John A. Nigborowicz was born on May 16, 1922, in Gallatin, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. He was the husband of Wanda T. Sekowski Nigborowicz. He served in the 49th Bomber Squadron, 2nd Bomber Group, as a Technical Sergeant and Flight Engineer of B-17 #44-6369 during World War II.

On August 29, 1944, the B-17G #44-6369, flown by Lt. Duane Seaman’s crew of the 49th Bomb Squadron, 2nd Bomb Group, took part in a Fifteenth Air Force bombing raid against the Moravská Ostrava industrial complex in German-occupied Czechoslovakia. The aircraft had only recently entered operational service, delivered in mid-July 1944 and deployed to Amendola Airfield in Italy by early August, before joining long-range attacks on German fuel, rail, and industrial targets. On this mission, later designated Mission 263, nine B-17s from the 2nd Bomb Group came under attack by 89 German fighters, and within twenty minutes, eight of them were shot down over present-day Slovakia and the Czech Republic, with one additional bomber crash-landing in Hungary. During the engagement, Seaman’s aircraft was forced down and crashed near the locality known as “Settini,” approximately one kilometer south of the present memorial marker. Unlike many of the other losses from that day, which resulted in 41 American fatalities, with 28 buried in a mass grave at Slavičín, all members of Seaman’s crew survived the crash but were subsequently taken prisoner and held in German POW camps.

TSgt Nigborowicz was held at Stalag Luft 4 Gross-Tychow, Pomerania, Prussia, and endured the brutal 88-day winter death march in freezing conditions. He died on April 19, 2015, and is now buried in the Saint Rose Cemetery, Hermitage, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, USA.

Source of information: www.findagrave.com, www.leteckabitvakarpaty.cz