On December 17, 1944, five hundred and fifty heavy bombers took off from the Foggia complex of air strips in Italy on a long-range mission to destroy Nazi oil refining facilities in the Odertal region of Silesia. Included in the armada were twelve planes of the 727th Bomb Squadron, including a B-24 Consolidated Liberator nicknamed “Sloppy but Safe”. Shortly after dropping their bombs, the two lead bombers of this squadron collided, with the propellor of one cutting off the tail of the other. The tail-less plane then plummeted to the ground. One crew member managed to parachute to safety; the other nine were killed.
Last week the Bridgeville Area Historical Society received an email from a gentleman in Poland named Jadwiga Wojciak with an unusual request. He had come across a November 24, 2016, column that I wrote about Santo Magliocca’s experience in the War as a ball turret gunner on the “Sloppy but Safe”, archived on the Society website, and wondered if we had any additional information or relevant photographs on that specific raid. In the column I had mentioned that the raid on Odertal was Sergeant Magliocca’s first mission; he went on to complete an additional twenty-four successful missions before the end of the war. The reference to Odertal, apparently, was the clue that led Mr. Wojciak to the Historical Society website. The column was a summary of a presentation I had made to the Society on November 9, 2016. Mr. Wojciak’s request was referred to me; I promptly replied to him and attached the Power Point file for that presentation and a promise that we would also send him a photograph of the poster honoring Mr. Magliocca that my brother had made for an exhibit on local military heroes at the History Center.
Mr. Wojciak replied immediately, acknowledging receipt of the file and explaining the reasons for his request. He lives in a tiny (fewer than 1000 inhabitants) village named Wierzbiecice and appears to be the local historian. Currently they have a project to commemorate the site of the bomber crash in nearby Rzymkowice on December 17, 1944 and to honor the memory of the crew members who perished in the crash. Wierzbiecice is in the Silesia region in southwestern Poland very close to the Czech border. Silesia, of course, is an ancient land with a checkered history of sovereignty, being at one time or another a part of Prussia, Bohemia, the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Germany, or Poland. By coincidence, my daughter Sara was in Silesia last summer, giving a talk at a conservation genetics conference in Walzbrzych, which is about thirty miles west of Wierzbiecice.
Mr. Wojciak and his friend Daniel Podobinski maintain a FaceBook page entitled “Historie y Wierzbia” which is filled with posts dealing with the history of their village. An important project that they documented last year was the exhumation of the bodies of sixty Italian prisoners of war (World War I ?) buried in a prison cemetery and the removal of many of them to family burial grounds in Italy. It impresses me to realize that people like this exist in every little community across the world. Mr. Wojciak mentioned that a group of American researchers and archaeologists will visit the crash site this summer, seeking information on the nine crewmen still listed as “Missing in Action”.
Following my initial contact with Mr. Wojciak I was able to locate a few more relevant documents to send to him. Bob Podurgiel, a free-lance journalist and good friend, has written an excellent article on Santo Magliocca’s military experiences for the Veterans Club Breakfast (VBC) quarterly, the VBC Magazine, entitled “The Life of a Ball Turret Gunner”. I also found a follow-up article in a later quarterly, by Todd DePastino, entitled “B-24 Liberators Collide Over the German-Polish Border, December 17, 1944”. It reports a communication the VBC received from the brother of the tail gunner on the lead plane in the collision and an eye witness account of the incident reported by an airman on one of the other planes.. I have forwarded both articles to Mr. Wojciak; they have excellent relevant photos, including one of the tail-less plane. I have since learned that Mr. Podobinski separately has contacted Todd DePastino and the VBC, seeking information; the powerful communication network we currently have is indeed impressive.
I find it remarkable that today’s ease of communications and access to information makes it possible for ordinary people all over the world to share their knowledge of the most trivial incidents. Only a few dozen people have any interest in this specific tragedy; yet a significant quantity of details about it is available to all of them. It is no longer appropriate for any of us to complain about the disadvantages of having a niche interest; mechanisms exist today that facilitate our ability to locate other folks with our narrow interest and to share information with them.
I feel good that there are people like Messers Wojciak and Podobinski, all over the world, dedicated to celebrating the memory of people who lost their lives eighty years ago in World War II. I feel good that there are people who are interested in preserving local history who are interested in preserving local history like those two gentlemen and Bob Podurgiel and Todd DePastino and the Bridgeville Area Historical Society volunteers. I feel good that the Information Age in which we are living makes it possible for folks with niche interests to share information that others find trivial.