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Major Sobanski asked Lt. Steppe over the radio to check his aircraft after hitting some wires while strafing a train. Last heard radio report was Lt. Steppe saying "watch those behind you White Leader."

Major Sobanski has had an extremely colorful career. At the beginning of the war he was arrested in Poland since he was the American-born son of a Polish army colonel. He managed to escape to the United States. After reaching his country he joined the R.C.A.F. where he became a fighter pilot and eventually got to England and was transferred to the American Air Forces. Probaby his greatest day was 21 May 1944, when it was reported that he avenged the sufferings of his native Poland by leading his Mustang squadron beyond Berlin, destroying six enemy planes, wrecking two warehouses, blowing up an ammunition dump and nine locomotives, one factory, three military trucks, two tugboats, a barge and a radio station. At that date his squadron was in top place, credited with 208 German kills.

He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross four times. The citation of the first award reads: For extraordinary achievement and heroism in aerial combat. Lt. Sobanski has accomplished 100 fighter combat missions, or the equivalent thereof, and destroyed five enemy airplanes over enemy occupied continental Europe. The skillful and zealous manner in which Lt. Sobanski has sought out the enemy and engaged him in aerial combat, his devotion to duty and his courage under all conditions serve as an inspiration to his fellow fliers.

He was first buried at the Temporary American Military Cemetery of St. André, France.