A tale of two B-25s

Army Air Force records show that there were three B-25s that flew in the 488^th Bomb Squadron with the tail number 8Z.  The Warbirds of Glory Museum is restoring a B-25 to airworthy condition to honor the Greatest Generation.  One 8Z was used as an army trainer and fire-fighter in both Montana and Alaska.  It crashed on a sandbar in the Tanana River in Alaska in 1969.

Another 8Z flew in combat missions from its base on the island of Corsica.  It was maned by rotating crew members including Joseph Heller who wrote a famous book and later movie named “Catch-22” which was loosely based upon his wartime experiences as a B-25 bombardier.  This 8Z was shot down in the Brenner Pass of the Trentino Alps in Northern Italy while on a bombing mission on March 20, 1945.  All six crewmen were quickly captured and three were subsequently  executed by the SS. 

The Tragic Final Mission of 8Z

On March 20, 1945 8Z and 8 other B-25s were assigned to attack the North railroad bridges in Northern Italy.  8Z and two other planes broke away to bomb German anti-aircraft position (Flak Suppression Flight) to enable 6 other B-25’s to attack the bridge without interference. During the attack, the starboard engine of 8Z was disabled by flak and the crew was unable to fly over the mountains to return to base.

The six crewmembers bailed out and watched 8Z crash into a mountain in the Valley of the Sun.  Unfortunately, four thousand German troops happened to be searching this area for partisan fighters and the crewmen were quickly captured, jailed in the town of Male’ and transported 50 miles to Gestapo holding cells at the Bolzano concentration camp on March 23^rd. Both the barracks and the headquarters are still in use by the Italian military. 

The crew were beaten, interrogated and separated into two groups of three depending upon the number of combat missions they had flown.  Three were subsequently executed by SS troops as enemies of the state.  Our museum has collected detailed wartime records of the tragic final mission and personal artifacts from both the crash site in Italy and family members of the crew. The bodies of Flight Engineer Tafoya, Bombardier Hammond, and Co-Pilot Narron were buried in the Bolzano Cemetery of the Resurrection.  In 1949 the bodies of Tafoya and Hammond were returned to the U.S. for burial but Narron’s parents elected to leave his remains in Italy rather than to revisit the anguish of his loss.

In August, 2017, Warbirds of Glory Museum Historian, participated in a search for B-25 “8Z” with the Italian Val di Sol Antica. Antica’s Lorenzo Barbacovi knew people still living who had witnessed the crew bailing out, and salvaged parts in the aftermath of the crash.  One of these persons still had “8Z” parts stored in their attic.

In January, 1946 an American military court sentenced SS officers Heinrich Andergassen, August Schiffer, and Albert Storz to death by hanging for the murders of the three 8Z crewmembers, 2 additional American POWs, 2 British POWs and OSS Agent Roderick Steven Hall.  On July 26, 1946 they were hanged at the Peninsular Base section near Leghorn, Italy