u/FireFightingManiac — 4 days ago
r/usaf
“I’ll be Seeing You” was a B-17 named after a 1940s movie, and was shot down near Warsaw on Sept 18th 1944 during a dramatic mission to drop supplies to the Warsaw Rising. (link to story in the post)
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
u/USAAFoverPOLAND — 3 days ago
This is one of the most famous WWII photos, and it is virtually unknown it was taken over Blechhammer, which is today in Poland. Borders were moved in 1945, and Blechhammer became Kedzierzyn-Kozle.
The below link is to the story I wrote about this photo. It describes what it meant and how it was like to fly through German flak. It is a tribute to 15th Air Force crew which flew missions in WWII.
u/USAAFoverPOLAND — 11 days ago
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:
u/USAAFoverPOLAND — 7 days ago
I recently took the ASVAB, in process of scheduling the EDPT. I understand the air force doesn’t guarantee jobs. 1b4 is listed top choice but I’m just curious to hear about others experience who did book 1b4 for active duty. For example once you knew you qualified, what were those conversations like with your recruiter about waiting in DEP specifically if you knew that 1b4 was your main goal. How long did you wait to book the job? What year did you book? (For relevancy). Big Air Force made recruiting goals early and my timing for enlisting isn’t ideal since incentives and recruiting goals don’t update until October. For context, I’m in my late 20’s, career changer, and I scored a 99 on the ASVAB. Any insight is appreciated, thanks!
u/Several_Fig_784 — 12 days ago
I am not the only person researching USAAF over Poland. We are quite a few! Janusz Wrobel is one of these people, and he recently wrote this nice Facebook post about bombing of the refinery in Trzebinia, Poland (50 km west of Krakow). This was one of very few bombing missions the USAAF performed from the bases in Soviet Ukraine.
The photo is the fire in the Trzebinia refinery as an aftermath of the American mission. The source is the public library in Trzebinia.
u/USAAFoverPOLAND — 14 days ago