Among the 72 aircraft that took off on the evening of January 16, 1945, from airfields near Lwów and Vinnitsa to bomb Katowice was a B-25J of Guards Lieutenant Andreyev, belonging to the 250th Guards Regiment, 14th Guards Bomber Aviation Division, stationed at the Kalinowka base near Vinnitsa. Individual crews attacked the target between 21:12 and 22:30. It is difficult to say whether Andreyev’s aircraft was flying toward the target or was already returning to base — the scale of the explosion suggests that the aircraft still had bombs on board, which some witnesses also suggest.
Probably flying south of Kraków, the aircraft was detected by anti-aircraft searchlights positioned in the Świątniki Górne – Mogilany area. In this situation, the blinded pilot should have performed a maneuver to make the searchlight crews lose sight of him. Perhaps as a result of just such a turn with descent, the aircraft found itself on an easterly heading. And it was probably then that a small enemy fighter appeared. Another crew flying to Katowice that night, while fairly precisely identifying the area where their comrades were shot down (a dozen or so kilometers southeast of Kraków), pointed to anti-aircraft artillery as the cause of the incident.
The hit aircraft caught fire, flying over Siepraw and losing altitude. Above the village, the onboard gunner, Guards Senior Sergeant Komarov, managed to bail out (he returned to his unit on January 24). A bedsheet was later sewn from his parachute at one of the farms. The rapidly spreading fire made evacuation difficult for the remaining crew members. A second airman tried to leave the aircraft, but his parachute did not open. A monument erected in 1968, somewhat neglected today, stands at the site of his death. Another crew member jumped or perhaps fell from the severely damaged aircraft just before it hit the ground. Three others perished at the crash site. Everything — from the moment of being hit to the crash — lasted no more than 90 seconds.
Those who died an aviator’s death were:
Timofei Nikitich Andreyev, Guards Lieutenant, flight leader, occupying the co-pilot’s seat during the mission, born 1918 in the village of Deryugino in the Kursk region;
Lukian Fedotovich Andreyev, Guards Junior Lieutenant, pilot and aircraft commander, born 1920 in the village of Terekhino near Novosibirsk;
Grigori Ivanovich Sumsky, Guards Lieutenant, flight navigator, born 1923 in the hamlet of Ivanovsky in the Altai Territory;
Pavel Pavlovich Volkov, Guards Sergeant, gunner-radio operator, born 1926 in the village of Novaya near Omsk;
Timofei Timofeevich Andrianov, Guards Senior Private, onboard gunner, born 1926 in the village of Perevesvo in the Mordovian Republic, 500 km east of Moscow.
All of them rest in the military section of the cemetery in Myślenice, in mass grave No. 9 — it is the third grave counting from the monument, to the right of the central alley.
