Personnel

CREW



DATE: 25 June 1943, Bremen, Germany

349th Sqdn. A/C #42-3260 "ANGEL'S TIT"                 

MACR #271,   Micro-fiche 90



1st Lt Alonzo P.Adams III    P KIA

   F/O George Z.Krech        CP KIA

2nd Lt Nicholas Demchak    NAV POW

2nd Lt Jessie D.Gurley        BOM KIA

 T/Sgt John K.Sullivan        TTE KIA

 T/Sgt James D.Purcell       ROG KIA

 S/Sgt John G.Kruzich        BTG KIA

 S/Sgt Edmonde J.Walker   WG KIA

 S/Sgt Norman Asbornsen   WG KIA

 S/Sgt Bryant Hutchinson    TG KIA



According to Nick Demchak,sole survivor,they were jumped by fighters about 20 miles from the enemy coast. Demchak's statement: "My mind is a complete blank from the time we got the bail out signal until I regained Conciousness on a German boat. 2nd Lt.Gurley was in nose of ship and was not hurt when we received the bail out signal - I was firing my guns and did not hear the signal but Gurley informed me. I believe Adams and Krech were severely wounded or killed by a burst of machine gun fire which came quite close to me and from the angle appeared to enter the cockpit.Directly after that the bail out signal was given. I believe the plane exploded at that moment and the rest of the crew were killed by the explosion or rendered unconscious and unable to operate their chutes. The German boat that picked me up said they did not see anyone else."



The bodies of Adams and Asbornsen must have been recovered but all of the others appear on the Wall of The Missing at Madingly.



This was the 1st mission for this crew.



Message From: Mpinscher@aol.com 

To: fruffino@club-internet.fr 

Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 2:06 PM

Subject: Re: B-17: "Angel's Tit"



Franck, 

In a telephone conversation I had with Uncle Nick last night (he's in 

Massachusetts and I'm in Florida), he provided a bit of info that you might 

already have, but here goes...





"The inherent problem with the mission that "Angel's Tit" and the other planes were on was the fact that they had no escorts. The bombers could merely cruise and were way out maneuvered by the smaller, quicker Messerschmidts who were right on their tails. 

The Germans had open target practice on the B-17s and were able to pick them off at will. He was amazed at the amount of victories attributed to the fighter pilot who shot his plane down, and quickly acknowledged that each was just doing their job. "



Nicholas Demchak, last survivor of "Angel's tit" 's crew 

died on October 5, 2001 and was buried on October 10.

We shall never forget his bravery.