USAAF over Poland

29/07/2026

What can be better than a coffee and a home-made cake on a warm sunny morning?

A great aviation book, a coffee, and a cake are much better! 🙂

„Nachtjagd over the Eastern Front” is a very new book by Sven Carlsen, Morten Jessen, and Adam Thompson. 300+ pages packed with excellent research, photos, maps, stories, covering the Eastern Front from Finland down to the Balcans, from 1939 till the end of the war. The bibliography of archival resources alone is 6 pages long!

I particularly value the information about Nachtjagd over Poland. Pilots, aerial victories are mentioned, and a lot of content is provided about collaboration with Luftwaffe radar trains. This is little known aspect of the night fighter operations, and it was high-tech at that time.

A solid hard cover book, worth every euro. A must addition to any dedicated WWII aviation history enthusiast!

https://airwarpublications.com/product/nachtjagd-over-the-eastern-front/

27/07/2026

Next on my Substack:

Ewart Sconiers - The First 8th Air Force B-17 War Hero - washed out of flight school, but managed to nurse a crippled plane back to base and saved the crew

This Saturday, I am bringing you the story of the 1st ever B-17 war hero of the 8th Air Force.

This story had a rich photo coverage, probably because this incident story happeded in the very first week of the B-17 raids. At that time, the bases must have had as many journalists and reporters as flight crews. Many photos will be included in this story.

Ewart Sconiers, the hero, was shot down later in another mission, and happened to be the last prisoner out of Stalag Luft III. He died in captivity and his grave was found only in 2010s. I will tell this story later this year, too.

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

25/07/2026

Dear friends,

Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing my stories published on Substack. Your enthusiasm showed me that this is a real community of people who care about preserving the history of USAAF over Poland in WWII.

This good energy made me decide to take the Substack newsletter in a new direction, by introducing paid subscriptions.

If you choose a paid subscription you will get:

* a new Post with a major story every four weeks
* weekly Notes with mini stories, reports about memorials, news related to USAAF over Poland
* Full access to the posts archive

The paid plan will be $60/year or $6/month.

Continuing on a free subscription will give you the weekly Notes mentioned above, and occasional free Posts.

If you chose to be a founding member:

* you will be mentioned as such on my start page,
* You will get a monthly private update what’s the progress on next research
* everything a regular paid subscription includes.

Founding member fee will be $200/year.

The changes will be implemented in early August.

The stories being prepared for the rest of 2026 include:

* Story of Ewart Sconiers, the 8th Air Force first B-17 war hero, and the last man coming home from Stalag Luft III (he was MIA and his remains were repatriated in 2018)
* my research on 1Lt. Crane’s B-17, which had 8 MIA of who 5 are by now found and identified
* B-17s which landed in Poland and were put into Soviet service

Keep flying with me!

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

18/07/2026

Joseph Gorczyca is still missing in Poland after parachuting into an area of an active armed conflict between Soviets, Polish partisans, and Ukrainian UPA.

Gorczyca was the copilot of Ralph Beam (460th BG, 15th AF) on a mission to Blechhammer South on December 2nd 1944. Their B-24 #42-78678 “Ditney Hill” got damaged and the crew chose to land in Soviet-held territory. They were forced to bail out in an area contested between Polish partisans, Ukrainian UPA, and Soviet Red Army. All crew but Gorczyca ended up with the Soviets. Gorczyca disappeared without trace.

There is a story of a man captured in that area around that time by a Soviet unit. The man could not speak Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, or even German. Soviets interrogated and then executed him. If the story is true and if the man was Gorczyca, his Polish-sounding name and no skills in local language may have been his death sentence, since they made the Soviets think he was a spy. And spies had to die.

Beam’s crew was transferred to the US base in Poltava, Ukraine. Their first attempt to leave that place was unsuccessful as they crashed their B-24 on take off. That B-24 was repaired after being damaged over Blechhammer and landed in Zamosc, Poland on Nov 20 1944.

Local history enthusiasts are finding parts of B-24 Ditney Hill to this day. This article is in Polish but you can have your browser translate it. There are 9 photos related to the 2022 excavation.

https://rzeszow.wyborcza.pl/rzeszow/51,34962,29013679.html =S.galeria-K.C-B.1-L.1.duzy

Same excavation on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17kgTyVhn2/?mibextid=wwXIfr

11/07/2026

The crew of the B-17 43-38175 „I’LL BE SEEING YOU / ‘TIL WE MEET AGAIN” (390th BG) is remembered in Poland and America.

The Flying Fortress was shot down near Lomianki by Warsaw on September 18th 1944. 8 our of 10 airmen died. One of them, Walter Shimshock bailed out safely and was killed after landing by Waffen SS. The local Polish population raised in 2022 a memorial to this American crew, and one of the streets was named after the pilot, Francis Akins. Another street is named after Wladyslaw Szymszak (Walter Shimshock’s birth name before the family emigrated to the USA). In 2024, on the 80th anniversary of this tragic event, a twin memorial was unveiled in Columbia Heights, Minnessota, at Huset Park. This is the hometown of Walter Shimshock, and Lomianki and Columbia Heights are partner towns since 1991.

The B-17 was named after a famous 1944 movie. I wrote about this and other American aircraft which landed or were shot down in Poland, and were named after songs or movies, in my „In the air and on the air” Substack story.

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

Photos:
https://www.lomianki.pl/pl/aktualnosci/18995,Z-Lomianek-do-Columbia-Heights.html
https://lomianki.info/upamietniono-amerykanskich-pilotow/
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1241771056285746&set=a.395439359349890&type=3

04/07/2026

Happy the Fourth of July!

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

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

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

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

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

27/06/2026

Another MIA from Poland returned to his family.

Donald Dorman was laid to rest just last Tuesday, in Southington, CT. He was MIA for decades, after his B-17 was shot down by Soviet P-39 in south-west Poland. His bomber was damaged over Ruhland on March 22, 1945, and the crew tried to reach a friendly airfield behind the Soviet lines. Robert Keuchel was reburied last May, and Stephen Fatur will be reburied in August. There are still 3 MIA from this crew.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DYpo8N2oy/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Find other stories about USAAF over Poland on my Substack:

https://substack.com/

20/06/2026

Bill’s friend was going down in another B-17 and yelled to him over radio (everybody could hear) “Nassif! Nassif! We are going down! Count the chutes Nassif! You owe me 30 dollars!”

William Nassif tells this and other WWII anecdotes from his service in this Youtube:

https://youtu.be/bRoOcYBLtCU?is=GsBcYYZnwjHaPdnd

He was a bombardier on board of the B-17 which belly landed in Krakow on Dec 26, 1944.

I published the first part of this crew story on my Substack two weks ago, and the part 2 will be released on July 4th.

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

December 26th 1944 was a second day of Christmas in Nazi-occupied Krakow. The locals barely returned home from churches when big news hit the town: an American bomber landed in the south of the city!

17/06/2026

A close call. The B-17 #43-38420 was struck by bombs falling from another Fortress.

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

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

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

https://substack.com/

13/06/2026

A Fortress flew without crew for 300 km and made a perfect belly landing in Poland.

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

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