S/Sgt. Zigfryd V. Czarnecki ASN: 33437551 assigned to the 526th Bomb Squadron 379th Bomb Group, Eighth Air Force.

Served as a crew member on B-17G-55-BO-42-102628 "G. I. Jane" with the King crew. Aircraft history per Dave Osborne's Master Fort Log:
Delivered Cheyenne 19/3/44; Kearney 14/4/44; Grenier 28/4/44; Assigned 526BS/379BG [LF-P] Kimbolton 13/5/44; Missing in Action Hamburg 18/6/44 with Steve King, Navigator: Don Casey, Bombardier: Chas Henry, Flight engineer/top turret gunner: Ray Wheeler, Ball turret gunner: Jim Hagen (5 Prisoner of War); Co-pilot: Milton Miller, Radio Operator: Chas Rutishauser, Waist gunner: Zigfryd Czamecki,Tail gunner: Gene Miller (4 Killed in Action); flak set #3 alight, crashed SW of Pinneberg, near Hamburg; Missing Air Crew Report 5989. G.I. JANE.

The MACR 5989, 28 pages starts here on fold3 https://www.fold3.com/image/28649399 with 5 pages devoted to the Dachau trial and conviction of Langeloh

Ziggy-and-Dora May (Jenkins) Morgan

Ellwood City Leger Tuesday, July 10, 2012 12:15 am By Bill Utterback Calkins Media.


Zygfried “Ziggy” Czarnecki, also from Beaver Falls, was the left waist gunner on a B-17 bomber known as the G.I. Jane, part of the 379th bomber group. He had completed 24 missions for the U.S. Air Force in World War II. After his 25th mission, he planned to return to Beaver Falls, to his girlfriend and their life together.

After attacking a target near Hamburg, Germany, an engine caught fire. The plane crashed. The crew survived. The pilot and the navigator were taken prisoner. Czarnecki was shot through the neck by a man — a Gestapo officer, according to information Morgan has gathered — who had promised to take him to a hospital.

“I was heartbroken,” she said.

On Saturday, Morgan, 87, a Beaver resident, rode in a B-17 bomber that took off and touched down from Allegheny County Airport. She stood where the left waist gunner stood, and held the left waist gunner’s weapon.

“I cried when they took me on the plane: I waited more than 60 years for this day,” Morgan said.

Following Czarnecki’s death, Morgan enlisted in the U.S. Marines and served two years in Washington, D.C. She had a 50-year marriage to Frank Morgan, a former Marine who served in the Pacific during World War II, and together they raised five children. She has seven grandchildren, one of whom was married Friday evening in Pittsburgh. And she never forgot about Ziggy Czarnecki.

“I told my children, ‘I’m on a mission to find out what happened to him, and I’m not quitting,’ “ she said. “When you’re in the Marine Corps, you learn to be tenacious.”

Morgan made certain her children knew her quest to know more about Czarnecki was not a reflection on her husband. It was a need to know more about the event that shaped her life.

“I knew two good boys,” she said.

Morgan has spent years assembling a book about Czarnecki, and part of her plan was to fly in a B-17, to stand where he stood.

“I tried for years and years,” she said.

The flight was arranged by Beaver resident Tom King, a friend of the Morgan family and an air traffic controller.

Morgan, who still tends Czarnecki’s grave, asked King if he ever had the opportunity to visit with B-17 crews involved in air shows and celebrations, would he ask some veterans how she could learn more about Czarnecki’s time in the Air Force.

King made some connections and was directed to some websites. Morgan used one of the websites to find the pilot involved in Czarnecki’s last flight and visited last year him last year in San Diego.

“I waited from 1943, all that time, not knowing what happened to him. I needed to know.”

Time marches on but the memories will never die http://www.ellwoodcityledger.com/ne...cle_8d72eba7-0069-5c2b-b76f-78a5c498476f.html

Dora for Ziggy memory flight 2012

Zigfryd (Ziggy) V.Czarnecki, grave aerial view, Ziggy would like this as an aviator.

Many thanks to St Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery administrator Brian who offer the section F, Lot 168, Grave #1 also guiding me to where Ziggy's grave is located approximately.