On January 18, 1945, Red Army Guards Lieutenant Aleksei Matveyevich Bobykin, flying in a pair of La-5FN aircraft, attacked German columns in the Limanowa area. When he took off on that cloudy morning from an airfield near Krosno, he did not suspect that this would be his last mission.
During the attack on the railway station and refinery in Limanowa, his La-5FN came under accurate fire from German anti-aircraft artillery. The pilot, probably wounded, covered by his wingman, tried to make it back to friendly lines in his damaged aircraft. Unfortunately, the largely wooden construction of the airframe sealed his fate.
At around 10 AM, the pilot of the burning aircraft, flying over Makowica, discharged his ammunition by firing it off (aware that upon impact with the ground a detonation could occur), which led to a tragedy. A young mother, 26-year-old Antonina Joniec, was killed by shrapnel in front of her house. Shrapnel also seriously wounded 9-year-old Stanislaw Juszczak (the fragments remained in his body for the rest of his life, permanently disabling him) and Helena Rączkowska. The aircraft continued its descent; in the hamlet of Bania, it clipped the chimney of the Pachowicz family house (now Bober), and then slammed into a nearby meadow with great force, creating a large crater. The burning fuel and exploding cannon ammunition completed the destruction, burying the pilot in the wreckage.
The events of January 18, 1945, whose tragic finale took place in the hamlet of Bania in Laskowa Górna, have for the most part survived only in the memory of witnesses and in the stories they passed on to their children. They are also confirmed by an entry in the school chronicle made by headmaster Aleksander Pisarczyk:
“…As January 19, 1945, was approaching, finally the Christmas holidays, a respite, and a few more days of lessons. The beautiful, almost spring-like days of January 1945. Monday came, January 15, a rosy morning with a light frost, beautiful, but from the east something rumbles, thunders; at eight it stopped — children to classrooms! Lessons. On Thursday, January 18, some abnormal aircraft activity from early morning, frequent detonations; lessons begin, but it is hard to focus the children’s attention, they keep glancing toward the windows, because the droning grows more frequent, the detonations intensify. Break at 10 o’clock. Before everyone’s eyes, an air battle — one aircraft catches fire and falls about a kilometer from the school — dangerous!…”
