On December 18, 1944, a B-24 Liberator flying from a base in Italy on a mission to bomb German synthetic fuel plants in Oświęcim crashed. During the flight, the aircraft was hit by anti-aircraft artillery even before reaching its target. The Americans decided to jettison their unarmed bombs and continue flying toward the Soviet lines, bypassing larger cities such as Kraków, in order to minimize civilian casualties in the event of being shot down. As a result of the damage, the aircraft began to lose altitude over the Gorce Mountains, where it ultimately crashed. The airmen evacuated the aircraft by parachute. Nine of the ten crew members were rescued — within just 30 hours they were found by a local Home Army unit. The residents of Ochotnica Górna played a crucial role in the rescue operation, as they were the first to reach the Americans, saving them from hypothermia and German patrols.
The Liberator survivors were handed over to partisans, who escorted them to their quarters at Kurnytowa Polana, and after three days onward to the headquarters of the 1st PSP AK (Home Army Podhalańska Infantry Regiment) in Bukówka above Szczawa, in the Kamienica Valley. The rescued airmen, after many adventures, eventually returned to the United States. Unfortunately, for a long time after the crash, the fate of the bomber’s first pilot, William J. Beimbrink, remained unknown. His body was never found. For many years, various hypotheses and speculations circulated about the events of December 1944. The mystery was partially solved only in 2008, when two Americans from the Office of Prisoners of War and Missing in Action reached a woman who told them a story connected to the missing pilot. In the forest, in the Łopuszna valley, she had found his body, which was leaning against a tree; around his hand was the device used to deploy a parachute. Based on the elderly woman’s description, it could be surmised that William J. Beimbrink died as a result of jumping from too low an altitude and the entanglement of his parachute lines. And the proof that it was indeed the Liberator’s commander were the original maps found on him and, after all those years, handed over to the Americans. Unfortunately, despite searches, the grave in which the residents of Łopuszna buried the pilot was never found.
In 1994, on the 50th anniversary of the events, a landscape complex called “Memorial Grove” was established at the crash site. Using original materials, a section of the aircraft’s fuselage and an outline of the wing were reconstructed. A wooden cabin was also built, on which an information plaque about the crash was mounted, along with the history of the resistance movement operating in the Gorce Mountains. Three surviving American airmen of the Liberator took part in the ceremony.
