Joseph A. Trojanowski was born on September 18, 1924 in Massachusetts. He enlisted in the Army on April 21, 1943 at Fort Devens, Massachusetts. He was noted, at the time of his enlistment, as being employed as a Sales clerk and also as Single, without dependents. Joseph served as a Second Lieutenant and Bombardier on B-17 #43-38701, 850th Bomber Squadron, 490th Bomber Group, U.S. Army Air Force during World War II.

B-17G 43-38701 took off from Eye in Suffolk on the morning of the 19th April 1945 on a mission to bomb the marshalling yards at Aussig in Czechoslovakia. After successfully releasing their bombs they were attacked and shot down by German aircraft just south of Dresden, Germany. Their plane was hit at the starboard wing and set the fuel tanks and two engines ablaze. 2nd Lt. Trojanowski, Sgt. Dole and S/Sgt. Lesh were the only members of the ten-man crew that managed to bail out of the burning aircraft. The other crew members perished when the aircraft exploded in mid-air and the wreckage fell to earth in fields between the villages of Hradišťko, Sestrouň and Zberaz, some 45 km south of Prague.

2LT Trojanowski was captured by Wermacht officers and executed, together with two crewmates and six other airmen from B-17G #43-38078 crew, in Benešov, Czech Republic, and was buried in a mass grave. On January 15, 1947, the bodies of the eight murder victims were exhumed by US troops and was transfered to the Ardennes American Cemetery at Neuville en Condros, Belgium. 2LT Trojanowski's final resting place is in the Saint Joseph's Cemetery, Webster, Worcester County, Massachusetts, USA.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, aircrewremembered.com