Memorial

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Roy Sykora Proviso High School where he played on the school’s Varsity Letter Hillside football team. After completing his studies, he enlisted as an aviation cadet in the Air Corps. He was in the Montana State College training detachment at Bozeman, Montana before following pre-flight training at the Santa Ana, California Army Air Base. Then he was sent to gunnery school at Kingsman, Arizona, before he was transferred to Hondo Army Airfield in Texas where he had a four-month course in advanced aerial navigation. He was sent overseas in the summer of 1944.

According to Capt. Smith of the 78th Fighter Group, one of the escorting fighterpilots, #1 and #2 engines already went out over the target, due to flak hits. The B-17 was escorted back with an escort of six fighters. It headed for a flak area at Ijmuiden, the Netherlands. The fighters tried to contact the B-17 on VHF but there was no answer. Then they tried to signal him visually but withour any luck. It went trough the flak area and had #3 and #4 engines shot out and catching fire. The right wing fell off and the plane went down in flames. It was seen to explode as it hit the water at about 100 yards off the end of the breakwater at Ijmuiden.

Although three parachutes were seen, nine crew members were killed and only one man survived and was taken prisoner.