Thank You Veterans

On this Veterans Day I thought it would be fitting to remember my grandfather, Stanley Maziarz, who served in the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) during WWII. While he died in 1985 and is no longer with us, our family is lucky enough to have a number of photographs, documents, and other memorabilia from his years of military service. I've posted a few of these below.

Standing over 6 feet tall, my grandfather served as the ball-turret gunner (a rather cramped position normally reserved for the shortest member of a crew) on the B-17 Bomber crew "Gung-Ho". His crew successfully (and just barely) completed 30 combat missions over Nazi controlled Europe in the months leading up to D-Day.

My grandfather never spoke of his time in WWII, so perhaps the most valuable keepsake we have is the mission diary from the pilot of "Gung-Ho". Several years ago I did extensive research on "Gung-Ho" and the information in the mission diary (crew member names, airplane serial numbers, mission dates/numbers) and put together a photo book with the diary entries and information I found. It's a remarkable piece of history and I hope to post the full diary someday, but I've yet to make contact with the family of the pilot/author, William T. Dinwiddie. For now, I've included one diary entry (Mission #19) at the bottom of the post. The "NOTES" at the end are supplemental info I found in my research.

Today, if you know a Veteran, thank them for serving.

Stanley Maziarz, my gradfather, is the tall guy standing 3rd from the left.