In prior research, I had figured out the town where the plane crashed, and even found the little stone monument erected nearby. Tonight I focused on what happened after the crash.
I found a digital prisoner-of-war record for B.B. Lewis on-line. I learned that upon his capture in February 1945, he was taken to Luft Stalag 3 in what was then in Silesia , Germany but now is in Poland. I read about this prison camp, which, it turned out, was the camp famous for being the setting of the "Great Escape". I refreshed my recollection of how this escape led to German war crimes against 50 recaptured prisoners of war. I read about how prisoners were evacuated to another camp just before the Russians arrived in 1945, to be repatriated near Nuremberg. I also looked at pictures of Nova Paka in the Czech Republic, near where the plane crashed. Nova Paka is famous for its petrified wood forest.
B.B. Lewis lived through the war,came home intact, but died of polio in 1948. I never him, though I met his brother Jimmy, who died in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
I wrote up part of what I had found and e-mailed it off to my dad. Otherwise, the day was various worries, a visit from the plumber, and lots of bluebirds.
