Stories of Objects - The Story of the First Third Sunday of Advent 1944

The third Sunday of Advent in 1944 fell on 17 December. In the liturgical jargon it is also called Gaudete - joyful. But fate in the backdrop of wartime had a different idea. The day before, the several times postponed counter-offensive in the Ardennes had been launched under the stylish name of Herbstnebel (Autumn Fog). A low freezing fog was also present that day over the Hana area, over which, at noontime, volumes of American bombers15 AF heading from Italy to East Prussia to bomb the Blechhammer South, North and Odertal refineries. Just before noon, a fateful encounter occurred with two Jagdgeschwader ,,Wilde Sau" JG 300s of the German Luftwaffe, primarily intended to defend the Reich, taking off from airfields around Berlin.

The half-hour battle with the epicentre in the triangle Přerov-Olomouc-Prostejov went down in history. The bloody battle over the snow-covered Hana is undoubtedly the biggest air battle over our territory. In a relatively small corridor 8 B24 Liberator bombers, 2 P38 Lighting fighters crashed, 46 American pilots were killed. The delayed escort subsequently decimated JG 300 northeast of Olomouc. Over 30 FW 190 and Bf 109 fighters were shot down, 16 Luftwaffe pilots were killed. So much for a brief introduction, our subject story begins in the early hours of the morning at Torretta Air Base in Southern Italy. The crew of a B-24J Liberator 44-41158 bomber with the designation 77, 767th Bomber Squadron, 461st Bomber Group,15th AF, consisting of the machine commander 2/Lt. Max M. Hailey , co-pilot 2/Lt. James G. Hendrix navigator 2/Lt. Harbord P. Sugg Jr. , bombardier 2/Lt. Ivyl L. Killian , mechanic Sgt. Julius G. Fajkus , radio operator T/Sgt. Lawrence F. Dixon Jr. , gunners S/Sgt. Jacob Hermann III, Sgt. Harry D. Spencer, Sgt. Albert T. Arrotta, Sgt. Palmer D. Arrowood rolls in shortly after 8 a.m. for the start of his 21st mission. At the same time, a forest ranger emerges from his grove near the village of Kozlov ( Kozlau) in the southern Sudetenland for his regular Sunday errand. As he says goodbye to his wife and children on the doorstep, he promises to finally bring the Christmas tree, with only a week to go until Christmas Eve. Max Hailey, the 77 commander, moves all four throttles to the top of the runway in a practiced motion...the machine is peeling off the tarmac...the forester at Kozlov has put the last bag of hay on the sled... "Ich werde bis zum Mittagessen zu Hause sein"... "I'll be home by lunchtime"... Report from Sgt. A.Hermansen Jr.: "I was in the left side gunner position in the lead machine of a unit that was attacked by German fighters. The aircraft flying in the third position was piloted, as I later learned, by Lt. Hailey and was badly damaged by Fw-190 fire, or it immediately took off after the attacks and rushed through the clouds to the ground.

I did not see any parachutes from this machine before it disappeared into the clouds..." ,, Verdammt".."Damn, what the hell is going on in the valley", muttered the foreman under his beard, as the sound of the deck gunfire reached 700m above sea level.he knew that the Americans had been flying north since July, the war had already entered these godforsakenhills...in July an American fighter shot down two Bf 109s, an American Beaver crashed near Kozlov near Milovan...to the homeThe next moment he heard a shrill whistling sound.....he unconsciously hit the snow...in quick succession he could still see the sound of the burning bomber...above him...massive explosions, cracking trees and dirt and then sudden silence...a muffled final explosion echoed in the distance..on all fours, stumbling, he ran towards the house... only now did he realize he wasn't there... the crying of his children and wife brought him back to reality...What happened to Lt. Hailey's plane can only be speculated. Only four airmen, the two side gunners, the rear gunner and the radio operator, were rescued by parachutes. The left wing of the plane, which still had time to drop the bombs that smashed the hut, fell off and the rest of the machine crashed into the dense forest near the village of Kozlov. In its wreckage it buried the remaining six airmen. The post-war displacement of the German population and the incorporation of the area into VVP Libavá made access to the crash site impossible for many years. Later, as everywhere the site was searched and dug up, among other things, the insignia-pilot badge of Lt. Wings. I visited the site for the first time in 2016, and I will gradually present a cross-section of my findings, with a proper history of the objects. They are mostly small items, but interesting. This time it will be the torso of an Army Air Corps Camillus pocket knife and small remnants of crew gear. I dug up the above items in 2016. At that time the site was still a dense forest, today it is a bare plain after the winds and bark beetle calamity. More next time...

B 24 Liberator No.77

Knife Camillus US ArmyAirCorps finding aid

Cammilus period brochure

Camillus Knife US ArmyAirCorps original condition

Torso of navigator's ruler found condition

Navigator's ruler original condition

part of a crew member's flight hood found condition