Ben John Pastorino was born on August 16, 1920. He was the husband of Marie O. Pastorino. He served in the 49th Bomber Squadron, 2nd Bomber Group, as a Flight Officer and Co-Pilot 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.

FO Pastorino was held at Stalag Luft 1, Barth-Vogelsang, Prussia. He later returned to active service, participated in additional conflicts such as the Korean War, and eventually retired with the rank of Major. He died on May 12, 1993, and is now buried in the Florida National Cemetery, Bushnell, Sumter County, Florida, USA.

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