Traveling to History: Four, Part II
Mashie Miaskiewicz: A Salem War Hero Comes Home Part 2
By James F. Lee
Mieczyslaus (Mashie) Miaskiewicz’s Army photo
This is a two-part series on the extraordinary story of Mashie Miaskiewicz
Part II – U.S. Army Air Corps and Coming Home
By late 1943, he was a crew member of a B-17g bomber, called the Daisy Mae, stationed in Tortorella, Italy, part of 347th Bomber Squadron, 99th Bomber Group. The B-17, Flying Fortress, was a heavy bomber with a wingspan of over 100 feet, powered by four, 1,200 hp engines. If Mashie wanted to fly, as his sister Theresa indicated, he was in the right place: a B-17g had a maximum range of 3,700 miles and a cruising speed of 150 mph. It was the ideal aircraft for long-distance missions.
As flight engineer, Mashie’s job was to know the working of the airplane better than anyone else. He must know engine mechanics, fuel consumption, and operation of all equipment, including the radio, bombing equipment, and armaments. It required considerable technical training. And he must be a gunner as well. It was a vital job placing a lot of responsibility on the former leather worker from Salem.
If Mashie had been with the 99th from its inception in 1942, [which is possible because he enlisted in July, 1942], he would have seen a lot of the country. Training took place in Idaho, Washington, Iowa, Kansas and Florida, before the Bomber Group’s B-17s made the flight to North Africa via Puerto Rico, British Guiana, Brazil, Gambia, and finally to Marrakech.
As the war against the Axis progressed, Allied bomber bases were relocated from North Africa to Italy, allowing shorter runs to reach bombing targets in Europe. It was hazardous duty fraught with danger from antiaircraft fire. Roughly one third of aircraft operating over enemy territory in Europe were shot down.
Life at Tortorella was uncomfortable. The crews lived in tents, suffering through very hot and dry summers, and cold, wet winters. There were no hangars, so that aircraft maintenance was performed out in the open.
A restored B-17g Flying Fortress similar to the aircraft Mashie Miaskiewicz served on as fight engineer and top gunner. (Photo by Master Sgt. Ken Hammond www.defenselink.mil/multimedia)
On May 18, 1944, the 347th Bomb Squadron received orders to bomb the oilfields at Ploesti, Romania, a vital oil supply for the Third Reich. On that day, the Daisy Mae had a crew of 11, one more than its usual 10 because a photographer had been assigned to accompany them. The squadron flew in a box formation, a horizontally and vertically staggered formation that concentrated the bombers’ guns for defensive purposes. Near Ploesti, deteriorating weather forced 2nd Lieutenant McLain, the pilot of the Daisy Mae, to return home before completing the mission. Flying over Yugoslavia at 16,000 feet, within sight of the Adriatic Sea, the aircraft was hit by flak and came down in flames.
Three crew members, the bombardier, the navigator, and the waist gunner, bailed out and survived. The rest were killed.
After the war, the remains of the crew were gathered from the rugged hills of Bosnia. Four were buried at military cemeteries in Italy, one in his hometown in Michigan and another in Virginia. The remains of Miaskiewicz and the photographer on board, Sgt. John Nolan, could not be positively identified, and what was presumed to be their remains were flown to the United States and buried at the National Cemetery on Long Island.
Over the next 60 years, Christine and Theresa Miaskiewicz would travel to Long Island to visit their brother’s grave.
But that changed dramatically in 2011, when the Miaskiewicz sisters were contacted by the United States military with astonishing news.
Repatriation
In 2011, a Bosnian archaeological team from Ljubuski were searching for remains of Bosnians that perished in mass killings after World War II. Near the village of Stubica, the Bosnian team heard about an American airman shot down during the war whose body was discovered by villagers and brought for burial on a hillside near the village. Apparently, his remains were still there.
Authorities in Ljubuski alerted the U.S. ambassador by letter, which included a photograph of dog tags taken from the soldier’s remains. Within days, a team led by the American Defense Attaché met with leaders in the village to determine if the remains were of an American serviceman.
A week later forensic specialists were sent to Stubica to make a positive identification. Before the American forensic team arrived, villagers brought the airman’s remains and effects to an old schoolhouse, where the Americans reassembled the skeletal remains and examined the artifacts. All that remained was to test DNA with family members to make an official identification.
But the indications were overwhelming: SSgt Mieczyslaus Miaskiewicz had not been buried in New York, but rather in a hillside grave in Bosnia.
Later the team made the rugged climb up the hillside to investigate the actual gravesite. It was in an isolated spot difficult to reach on foot, which perhaps explains why Miaskiewicz’s remains were overlooked.
Being a member of the team meant a lot to Chief Master Sergeant David Kinsey, USAF. “To be entrusted with re-claiming the remains of an American Airman, remains that had not been fully dealt with in the ‘fog of war,’ was humbling and exciting,” he said.
How did Mashie’s remains end up on a Bosnian hillside? When the Daisy Mae was hit by flak, the nose section blew completely off, killing the pilots and radio operator. With the props still rotating, the remainder of the plane went into a rightward spiral, allowing enough time for some of the crew to bail out. Mashie Miaskiewicz was probably seated aft in the mid-section of the plane, or he could have been at the top gun turret.
Mashie’s chute never opened and he plummeted to the ground to his death. It is likely for that reason that he landed away from the other crew members and his remains missed by forensic teams after the war.
The reburial ceremony for Mashie Miaskiewicz at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Salem, 67 years after he was shot down over Bosnia. (Courtesy of William Legault)
Villagers near Stubica saw the giant plane come down, and the Germans did too. Two of the survivors were captured by German troops and one managed to escape. When villagers found Miaskiewicz’s body, they wrapped him in his parachute and buried him in an isolated hillside and kept his artifacts safe, including his dog tags, rosary beads, and a crucifix. They prayed and lit candles at the gravesite over the years because as far as they knew the American serviceman had nobody to pray for him.
“The villagers treated the gravesite with respect and reverence,” Kinsey said.
Back in Salem, in the very house where they first got word that Mashie was missing 67 years before, the Miaskiewicz sisters got a phone call.
They were asked to provide DNA samples so that a positive identification could be made, the last piece in the identification puzzle.
Theresa Miaskiewicz told the Boston Globe that the news brought her back over 60 years before when she was in the sixth grade and learned her brother was missing in action.
But now her brother would be coming home.
Today, he is buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Salem, next to Christine.
Sources:
“So Close: The Last Flight of the Daisy Mae,” by David J. Kinsey. 99th Bombardment Group Historical Society Newsletter, December, 2012.
Interview with David J. Kinsey.
“A WWII Tragedy from Sixteen Brief V-mails,” by David Steinert, Motorpool Messenger, August 2010.
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/over-cauldron-ploesti-american-air-war-romania
