Polish historians find WWII bomber with remains of Canadian, British crew

CANOE ^ | December 1, 2006 | MONIKA SCISLOWSKA

[ken5050]

I often get them confused myself...People probably remember the Lancasters because of the Dam Busters..Similar situation in the US...Everyone knows the B-25 due to the Doolittle raid...most couldn't tell you what a B-26 is or looks like...and as regards the 8th USAAF...most people today think the B-17 was the ONLY US bomber in the war, when in fact more B-24s were produced than B-17s, and they flew more missions and dropped more bomb tonnage than the B-17s. Go figure..

[exit82]

Lizol--thank you for the pictures. Please post more if you can find them.

Your home page is terrific. Your hometown is lovely.

The picture of Pope John Paul II and Ronald Reagan walking together is priceless. It made me very wistful. That was a time when God placed two courageous men together to liberate hundreds of millions of people.

Bet they still walk together.

[MarcinPL]

Chwala poleglym!!

[lizol]

According to articles I found in Polish:

The crew

Arnold R. Blynn,
George A. Chapman,
Harold L. Brown,
C. B. Wylie,
Arthur G. W. Liddell,
Frederick G. Wenham,
Kenneth J. Ashmore,

The plane was supposed to drop their cargo near Skiernewice (central Poland, west of Warsaw, 20 km. from the town where I live), but it was shot down before managed to get here.

Plane crashed into mud.
All the remains of the crew members, that the locals found right after the crash had been collected and buried. After the war they were exhumed and buried again in the military part of the Rakowicki Cemetry in Krakow.

Now the historians found parts of the plane (including wings, 2 Rolls-Royce Merlin engines and many more), remains of the crew members, their equipment and personal belongings.

How they found it?

Many people thought, that after the war communist authorities removed the parts of the plane and hid them somewhere.
Recently historians from the Warsaw Uprising Museum in Warsaw contacted some witness, who said, that the communist couldn't manage to take them out, so they left them where they were.

[BronzePencil]

Am I crazy or did Halifaxes have cloth skin?

[Clifford The Big Red Dog]

Gorgeous plane. Didn't carry as much as a Lancaster and wasn't as heavily armed/armored as an American B-17, but HP sure built a ton of them......

[lizol]

[Clifford The Big Red Dog]

Mine flew B-17's. He was in the 384th Bomb Group (H)

[scan59]

> The badly-damaged hull of the bomber

RE: Photo

They weren't kidding about being badly damaged.

[Clifford The Big Red Dog]

The Wellington did. On Halifaxes just the control surfaces were fabric.

[GMMAC]

PING!

[lizol]

I don't know how to post a direct link to asf movie about this discovery.

If you like to see it - open this web-page and click "video" button under the picture of the badge.

The comment is in Polish, sorry :-)

http://tvp.pl/2018,20061129427898.strona

[BronzePencil]

Cool, thanks!

[lizol]

[Calvin Locke]

...B-25 due to the Doolittle raid...and the Empire State Building.

Here in VT, there's the remains of a B-24 that crashed in to a mountain during the war. The paper runs pieces every so
often. I hiked up Camels Hump to see it once, but the weather was lousy, and other hikers at the summit said there
wasn't much left to see.

There was also the A-20 bomber. Only known from my younger days playing Avalon Hill games.

[exit82]

The video was great--thank you!

[GMMAC]

FYI, if you haven't already seen the site, Canada Aviation Museum.

[gymbeau]

There was no more beautiful bomber in WWII than the Boeing B-17, aesthetically speaking, IMNHO. Graceful and lethal.

Cheers
Jim

[snippy_about_it]

Grrr. Shame on the journalist whatever nationality she is. As a newsperson reporting on this story she should have done her homework and learned the difference.

Thanks for the story lizol. I wish the plane would have made it with their supplies. :-(