r/WW2info

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

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

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

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

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

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

https://substack.com/@usaafoverpoland

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

Wikipedia article says that B-4 had 15 crew members, but I can not find out what were their roles and I seek for your help!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just a small post showing some of the main WWII bayonets from my collection with my great-grandfather Iron cross and a british gas mask from 1944, along with my most prized possession: a French general mobilization poster announcing the beginning of the war following the invasion of Poland and the nationwide mobilization of men and equipment.

The first phase of the war in France saw around 100,000 to 150,000 soldiers killed in just six weeks, while nearly 1.5 million French soldiers were taken prisoner. A large number of them would never return, dying in the various German Stalags.

After several French regions were annexed by Germany, around 200,000 French men from Alsace-Lorraine were forcibly integrated into the Wehrmacht and sent to fight on the Eastern Front, including at Stalingrad and on the Polish and Ukrainian frontlines. They later became known as the “Malgré-nous” (“despite ourselves” / “against our will”), that explains the Iron cross part of that post.

If you were curious about the poster, here is what it is written on it :

FRENCH REPUBLIC : METROPOLITAN FRANCE

ORDER OF GENERAL MOBILIZATION

By decree of the President of the Republic, the mobilization of the Army, Navy and Air Force is hereby ordered, together with the requisitioning of animals, carts, harness equipment, aircraft, motor vehicles, ships, boats, handling equipment, and all means necessary to compensate for the insufficiency of the ordinary supply resources of these armed forces.

The first day of general mobilization is:

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1939 AT MIDNIGHT (hand-written)

Every French citizen subject to military obligations must, under penalty of punishment with the full severity of the law, comply with the instructions contained in his mobilization booklet.

The present order applies to all men not currently serving under arms and belonging to the Army, Navy, and Air Force, including registered seamen, men serving in the colonial troops, and men assigned to auxiliary service.

Civil and military authorities are responsible for the enforcement of the present decree.”

The Minister of War The Minister of the Navy The Minister of the Air Force

Happy 8 may to everyone, feel free to post your ww2 collection today !

My grandfather commanded a Counter Intelligence Corps team in WWII. After the German surrender, they worked out of Tegernsee, Bavaria. They raided both Himmler's and Karl Wolff's vacation homes there. I have 5 photographs taken from one of those residences that depict a meeting between the Japanese and the Germans. I have also made contact with a descendant of one of my grandfather's team members who has original film footage of the same meeting. How would I go about identifying any of the people in this photo. I am pretty sure that the tall German on the left is Karl Wolff, but AI says that there is no record of any meeting between the Japanese and Germans that included him?

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

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

You can find some Blechhammer stories on my Substack:

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

Arguably the most ignored Axis nation, it sent large soldiers to the side of Japan's pro-fascist troops in Burma complete with armored units and medics