September 1944, Flak Brigade XV was transformed into the 11th Flak Division.

The Flak Regiment 106 was responsible for defending the plants in the Odertal and Blechhammer area. Its headquarters was formed from the headquarters of schwere Flak-Abteilung 275. In June 1944, the regiment had four heavy and one light anti-aircraft batteries. The following local Heimat-Flak-Abteilungs were assigned to it, too:

• Heimat-Flak-Abteilung 53/VIII in Odertal, had 4 heavy and 2 light anti-aircraft batteries

• Heimat-Flak-Abteilung 54/VIII near Blechhammer North, had 4 batteries of heavy anti-aircraft artillery and 1 light

• Heimat-Flak-Abteilung 55/VIII near Blechhammer South, had 6 heavy and 2 light anti-aircraft artillery batteries

Hence, the first American air raid on July 7th faced the opposition of 18 heavy and 6 light anti-aircraft batteries. Following the initial attacks, the flak defenses began to be reorganized and reinforced.

One of the most rapid actions was bringing in of the schwere Flak-Abteilung 525 (E), with four 105 mm anti-aircraft artillery batteries located on rail cars. This unit operated in the Blechhammer area in August and September 1944. Then, after the reorganization of anti-aircraft defense in Silesia was completed, this unit was transferred to defend the chemical plants in the Halle-Leuna-Merseburg area.

The Flak Regiment 106, still responsible for defending the Blechhammer/Odertal complex, was continually expanded. By December 1944, it had significantly larger forces:

• Schwere Flak-Abteilung 380 with 6 batteries

• Schwere Flak-Abteilung 521 with 4 batteries

• Schwere Flak-Abteilung 658 with 9 batteries

• Schwere Flak-Abteilung 659 5 batteries

• 11 batteries from other Schwere Flak-Abteilung units (3 batteries from the 633rd, 2 batteries each from the 324th and 466th, and one each from the 383rd, 625th, 693rd, 707th)

• 3 heavy flak special purpose batteries

• 8 heavy and 3 light Heimat-Flak batteries

There were a total of 46 heavy anti-aircraft batteries (2.5 times more than in June) and
3 light batteries (half of the initial force).

A typical layout of a German flak battery in 1939 was four guns arranged in a square
35 x 35 meters, with the command post in the center. The command post was quickly removed from the center of the battery, and typically located a 100 meters from the nearest gun to protect the targeting and firing devices from shock and blast. In late 1941, a typical flak battery size was increased to six guns. In existing batteries, the two additional guns were placed on opposite sides of the square. In new batteries, the guns were arranged in a circle, sometimes with a sixth gun in the center. Later in the war, eight-gun batteries were used, too, all guns arranged in a circle. From 1942, anti-aircraft fire was concentrated using the so-called Gross-Batterie , where two or three batteries located close to each other were directed from a single command post.

The batteries were positioned around protected targets. At the beginning of the war, the Germans assumed that bombers would fly no faster than 265 km/h and at a maximum altitude of 6,000 meters. A bomb dropped from an aircraft flying at that speed and altitude would have to be dropped about 4.5 km in front of the target. Therefore, the Flak batteries were positioned so that they could fire on the bombers for about 50 seconds before dropping the bombs. During this time, the aircraft covered about 6.5 km. Thus, a 6.5 km wide ring, starting 4.5 km from the target, constituted the anti-aircraft fire zone. The bomber formations outside this zone were only tracked, preparing data for opening fire. Later, when the Allies introduced new bomber types, this data was recalculated accordingly, but the principle of where flak batteries were located in relationship to the targets remained the same.

The link to Part 2.

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It is a healthy habit to differentiate your hobbies, so I am also a model builder, building paper models in 1:25 scale. Knowing how much model builders like to build their models as close to the original as possible, I sometimes take many photos of a particular aircraft, so that I have a dossier for model building purposes. I always liked flying boats, and when I saw this Do-24K in the National Military Museum in Soest, Netherlands, I had to photograph it in detail.

The full photo gallery is available on buymeacoffee.

The Marine Luchtvaart Dienst (MLD), the Dutch naval aviation, had been using Dornier flying boats in its colonies in Indochina since 1926. The Dornier "Wal" was a good design and became the MLD's workhorse. This type of seaplane was used for transport, reconnaissance, and rescue purposes. However, by the early 1930s the aircraft had become obsolete, and in 1934 the Dutch navy began to draw up requirements for a successor.

Due to the good experience with the "Wal", Dornier was asked to build a new flying boat. The new aircraft had to be larger than the "Wal", equipped with three engines, be able to reach speeds of over 315 km/h. The aircraft had to be made of metal and be well equipped for long-distance flights.

Dornier-Metallbauten GmbH fulfilled the task and designed a flying boat that met the requirements within the deadline. Since the German Luftwaffe also needed a long-range reconnaissance aircraft, Dornier decided to build four prototypes of the Do 24, two for the Netherlands and two for Germany. The first flight was performed on 3 July 1937. The German version was designated Do-24T, the Dutch version was designated Do-24K (for the colonies).

You may be wondering how Netherlands, which was one of the allied nations in WWII, was procuring aircraft for its Navy from Nazi Germany. The reason is that the Netherlands planned to be a neutral country during a potential European conflict, just like it was during WWI. And the aircraft were to be used in the Far East, so a completely different theater of operations. In terms of Netherland’s neutrality, Hitler and his comrades had different plans, and the country was brutally invaded on May 10, 1940.

The Do-24 prototypes for the Netherlands were equipped with Wright Cyclone GR-1820-F52 engines, which were used in many types of aircraft serving in Indochina, such as the Fokker T.IV and Glenn Martin 139. Already on 10 November 1937, the prototype with the type designation Do 24K.1 and registration "X-1" was sent from Hamburg to the Dutch East Indies. The first Dornier Do-24Ks were built by Dornier factories, but the next ones were built under license in the Netherlands by Aviolanda, in cooperation with De Schelde, which produced wings, engine nacelles, fuel tanks. A total of 36 Dornier 24 flying boats were sent to Dutch Indochina between 1937 and 1943. Due to the designation "X" followed by a number, these machines were also referred to as "X-boats" (X-boten). Their main bases were Surabaya and Jakarta.

At the outbreak of war with Japan in the year "X-boats" were divided between 8 divisions designated GVT-1 to GVT-8 (GVT - Groep Vliegtuigen). The aircraft were distributed to smaller landing areas and could also benefit from the support of six motherships. The first combat contact with the Japanese air force took place on 16 December 1941. The seaplanes performed reconnaissance and evacuation flights. Japanese air superiority entailed heavy losses, e.g. on 26 December in an attack by Japanese fighters on the forward base of Tondano on Celebes) 4 machines were destroyed. Despite this, the Dutch pilots fulfilled their tasks with dedication. One of the largest rescue operations took place on 17 February 1942, when Dorniers from GVT-6 and GVT-8 and Catalinas from GVT-18 saved over 350 of the 550 people on board two Dutch ships sunk by the Japanese.

Six aircraft survived the Indochina campaign and were evacuated to Australia in early 1942. Five aircraft were assigned to No. 41 Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). The sixth Dornier (X-24) was used by the Dutch Intelligence Service for secret missions over New Guinea until October 1943. On 9 November 1943 it was transferred to the RAAF and given the registration A49-6. Due to a lack of parts, all Dorniers were withdrawn from service in May 1944 and eventually scrapped.

The aircraft on display at the National Military Museum in Soest, Netherlands, was built by Aviolanda as a DO-24K during the occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany. The aircraft was ordered by the Reichsluftfahrtministerium and designated RLM 3387 with the marking “CI+GW”. Like other DO-24s for the Luftwaffe, the aircraft was equipped with BMW Bramo 323R-2 engines. The aircraft was delivered to the Spanish Air Force in 1944 for rescue duties as one of 12 seaplanes transferred by the Germans after their loss of Sicily. It was given the Spanish registration HD.5-1 and was based at Puetro de Pollensa, Majorca. In 1953 it was withdrawn from service, but was later operated again from 1958 to 1969. This Dornier was officially withdrawn from service in 1972.

In 1980 the aircraft was donated to the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon. The Dornier DO-24 never served with the RAF and did not fit into the collection at Hendon, so it was loaned to the Dutch Aviation Museum. In 1991 the aircraft was transferred to the Naval Air Base in Valkenburg and there it was refreshed as the “X-24”. In 1992 the “X-24” was delivered to the Military Aviation Museum in Soesterberg. On 1 April 2017 the Dornier-24K “X-24” was officially donated to the National Military Museum in Soesterberg by the Royal Airforce Museum Hendon.

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