Three thousands miles away, in a small French village called Edern, a two-day memorial is taking place this weekend. A stele, a wide stone slab, will be unveiled in western Brittany to honor the day in January 1943 that a B-17 bomber named SUSFU was shot out of the sky after a heated battle with the Luftwaffe. Longtime readers may recall that my granduncle Francis Sulcofski was a tech sergeant on the SUSFU, which left Molesworth Air Field on a cold January day to drop bombs over Nazi submarine pens in Lorient, France.
My granduncle’s story is remarkable. Son of a coal miner from a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania, Francis joined the army just after high school and was selected to join the Army Air Corps (forerunner to the Air Force). He completed intensive training at various U.S. bases and eventually was stationed in England. He was part of a B-17 crew that flew regular bombing missions over Nazi territory in France and Germany. I try to imagine what it must have been like in these flying tin cans, filled with adrenaline and terror in the freezing cold, all senses on alert as you try to finish your drop without hearing the ominous drone of enemy fighters.
I can’t.
Francis’s plane managed to drop its bombload and turned to head for home, only to be swarmed by Nazi planes. There was a fierce firefight and despite the crew’s best efforts, the entire nose was shot off the plane, killing one crew member instantly. The pilot, Harry Robey, ordered the crew to abandon ship. I try to imagine hearing the rain of bullets pinging around you as your trembling fingers try to strap on a parachute, the plane spinning and reeling out of control. I try to imagine standing for a second at the threshhold, looking down into smoky blackness, and taking that step out to jump only because you know the plane you’re crouched in is about to spiral down into the ground.
I can’t.
The airmen of the SUSFU came down in western Brittany — except for their pilot. Robey had managed to escape the tangled wreckage of the plane and was sailing toward earth in his parachute when a Nazi pilot wheeled his plane around and shot him as he descended — a war crime, plain and simple.
The remaining crew members landed in varous places in the area of Finistere, Brittany: one in a tree, one with a broken ankle, several in a field. Local villagers came to their aid. Soon the airmen were whisked away from where they landed. The French fed them, tended their wounds, and hid them while they recovered. Local members of the Resistance were made aware that there were Allied aviators to move out as the Nazis would undoubtedly come sniffing around. I try to imagine what it would be like to live under Nazi occupation and to decide whether to risk your life and your family’s lives by choosing to help an airman evade capture. Hiding American uniforms and parachutes, sneaking the airmen from safe house to safe house, avoiding Nazi patrols, at the risk of torture, death, or being shipped to a concentration camp.
I can’t.
Members of the Resistance eventually came up with plans for getting the airmen out of France and back to England, where they could fly again — the need for trained pilots was dire. Two members of the crew were safely smuggled up to the coast, placed on a boat and made it to England. The remaining crew, including Francis, were to be guided by members of the French Resistance (either to the northern coast or southward, through Spain) but these plans went horribly wrong. A double agent infiltrated the group and ratted out their escape plans to the SS. I try to imagine having made it to Paris, finally sitting on a small train moving west, dressed in plainclothes, praying that you’ll reach your destination, only to have SS officers break into the traincar, pistols raised, saying coldly “Put your hands up — you are taken!”
I can’t.
I don’t even try to imagine the rest of my granduncle’s story: being taken to the local police station for interrogation, then being sent to Paris for more interrogation, then going to a Nazi interrogation camp for downed airmen for more interrogation. Eventually he was sent to a POW camp called Stalag 17B. He spent two years in Stalag 17B, without enough food or warmth, living with constant cruelty and violence, physical and mental torture. As the Allied closed in on Nazi troops in 1945, guards forced the POWs to go on death marches across Nazi territory, treading through vicious winter snow to arrive at German camps farther away from where American and Russian troops were expected to break though. I can’t imagine the moment of liberation, realizing it was all over, then returning to Army hands and eventually home, unalterably changed (as my father put it, “he was never the same after the war”).
I also don’t try to imagine what happened in France after my granduncle and his crew members were captured. We know that many of the French citizens who aided the SUSFU’s crew were arrested, tortured, and imprisoned. We know some were killed. We know some were sent to the brutal Nazi concentration camps; many perished, a few survived.
I am deeply grateful to all those who have helped create this memorial weekend to honor the contributions of both American airmen and French helpers. In addition to the official unveiling of the stele, there will be reenactments, exhibitions of equipment and vehicles, and other ways to mark this solemn occasion. “This ceremony is important for us,” said Laurent Hémery, president of the association of Veterans of the Pays Glazik. “It is based on the duty of memory. It testifies to the tragic events that took place here and to our gratitude towards these soldiers.”
Someday I hope to visit the stele. I will pray for the souls of these brave airmen and the souls of the French citizens who sacrificed so much to give them aid. So if my thoughts wander a bit today, if I seem a little sad, it’s because my heart is in France, observing the duty of memory.
