I spent some time on a hot Friday afternoon updating my database of young people from Lucas County who gave up their lives in service to the United States during World War II, including 2nd Lt. Lorance F. Krashowetz, 28, killed on April 26, 1945, when his B-26 Marauder was shot down over Germany. Here's the entry as it stands now:
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KRASHOWETZ, LORANCE F., U.S. Army Air Forces second lieutenant, age 28, of Chariton, Iowa, and Detroit, Mich. Son of Frank L. and Edna Krashowetz, husband of Emma (Ellis); born Oct. 13, 1916; living and working in Detroit at the time of his induction during May of 1943. Plane shot down over Germany with loss of six-man crew, including Lorance, on April 26, 1945. Buried Lorraine American Cemetery, St. Avold, France (Plot B, Row 21, Grave 53). Cenotaph at Calvary Cemetery, Chariton, near the graves of his parents.
Lorance was the youngest of three children --- born Oct. 13, 1916, in a mining camp called Maple west of Lovilla in Monroe County to Frank L. Krashowetz, a miner native to Slovenia, and Edna F. (Deskins) Krashowetz, his wife. The family moved into Albia when the Maple mine closed and then, after 1920, to Chariton when Frank found work in Lucas County's Pleasant Township coalfields.
Lorance attended school in Chariton and graduated from Chariton High School with the class of 1934. Not long before graduation, on March 12, 1934, he was married in Jefferson to Adda Delia Callahan, 19, also of Chariton. There is no indication that this marriage ever got off the ground; they were divorced during 1937. On May 29, 1939, Lorance --- by this time a resident of Detroit --- married Emma Ellis in Chariton and this marriage endured until cut short by war.
Jobs were few and far between during the 1930s and Lorance was one of thousands drawn to Detroit where jobs were available in heavy industry. In all likelihood, he could have gone to work in Lucas County's coal mines, but chose not to. By 1940, he was working as a truck driver for the Chrysler-owned Motor Parts Corp. and, during 1943, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps.
Lt. Krashowetz, bombardier, was assigned to the 37th Bomb Squadron, 17th Bomb Group, flying out of Dijon-Longvic Air Base about 160 miles southeast of Paris when he was killed on April 26, 1945, after completing 31 bombing missions.
Flying with a six-man crew, the target of his Martin B-26 Marauder was the Lechfeld Luftwaffe Base west of Munich and south of Augsburg, flight training center and test base for the Messerschmitt Works in Augsburg proper. The Marauder was last sighted at 11:52 a.m. on April 26 over Neuburg an der Donau, northeast of Augsburg. It was shot down soon thereafter by a Messerschmitt Me 262 fighter.
The crew, in addition to Lorance, consisted of 2nd Lt. Kenneth L. Bedor, pilot; 2nd Lt. Charles J. Howard, co-pilot; Staff Sgt. Paul D. Geitgey, gunner; Sgt. Alfred E. Belt Jr., radio operator and gunner; and John J. Milkovich, gunner.
After the war, the remains of all six crewmen were recovered. Those of Bedor, Howard (of Omaha), Geitgey and Belt were repatriated. The remains of Lorance and of Milkovich were interred in the Lorraine American Cemetery, St. Avold, France, where they remain. Lorance also is commemorated on a cenotaph located near the graves of his parents in Calvary Cemetery, Chariton. He was awarded posthumously the Air Medal with Two Oak Leaf Clusters and the Purple Heart.
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Courtesy of Wikipedia, here's a close-up view of a B-26 bomber that shows where Lt. Krashowetz, as bombardier, would have been stationed --- behind the plexiglass nose cone where, when not preparing to drop the aircraft's bomb load, he operated a 50-caliber machine gun. The pilot and co-pilot sat side by side in armored seats behind an armored bulkhead. The navigator, who also served as the radio operator and sometimes gunner, worked out of a small compartment behind the pilots with more gunners deployed to the rear.
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