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USAAF over Poland

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USAAF over Poland

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Blechhammer, Odertal, Politz, Auschwitz ... these are just a few of USAAF WWII target which are in Poland today.
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I write about American airmen who landed or were shot down during missions to these targets, and I assist in searching for MIAs.

01/11/2026

I was yesterday at the meeting of Dutch Studiegroep Luchtoorlog (Study Group Air War). What I find as a Dutch touch to the history research is that it is not only detailed and highly accurate, but very frequently focuses on human life, loss, family left behind.

This human touch was present yesterday, too. One presentation was about a Hawker Tempest pilot, the only son. His parents bought a bottle of ch*****ne to open it with their son when he comes back home. He never did. The presentation title was: “an unopened ch*****ne, an unfinished story”.

Another presentation was about the very last mission of Dutch airforce in defense of their country in May 1940. The mission was to bomb a bridge leading towards Rotterdam. The last bomber was sent on this mission, with two es**rt planes. The bomber and one of the es**rt were shot down, both crews perished. When the memorial was unveiled to remember this event, the Dutch flag flown at the ceremony was the one someone saved from one of the airfields before the Netherlands capitulated a day after the mission.

A life story of Govert Steen was presented, too. He and his school friend Curt Opolski loved flying. Govert joint Dutch airforce, but Curt chose the dark side and joined the Luftwaffe. He was killed in April 1940 in Norway. Govert became famous when he kidnapped a seaplane in 1941, and flew it to England to join the RAF.

The light touch to the day was a story of mail pigeons in military service.

It was a very nice day!

28/10/2026

HELP NEEDED! I am helping to locate the crash site of B-24 41-28664, lost on May 11th, 1944, during mission to Epinal, France. All 11 men are MIA to this day.

According to the MACR (4802), they were last seen in the target area, and said on radio they were going to Switzerland. A French gendarme claims he saw an American plane in a place 20km south of Epinal on the same date. The plane was at 600 m altitude, dropped 9 bombs and kept flying towards Switzerland. If this was the missing plane, they lost 4000 meters altitude over 21 km distance, and must have been having trouble jettisoning bombs immediately.

However, some other sources claim the aircraft left the formation between Orleans and the English Channel, west of Paris. This is 200 km west of Epinal. (The flight route to and from target circled around Paris from the south.) Apparently it went for Switzerland, too, although it would be strange as it is 220 km from Orleans to Caen (i.e. the relative safety of English Channel) and it is almost 400 km to Switzerland. I found one website which said the B-24 crashed at Saint Lucien (85 km north of Orleans), but no more details or sources are given. If it was Saint Lucien, a very specific small village, why is the crew considered MIA?

Anyone who could help us confirm the crash site, and clarify the fate of the 11 crew?

25/10/2026

Caught between the Soviet and German fighters. A March 22nd 1945 drama of 2nd BG B-17s over south-west Poland.

25/10/2026

Caught between the Soviet and German fighters. A March 22nd 1945 drama of 2nd BG B-17s over south-west Poland.

The DPAA announced in 2025 a recovery of 4 MIAs from a crash site in Poland. The official announcements mention field investigations between 2008 and 2012, then in 2017 and 2018, and excavations between 2019 and 2025. I researched this crew and the crash site between 2003 and 2011, and I supported the DPAA predecessor’s work, including participating in one of early field investigations.

The identified airmen were T/Sgt Donald A. Dorman, S/Sgt Robert A. Keuchel, S/Sgt Rae G. DeMatteis, S/Sgt Stephen J. Fatur. They were all members of the 1st Lt. Andrew F. Crane crew (2nd Bomb Group, 15th AF) which flew the B-17 #44-8191 on a mission to Ruhland (Germany) on March 22nd 1945.

I believe my research helped the US government link a crash site to the right aircraft, which triggered the recoveries and identifications.
This was the most complex research case I ever had, as nothing was even close to obvious.

If you want to find out how I worked on it, type “good work!” in a comment below, and I will send the link to you directly.

17/10/2026

More MIAs are waiting to be found in the Blechhammer area.

While the DPAA makes good progress on the Lindell crew lost on Dec 26th 1944 (with recent reburial of Myron Yaw, and upcoming ceremony for Avery Gilliland), there are more airmen who died over Blechhammer and are still unaccounted for.

On October 13th, 1944, 2nd Lt Meyer’s crew of 455th BG was shot down, and the wreck fell into the forest between Blechhammer North and Blechhammer South. There were only two survivors, and 8 men died. Four were recovered and identified after the war, but the burial sites of 2nd Lt. Meyer, F/O Fajans, F/O Bray, Cpl. Bartholow were never found. They are still unaccounted for.

The local Blechhammer 44 Association remembers the crew in their museum. Here is their post published earlier this week, on the anniversary of this tragedy.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1Gydq3aN5v/?mibextid=wwXIfr

14/10/2026

On October 14th, 1944, 2nd Lt. Polando flew 600 miles to the target, and traveled 4700 miles to get back to his unit base. A true wartime Russian vacation.

You may remember my post from a few weeks about a B-24 sitting in a Soviet airfield in Poland and captured in a German Luftwaffe recon photo taken just 12 days after Polando landed in that airfield. I had some archival documents related to this story, and was lucky to find a relative of the pilot who was so kind to share more information and many photos.

Here is the full story of what happened to Polando’s B-24 and crew, an extraordinary account of wartime travelling across exotic countries, and a glimpse of how the USAAF managed the logistics of returning the crews and aircraft which ended up in Soviet territory.

Enjoy, and please support my research by becoming a free or paid subscriber!

The link to the full story is in the first comment below.

11/10/2026

October 9th, 1943. A remarkable mission took place. The 8th Air Force launched a major effort against N**i Germany. Many targets were attacked, but one B-17 formation was special.

Almost 100 B-17s had extra passengers. Cameramen and photographers were on many planes. That formation flew over the North Sea, crossed Denmark, and continued east towards Marienburg in East Prussia. The idea was to confuse and avoid the Luftwaffe, bomb the Focke-Wulf factory at Marienburg, and use the footage in war propaganda to get more support for the bombing effort in Europe. This is how the 1944 movie „Target for Today”was made.

Today, the airfield at Marienburg is still in operation, as a Polish NATO air force base at Malbork.

07/10/2026

Two American WWII glider memorials unveiled near Vught, the Netherlands.

My friend, Peter van Kaathoven, and co-author of our Substack story about Zerlegebetrieben (German aircraft wreck salvage yards in Vught and in Auschwitz), is an active local historian in Vught.

He and his friends unveiled two WWII glider memorials on September 26th near Vught. These American gliders were part of the Market-Garden operation, and had to do emergency landing after their towing planes were shot down, one on September 18th and the other one on September 19th. All allied soldiers were helped by local Dutch resistance, and avoided capture.

In the photos, Peter is doing the speech, and one of the photos is with children of local Dutch resistance fighters who helped the American soldiers.

And you can read the Zerlegebetriebe story from the link in the first comment below.

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