Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Monday, July 14, 2008
Local veteran returns to site of 1945 B-17 bomber crash in Poland
Sixty-three years later, Ray Sundet of La Crosse returned to the farm field in Poland where his Army Air Corps B-17 bomber crash-landed after being shot up by a German Me-262 jet fighter.
Sundet, 84, also signed autographs during a visit to a museum in nearby Witkowo, Poland, that has parts of the aircraft on display, and during a visit to a Polish air base.
“They treated him like a celebrity,” said Sundet’s daughter, Barb Davis of Onalaska, Wis. She, her husband, Terry, and her sister and brother-in-law Ann and Ron Mulder of Bloomington, Minn., accompanied Sundet during the May 12-22 trip.
The farm field is a “serene place” today, and is surrounded by old farmsteads and bright yellow canola fields, Davis said Friday.
Sundet was radio operator on the bomber, the Try ’n Getit. It was based in England and was completing a bombing run over Ruhland and Zwickaw, Germany, when it was attacked March 19, 1945.
“We got hit while we were dropping bombs,” Sundet said.
The German fighter — the model was the world’s first operational jet fighter — shot out two of the four engines on the propeller-driven bomber. The Try ’n Getit landed with only one engine still working.
“Having lost two engines, our pilot knew that we couldn’t get back to England,” Sundet said. “So he decided to head toward Russia.
“The plane went to heck (when it crash-landed), but all 10 of us lived,” Sundet said, as he pointed out details in photos of his airplane and crew, and displayed three empty shell casings and several small pieces of glass from the airplane. The casings and glass, recovered at the crash site, were given to Sundet during his May visit.
“I was happy to be alive,” Sundet recalled. “We could have all been killed.”
Children were the first to approach the crew and the crashed bomber. Local farmers were the next to arrive. Then Russian soldiers showed up and took the crew to a mansion where Russian officers were staying. “The 10 of us stayed on the second floor in a beautiful ballroom,” and were treated well by their Russian allies, Sundet said.
Sundet, his daughters and their husbands visited the mansion during their May trip. They were glad to see it hadn’t been demolished, but were disappointed to see the building is in very poor condition and uninhabited.
Wieslaw Glowinkowski, one of the Collectors Club members who are very involved in the museum’s operation, led Sundet and his daughters and sons-in-law on tours of the area.
“My daughters kept telling me that I should go back to the scene,” Sundet said of the trip. He added he most enjoyed “Being with family. It was nice being together.” And returning to the crash site “wasn’t sad or anything.”
Sundet was born in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis., and his family moved to La Crosse when he was in eighth or ninth grade. He has lived in the city ever since, and practiced law for 58 years until he retired last October.
Sundet has two daughters; a son, Sam, who was unable to make the May trip; and four grandchildren. His wife, Betty, died in 1990.
Steve Cahalan can be reached at (608) 791-8229 or scahalan@lacrossetribune.com.
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