A Pottsville Hero Who Gave His Life for France

           Here is a story, a true story, that begins like many other stories. Boy meets girl. Girl and boy fall in love. They marry. They await the birth of a child. Here are all the ingredients needed to make a happy family and life, but the year is 1943. We must factor in another element. There is a world war going on.

          This is the story of Monica DiNapoli and John E. Young, graduates of the PAHS class of 1935, where they met and fell in love. It is also the story of their daughter, Kathy Young Connelly, whom many may know as a painter of vibrant and delicate watercolors. Some of you may own one of her works.

          Kathy and I met in December 2022 at the Christkindlmarkt at the Yuengling Mansion. She told me a story of a Pottsville-Paris connection that qualifies as surely the most significant I have written about since I first set out in January 2010.

          After high school, Kathy’s father John attended Valley Forge Military Academy. At graduation he was commissioned Second Lieutenant. From there he entered the US Air Force and attended several flight training schools. In May of 1943, John and Monica married. When he returned to his unit, a child was on its way.

          Lieutenant John E. Young was a member of the 337^th Bomb Squadron of the 96^th Bomber Group, based at Snetterton Heath Air Base in East Anglia, England. From May 1943 to April 1945, the group flew B-17 Flying Fortresses, “the best bombardment aircraft in existence,” according to a US general at that time, to targets across occupied Europe.

B-17’s, heavily armed, were considered rugged, reliable, and brutal for the standard crew of 10 men. Used for precision daytime bombing, the planes did not have pressurized cabins, and their windows were no more than uncovered openings in the thin metal fuselage. Of the nearly 13,000 B-17’s built for the war, 4,735 were lost during combat, and only 36% of crew members survived the required tour of 25 missions.

On the morning of September 15, 1943, 2^nd Lieutenant John E. Young, navigator, was in the air above Paris in B-17 42-30607 “Pat Hand.” His co-pilot was 1^st Lieutenant Kenneth E. Murphy. The 8 other men included the radio operator, the flight engineer, the bombardier and gunners. Their target was an aeronautics plant, Hispano-Suiza, in the southwest suburbs of Paris. Occupied by the Germans, as had been all of France since June 22, 1940, its production was entirely directed to the German war effort.

Already in late May 1943, there had been an unsuccessful American attack on Hispano-Suiza, an automobile factory established in 1914 and later converted to airplane production, easily identifiable from the air because of its giant wind tunnel. 

The wind tunnel survived the war and today is part of an elementary school in Bois-Colombes

In August, the Allies discovered the plant included an ultramodern underground testing ground. On September 9, 1943, the site was targeted again. Once again, the attack failed. There was little material damage to the plant though 45 died and 150 were injured, many of the victims civilians living in Bois-Colombes, the suburban town where Hispano-Suiza was located, and in neighboring La Garenne-Colombes.

Early on the morning of September 15^th, General Ira C. Eaker, Commanding General of the 8^th USAF in Britain, launched 3 waves of B-17’s on occupied armaments sites to the south of Paris, including Renault factories and Hispano-Suiza. One of those B-17’s was “Pat Hand” with 2^nd Lieutenant John E. Young at his post.

Soon after dropping its bombs, the plane’s right wing was touched by a shell from a “Flak,” a German anti-aircraft artillery gun. “Pat Hand” immediately burst into flame and like a meteor hurtled towards the earth, exploding before it touched the ground in the courtyard of an apartment building at 34, rue du Château in La Garenne-Colombes, less than a half-mile from the Hispano-Suiza plant.

The descent of the "Pat Hand" seen from the sky.

After the plane’s descent, bombing in the area continued for 4 hours. When it was safe to emerge from bomb shelters, inhabitants of rue du Château discovered the burnt ruins of “Pat Hand.” Of the 10-member crew, there was a sole survivor, waist gunner Sol Ferrucci, who was taken prisoner of war. Kathy Young Connelly, not yet born, lost her father that day.

On September 16^th, the bodies of the dead crew members were transported to the German military hospital Beaujon in the nearby town of Clichy.

Not until September 28, 2002, did La Garenne-Colombes commemorate the sacrifice of American lives in their town for the liberation of France. Present that day for the ceremony were Harold Murphy, 87 years old at that time, and Winfred, 82, brothers of Lt. Kenneth E. Murphy who, along with Lt. John E. Young, died in the crash. The mayor of La Garenne-Colombes, Philippe Juvin, paid homage to “these aviators of ‘Pat Hand’ who gave their lives for the freedom of the inhabitants of La Garenne.”

A representative of the USAF in France and 4 Marines in dress uniform also participated in the ceremony, which included the placing of a commemorative plaque at the site where the plane crashed. 

A week ago, I went to 34, rue du Château, a modest apartment building constructed in the early part of the 20^th century. Rue du Château is a quiet street lined with what the French call “pavillons,” small suburban homes, and a few apartment buildings. Thanks to a resident, I was able to enter N° 34, where, in the entrance hall, a large poster commemorates the crew of “Pat Hand” and provides the details of its mission and the crash. In the tidy courtyard, there is no longer a trace of the war fought on that ground. 

Today Hispano-Suiza, which closed in 1999, has been converted into an elementary school called “la Cigogne,” “the Stork,” the bird that represented the factory’s trademark. The giant wind tunnel, still in existence, has become part of the school’s architecture.

Kathy Young Connelly never met her father, never knew the sound of his voice, the touch of his hand, but all her life she has carried him in her heart, a Pottsville hero who gave his life for France.