Once his lecture series ended, the Eighth Air Force decided to send its celebrated evader home to the States. Peter hitched a flight into Washington, D.C., and took the train up the Atlantic coast to New York. When he arrived in Manhattan on February 12, 1944, the first person he called from Grand Central Station was his fiancée, Helen.
As he rode the subway to Brooklyn to meet her, Peter thought of all the places he had been, all that he had experienced and somehow managed to live through. He closed his eyes and could see the faces of the men he had fought alongside of—“Junior” Kauffman; that wonderful Cherokee Indian, Stanley Ruben; the good-natured Paul Spodar and all the others.
Where are they? Are they in some prison camp or dead? Why did God spare me? Some questions would take years, even decades to answer. Some could not be answered in a lifetime.
The subway train jerked to a noisy halt. It was his stop. He stepped into a mild night in Brooklyn and the excitement of being home pushed aside any lingering thoughts of enemy fighters, German soldiers, damp haystacks and starvation. Those things would revisit his dreams in the future, but this night was about a different kind of future.
He bounded up the apartment building’s steps with the ease of a young man eager to get on with the rest of his life. He paused at the top only long enough to adjust his Air Corps cap and then he knocked on the door. Seconds later it opened, and Peter was looking into the eyes of “the prettiest girl in Brooklyn.” Peter and Helen were married on April 9, 1944.
After the War
Peter Seniawsky returned to civilian life with a stunning list of accomplishments during his short military enlistment:• He was the first American airman (and perhaps the only one) to escape from Germany, evade capture in France and reach Spain—entirely through his own efforts, with no help from the French Resistance movement.
• He was one of only 817 U.S. airmen to be awarded the Silver Star during the war.
• He is a member of the Caterpillar Club, for having bailed out of a combat-damaged aircraft; a member of the Winged Boot Club, for walking from behind enemy lines to freedom; and a member of the Gold Fish Club, for surviving an aircraft ditching in water. Only one other individual is known to be a documented member of all three honorary clubs.
Peter and his new bride lived in Brooklyn while he searched for employment. It was not his war record but his Army Air Force training as a mechanic that landed him a job with American Airlines. Through the years, he worked on American airplanes at all three major airports in the New York City metropolitan area.
In 1951, Peter legally changed his last name to Scott. Although extremely proud of his heritage, Peter chose to Americanize the family name for the sake of his young daughters. In school, and later in the service, he had been forced to listen as others mis pronounced or “butchered” the name Seniawsky.
“I decided to give the girls an easier time of it,” he said.
During the Vietnam War, Peter volunteered for service with the American Airlines Cargo unit operating in Alaska. With the rank of first lieutenant, Peter served as chief mechanic there, supervising the maintenance of aircraft flying cargo to South Vietnam.
Eventually, he became American Airlines’ shift supervisor of mechanic operations at JFK International Airport, in New York. In this position, he and his crew received numerous commendations for service beyond ordinary duties.
On one occasion, Peter spotted a DC-10 airliner coming in for landing with some unusual vapors trailing one of its engines. Acting quickly, he called for firefighting equipment, and when the airplane rolled to a stop, he and two of his mechanics reached the engine just as it burst into flames. The three men were able to extinguish the engine fire, saving the aircraft and possibly preventing loss of life.
Few people he worked with at Kennedy knew anything of Peter’s war experiences, but in the summer of 1977 they got a firsthand look at his courage and coolness under pressure. An American Airlines jet was inbound to JFK when airport officials received an alarming telephone call with someone claiming a bomb had been placed on the flight.
The pilot was notified immediately, and upon landing he brought the airplane to a standstill at the end of the runway and then activated the emergency exit chutes. As passengers slid down the chutes and ran away from the jet, an army of airport fire and rescue vehicles and personnel surrounded the aircraft. Soon a New York City Police Department bomb squad team arrived.
Once the jet had been evacuated, the bomb squad captain ordered his men onto the darkened airplane. Peter stepped in front of the police commander and told him to keep his men on the runway until someone could board the airliner and turn on the interior lights. As the supervising mechanic, he was responsible not only to American Airlines but to the Federal Aviation Administration for anything that happened to the aircraft and anyone who might board it at that point. He was not about to stand by while the men of the bomb squad stumbled about in the dark, ripping apart one of his airplanes as they searched for a bomb. It was not safe for the aircraft or the police officers.
The police captain tried intimidation: “Listen, I am the captain of the NYPD bomb squad, mister!”
“And when that airplane is sitting on my runway, I’m captain of that airplane!” Peter responded. The policeman, no longer sure of his authority in the situation but suddenly very sure of Peter’s resolve, relented. Peter turned away and began to climb up one of the emergency exit chutes. He would never have asked one of his crew members to board an airplane with a possible bomb on board.
Once he had located and activated the auxiliary lights, the police officers swarmed onto the aircraft and conducted their search. No bomb was found, but anyone who had witnessed his actions that day knew Peter could handle a crisis with coolness and control. His old friends in the 384th Bomb Group would not have been surprised.
Peter and Helen lived in Queens for most of the thirty-nine years of Peter’s American Airlines career. In 1983, the couple moved to the picturesque shoreline town of Old Saybrook, Connecticut, where they still live today. They are most proud of their daughters, Helen and Barbara, and their four grandchildren.
Lieutenant Giles F. Kauffman Jr. was captured by the Germans on October 14, 1943, and spent the remainder of World War II in a prisoner of war camp. In later years, he would remember that he was “treated fairly” by his captors, although he thought the enlisted men in the stalags probably had it rougher.
One of the first things Kauffman did after returning to the United States was to get married. He wed Kathryn Bean on June 14, 1945. During the first ten years of their marriage, the couple added two sons and a daughter to their family. Giles (Jeff) Kauffman was born in 1945, Karen in 1949, and Michael in 1955.
As a civilian, Kauffman once again entered Penn State University and graduated with a degree in chemistry in 1947. He spent most of his working career as a chemist in the atomic energy industry.
The Kauffman family moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, in 1954, and Giles and Kathryn lived there until his retirement in 1981. They moved to Florida ten years later to enjoy their golden years in the sunshine.
Once on a trip back home to Ohio, Giles, his son Jeff, and his grandson Christopher visited the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton. The elder Kauffman agreed to be escorted around the museum in a wheelchair to avoid tiring his legs. As the three Kauffmans turned a corner, they were delighted to see a beautifully restored B-17 bomber.
Without saying a word, Giles Kauffman raised himself from the wheelchair, removed the rope barrier that protected the Fortress from museumgoers, and walked toward the airplane. He was standing underneath the B-17’s nose when Jeff Kauffman called out to his father, “Hey Dad, I don’t think you’re supposed to get that close.”
The museum’s director happened to be standing nearby. He told Jeff, “It’s okay.” Then walking to the senior Kauffman, he asked, “Would you like to go on board?”
Kauffman smiled as the curator opened the hatch beneath th
e bomber’s nose. To his son’s and grandson’s amazement, the former World War II bomber pilot climbed into the airplane as if he were in his twenties again. Moments later, Giles F. Kauffman Jr. eased himself into the left seat of a B-17 for the first time in more than five decades.
Kathryn Kauffman died in 1997, and Giles passed away two years afterward.
Frank Pogorzelski was captured soon after parachuting from Kauffman’s crippled B-17 and was a POW in Germany for the rest of the war. Upon his return to the United States and civilian life, he attended Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the GI Bill. Graduating with a degree in civil engineering, Frank began what would be a long and successful career in chemical plant design.
He married Rita Ejchost on July 23, 1946, and in 1950 the couple’s first child was born—a daughter named Carol. Frank and Rita later had two sons, Frank and Paul. In 1966, Frank changed his last name to Porell. His wife, Rita, had already passed away when Frank Porell died in September 2007.
Paul Spodar was imprisoned in the infamous Stalag 17 until the German surrender in 1945. After his discharge from the Army, he returned to Cleveland, Ohio, where he had been born and raised. For two years, he worked as a machinist for the White Truck Company, but in 1947 he jumped at the opportunity to join the Cleveland Fire Department.
Spodar had known Anne Sheyka for most of his life, because their parents were close friends. In 1947 he and Anne were married. They raised three children—Ronald, Sharon and Raymond. Two grandchildren followed.
In 1978, Paul Spodar retired from the Cleveland Fire Department after thirty years of meritorious service. Later that year, the Spodars bought a home in New Port Richey, Florida, where they lived until Anne’s death in 2005. Paul now lives in an assisted living facility in New Port Richey. His daughter, Sharon, has created a very interesting Web site named Paul’s Sentimental Journey (http://members.cox.net/paulspodar/), which pays tribute to her dad, his B-17 crewmates and all American and British WWII veterans.
Jules T. Beck, David D. Danneman, William Jarrell, Jacob M. Martinez, George Molnar, Frank Pogorzelski and Stanley T. Ruben were all taken prisoner shortly after they bailed out over Germany. Like Spodar, the enlisted men were imprisoned in Stalag 17. Molnar and Pogorzelski, who were officers, may have been placed at Stalag 17 or sent to a different prison camp. Each of these men remained a POW until the war’s end, when they all returned to the United States. William Jarrell died in December 2000 and George Molnar died in March 2002.
Crew Reunion: It seems that Lieutenant Kauffman’s crew members lost contact with each other after returning to civilian life. Very likely some members of Kauffman’s crew may have bumped into each other at Army Air Force or Bomb Group reunions over the years. There are at least three known instances of crew contact.
Paul Spodar visited several times with Frank Pogorzelski in Pennsylvania in the 1990s, and he also paid a visit to his old pilot and commander, just before Giles Kauffman Jr. died in 1999.
Through the research efforts of the author, in April 2002 Peter (Seniawsky) Scott and Spodar were reunited in a long-distance phone call. The two former waist gunners, who had fought side by side during violent air combat and who had survived nearly drowning following the ditching of the Fortress Ruthless, reminisced and made plans for an in-person reunion. In 2003, Peter visited Pogorzelski at his home and later that year met with Spodar. It was the first time he had seen either of his wartime comrades since they had bailed out of a burning B-17, fifty-nine years before.
Without a Parachute
ART FRECHETTE
Navigator
301ST BOMB GROUP
419TH BOMB SQUADRON
Art Frechette was falling through a cold December sky, not so much like a rock as like a rag doll, arms and legs loose and useless. His fall had begun at around fifteen thousand feet, when his B-17 bomber exploded into flames. The blast hurled the young navigator clear without leaving a scratch. His parachute was undamaged and in perfect working order—yet, it remained unopened as he fell toward the Italian Alps at the rate of 150 miles per hour. Art Frechette was totally unconscious.
If he did not wake up, he would crash into the mountains in less than two minutes. Even if he did regain consciousness, he would still need to be five hundred to a thousand feet high for the parachute to significantly slow his fall.
Art sailed past one thousand feet. Now, because of the cold air that was stinging his face or for who knows what reason, he began to awaken. He had only a few more seconds to realize his situation, a few more seconds of paralyzing shock. He could see the earth right below him—just a blur of green and white. His right hand grabbed for the parachute ripcord and found it. Too late.
Only two years before, at the age of eighteen, Art had dropped out of the University of Connecticut and joined the Army. He volunteered for the Air Corps, hoping to be trained as a navigator. Fate stepped in and took him in another direction.
“How would you like to be a pilot?” the officer asked Art after he had successfully completed several days of difficult testing. Normally the Army Air Corps was overstocked with pilot candidates, but in the fall of 1942, it was the navigation schools that had no vacancies.
“Okay,” Art replied, thinking it was what was meant to be. It was not. At pilot training school in Camden, Arkansas, Art did the one thing that was almost certain to get an air cadet kicked out—he crashed an airplane.
Actually, his initial weeks of pilot training had gone extremely well. He passed primary training with ease and then soloed in a cumbersome bi-wing trainer that the cadets had nicknamed the “Yellow Peril.” Despite the shortcomings of the airplane, his maiden solo flight went smoothly. Soon he was flying daily training missions over the Ouachita delta. He loved being up there all alone. It was a dreamlike world, but Art never forgot that the purpose of every mission was to make him a better pilot. Ultimately it was his dedication to improving his skills that got him into trouble.
On one particularly gusty day, he decided to make an unauthorized landing at a seldom-used airfield. His instructor’s orders before takeoff had been clear. “Fly to this point, turn, fly to here, and then return to base.” Art was not one to willfully disobey orders, but the winds that day provided what he saw as a rare opportunity to learn more about flying.
He assumed correctly that weather conditions in Europe might not always be ideal. One day he might be called on to land his aircraft in strong crosswinds. Art reasoned that it would be better to learn how now rather than later, when it could cost more lives than his own. What he did not know was that the Yellow Peril was a bear to land in a crosswind situation.
The landing approach that day seemed little different from any other he had made, with the exception of an occasional burst of wind buffeting the airplane. Art kept both hands firmly on the controls and brought the biplane down purposefully. A satisfied smile crossed his face as his airplane sailed only a few feet above the runway, in that wonderful period of anticipation just before the wheels make contact. Seconds later, the airplane crashed nosefirst into the runway.
The crosswind had tossed the twin-winged little aircraft as if it were a mere leaf. There was no time for Art to make any attempt to right the airplane. Any such effort would have been useless anyway at almost zero altitude. The aircraft skidded a short distance along the runway with its nose down and its tail up, finally coming to a rest at an almost perfect ninety-degree angle to the ground. There was hardly time to be afraid. It crossed Art’s mind that he had just come close to dying, but the thought was only a matter-of-fact conclusion.
After lowering himself out of the aircraft, he began to assess his situation. To his amazement the airplane did not look that bad. In fact, it looked about as well as an airplane could look while standing on its nose. Maybe there was a glimmer of hope that he would not be kicked out of the pilot program.
Art thought of his father back in Groton, Connecticut. What would his dad think if he was booted from pilot tra
ining? Arthur Frechette Sr. was a tough man. As a child, Art had sometimes found him hard to please. He had always tried to live up to his father’s high standards. He had never felt those standards were unreasonable, but they weighed heavy on his mind as he stood next to his damaged trainer. What will Dad think of this?
Arthur Frechette Sr. and his wife, Margaret, were proof that different personalities and backgrounds could make a good marriage. Arthur Sr. was French and Jewish. His wife, a Hogan by birth, was Irish. She had a wonderful sense of family, visiting several days a week with various members of the Hogan clan who lived in the Groton-New London area.
Art’s father was more reserved—no less caring than the mother but always the seemingly unemotional head of the Frechette family. Later, in December 1944 when the news came that his son had been shot down over enemy territory and was missing in action, it would become clear to everyone how emotional Art Sr. could be.
For the time being, any concern about what his father would think about his crashing the trainer plane was shoved aside. Air Cadet Art Frechette had bigger problems. In the distance, he could see a Jeep speeding in his direction. The vehicle was still too far away for Art to identify any of the passengers, but he knew one would be a very angry flight instructor.
Art was not automatically booted out of the pilot training program, but he certainly had two strikes against him. One: He had crashed his airplane. Two: He had done it during an unauthorized landing. He had little doubt that the latter upset his superiors more than the former. This was the Air Corps, but it was still part of the old Army. Army training was not about initiative, it was about following orders.
A few days following the crash, Art was informed he would be given a “check flight” by the chief pilot. Art knew it would be strike three unless he flew perfectly. He made up his mind to do just that. Soon into the flight, it became apparent someone had already decided that the Air Corps could do without the services of Art Frechette as a pilot. During every maneuver of the check flight, the chief pilot chewed out the young cadet pilot. When Art touched the airplane down for a landing, he knew it would be his last.
The Bomber Boys Page 14