Incidentally, Willard Erfkamp was flying the Mustang I am rebuilding when they shared in the destruction of this Me163!
PISTON ENGINE AIRCRAFT JET KILLS
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- Jan 25, 2020
Sunday, April 20, 2008 DICK CASE
POST-STANDARD COLUMNIST
Charlie Greiner said his pal John Usiatynski had a good story to tell. He did.
Just then we're sitting in Usee Motors, the car repair shop on the main drag in East Syracuse John's had more than 50 years. His nephew, Ray Usiatynski, does most of the repairs these days. John keeps the books. He's 85.
Sixty-three years ago this month, John was a lieutenant in the Army Air Forces, helping to fight World War II in Europe. He was a pilot, flying his P-47 on a bombing mission above a small town in Germany.
His plane - marked "Petite Monique" for a girlfriend - was attacked by German fighters. One he hit. The craft, a Messerschmidt, hit the ground and exploded.
"I claim one Me 262 destroyed in air," he wrote in an encounter report.
Last year, German aircraft historians doing research on missing World War II pilots found the lost fighter plane, buried about 15 feet in the ground in a farm field in Bavaria, Germany. Remains of the German flier were still in the plane.
John's recounting for us - Charlie, nephew Ray and other listeners - how surprised he was, last July, to get the news of the discovery. He was connected to the German researchers by Mickey Russell, an historian with the U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, Ala.
"Imagine that," John's saying. "Sixty-two years ago . . ."
And the memories come spinning back . . .
He was a farmer's son back then, a graduate of East Syracuse High School who was drafted into the Army in 1943. He had never flown an airplane. He really isn't sure if he had ever been in one.
"They had me take a test," John explains. "I guess I scored well, above average." The test put him into a military pilot's program. A year of training later, he was traveling across the Atlantic Ocean on the Queen Mary - "with a load of P-47 aircraft" - and into the war in Europe.
"We traveled from England to France in a boat that fell apart when we hit the shore," he says with a laugh.
He flew out of a base at Toul/Ochey, France, in the 367th Fighter Squadron of the Tactical Air Command. His plane - he flew alone - carried two 500-pound bombs. Before his last one, in June 1945, the young pilot from East Syracuse flew 105 missions, "most of them pretty routine," according to John.
The Army Air Forces pounded Germany in those last months of the war. "Sometimes," John recalls, "we'd go out twice in the same day."
April 8, 1945, he flew above Germany on an airdrome strafing mission, according to his report. He watched German planes go after the leader of the squadron, then his plane.
This was the way he described the dogfight:
"I cleared myself and continued after him. We both were diving at 50 degrees. I gave him another burst at 600 yards and observed strikes on his tail section.
"A few seconds later, he hit the ground and exploded . . ."
John shrugs, telling the story more than 60 years later. "It was just another mission. No big deal," he says.
Until last year, when he was contacted - via e-mail and telephone - by the German historians. They told him they had dug the plane he hit out of the ground - it was scrap, in many pieces - along with the bones of the pilot.
That was when John found out the pilot had a name: Wolfgang Severin. Wolfgang was a corporal in the German Air Force. He was 32 years old.
Later John would receive several pictures of Wolfgang, and an invitation to attend his funeral, which was held last September, near his hometown in Germany. The remains were placed in a family plot in the village cemetery.
"I couldn't go to the funeral," John explains. "But I did send a bouquet of flowers and a note, which had my condolences to his family." Wolfgang had a son.
What did he say in the note? John can't remember the exact words but it
was along the lines that Wolfgang, like John, was serving his country. John said he was aiming at the plane, not the man.
It was war. All of the regret is drained out of it by now.
John came home to East Syracuse - there was no parade, as he recalls - and he and his brother Casmir opened the garage on Manlius Street where he sits today. Eventually, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross for taking down that plane. Also the Air Force Medal with 13 clusters.
Before they deteriorated, he used to show his family the films - his own story of the war - that were recorded by the camera in the nose of "Petite Monique."
John served on the East Syracuse school board and as commander of the VFW. He also was an officer of the Lions Club. He had two daughters and a son, who died.
Mickey Russell, the military historian in Alabama, tells me it not unusual to find a lost aircraft these days. There are people who recover the old ships, rehabilitate them and "sell them for lots of money." Yes, finding the pilot's remains doesn't happen every day.
John Usiatynski will verify that. For him, it was once in a lifetime.
John Usiatynski shot down a plane in WWII.- Syracuse.com
POST-STANDARD COLUMNIST
Charlie Greiner said his pal John Usiatynski had a good story to tell. He did.
Just then we're sitting in Usee Motors, the car repair shop on the main drag in East Syracuse John's had more than 50 years. His nephew, Ray Usiatynski, does most of the repairs these days. John keeps the books. He's 85.
Sixty-three years ago this month, John was a lieutenant in the Army Air Forces, helping to fight World War II in Europe. He was a pilot, flying his P-47 on a bombing mission above a small town in Germany.
His plane - marked "Petite Monique" for a girlfriend - was attacked by German fighters. One he hit. The craft, a Messerschmidt, hit the ground and exploded.
"I claim one Me 262 destroyed in air," he wrote in an encounter report.
Last year, German aircraft historians doing research on missing World War II pilots found the lost fighter plane, buried about 15 feet in the ground in a farm field in Bavaria, Germany. Remains of the German flier were still in the plane.
John's recounting for us - Charlie, nephew Ray and other listeners - how surprised he was, last July, to get the news of the discovery. He was connected to the German researchers by Mickey Russell, an historian with the U.S. Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base, Ala.
"Imagine that," John's saying. "Sixty-two years ago . . ."
And the memories come spinning back . . .
He was a farmer's son back then, a graduate of East Syracuse High School who was drafted into the Army in 1943. He had never flown an airplane. He really isn't sure if he had ever been in one.
"They had me take a test," John explains. "I guess I scored well, above average." The test put him into a military pilot's program. A year of training later, he was traveling across the Atlantic Ocean on the Queen Mary - "with a load of P-47 aircraft" - and into the war in Europe.
"We traveled from England to France in a boat that fell apart when we hit the shore," he says with a laugh.
He flew out of a base at Toul/Ochey, France, in the 367th Fighter Squadron of the Tactical Air Command. His plane - he flew alone - carried two 500-pound bombs. Before his last one, in June 1945, the young pilot from East Syracuse flew 105 missions, "most of them pretty routine," according to John.
The Army Air Forces pounded Germany in those last months of the war. "Sometimes," John recalls, "we'd go out twice in the same day."
April 8, 1945, he flew above Germany on an airdrome strafing mission, according to his report. He watched German planes go after the leader of the squadron, then his plane.
This was the way he described the dogfight:
"I cleared myself and continued after him. We both were diving at 50 degrees. I gave him another burst at 600 yards and observed strikes on his tail section.
"A few seconds later, he hit the ground and exploded . . ."
John shrugs, telling the story more than 60 years later. "It was just another mission. No big deal," he says.
Until last year, when he was contacted - via e-mail and telephone - by the German historians. They told him they had dug the plane he hit out of the ground - it was scrap, in many pieces - along with the bones of the pilot.
That was when John found out the pilot had a name: Wolfgang Severin. Wolfgang was a corporal in the German Air Force. He was 32 years old.
Later John would receive several pictures of Wolfgang, and an invitation to attend his funeral, which was held last September, near his hometown in Germany. The remains were placed in a family plot in the village cemetery.
"I couldn't go to the funeral," John explains. "But I did send a bouquet of flowers and a note, which had my condolences to his family." Wolfgang had a son.
What did he say in the note? John can't remember the exact words but it
was along the lines that Wolfgang, like John, was serving his country. John said he was aiming at the plane, not the man.
It was war. All of the regret is drained out of it by now.
John came home to East Syracuse - there was no parade, as he recalls - and he and his brother Casmir opened the garage on Manlius Street where he sits today. Eventually, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross for taking down that plane. Also the Air Force Medal with 13 clusters.
Before they deteriorated, he used to show his family the films - his own story of the war - that were recorded by the camera in the nose of "Petite Monique."
John served on the East Syracuse school board and as commander of the VFW. He also was an officer of the Lions Club. He had two daughters and a son, who died.
Mickey Russell, the military historian in Alabama, tells me it not unusual to find a lost aircraft these days. There are people who recover the old ships, rehabilitate them and "sell them for lots of money." Yes, finding the pilot's remains doesn't happen every day.
John Usiatynski will verify that. For him, it was once in a lifetime.
John Usiatynski shot down a plane in WWII.- Syracuse.com
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