Frank Jasicko of Great Avalanche holds a book accounting by one of his aggregation associates that capacity activity as a captive of war in Apple War II.(Photo: Scott Mansch/Great Avalanche Tribune)Buy Photo
Frank explains why No. 24 is so cogent to him and added Wochit
The cardinal ‘24’ is appropriate for Frank Jasicko.
“I got affiliated aback I was 24,” he says. “My altogether is Advance 24, 1924. I flew on B-24s. So anytime I accept to aces a cardinal I consistently aces 24. But so far it hasn’t paid off.”
It absolutely didn’t aback the Great Avalanche man and nine others were authoritative their 24th mission on a B-24 adviser in July of 1944. The alike was attempt bottomward – it was the additional time in six months the aggregation had been affected to banish over adversary breadth – and this time they were all captured by the Germans.
For the abutting nine months, Frank Jasicko was a captive of war. It was a abhorrent time for a Montana man acclimated to adrift chargeless in the Treasure State timber.
FRANK, 93, WAS BORN in Tracy, Montana.
“You apperceive breadth that’s at?” he says, sipping on a bottle of milk.
He is all abandoned in the bistro at the Grand View assisted active ability this day, sitting at a window table. A server brings him a baby amoroso cookie.
“Here you are, Mr. Frank,” she says.
He smiles and acknowledgment her, afresh asks a company to accompany him.
“My dad was a atramentous miner,” he says. “But he died aback I was 11. So I had to affectionate of booty over actuality the arch of the family. I went to academy and had jobs on the side. I formed at the Safeway abundance and I formed ambience pins at the bowling alley. That’s aloof the way activity was.”
FRANK’S PARENTS were from Slovakia. Three of his earlier sisters were built-in there. Louis and Agnes Jasicko came to the U.S., but afresh confused aback to the old country.
“My dad came aback over actuality above-mentioned to Apple War I, and he was activity to accelerate for my mother,” Frank says. “But it was too late. During the war, see, they didn’t let anyone appear over. My dad and mother were afar 13 years.”
They eventually were reunited, but not for long. Louis died in 1936.
“It was miner’s consumption,” Frank says. “His lungs were shot.”
Frank went to Great Avalanche High, breadth he counterbalanced studies and assignment the best he could. There wasn’t absolutely abundant time for sports, but he played football as a senior. He abutting the Bison football aggregation in 1941.
Then the abutting year Frank abutting the war effort.
“I active up a year afterwards Pearl Harbor,” he says. “A agglomeration of us went in together. Must accept been 10 or 12 of us. We had afterwards consecutive numbers. If you enlisted, you could aces the service. We all best the Air Force (then alleged the Army Air Corps).”
Frank says they were all friends.
“Most of them now are dead,” he says softly.
FRANK TRAINED AS an engineer-gunner on a B-24 bomber.
His aggregation flew out of Italy. Fifty missions were appropriate to acquire a acquittal and a cruise home. And that, Frank says, was a difficult proposition.
“I got attempt bottomward a brace times in 1944,” he says. “We were attempt bottomward on our 13th mission, hitting the ambition of Ploiesti, Romania. Oil wells. It was a heavily dedicated target. We got hit by abuse over the ambition and absent two of our four engines.”
The men all bailed out abreast Yugoslavia. They were begin by “Tito’s Partisans,” a pro-Allied accumulation that hid and helped the men. And aural 10 canicule the absolute accumulation was cautiously aback in Italy.
FRANK AND HIS aggregation associates enjoyed a abrupt “R and R” respite.
“It was a anniversary on the Isle of Capri,” he says. “You anytime apprehend of the Isle of Capri? There was a acclaimed song about it.”
He smiles.
“I can acquaint you the words,” he says. “Or would you rather accept me sing it to you?”
He action softly, afresh begins.
“It was on the Isle of Capri that I met her, the dejected Italian skies aloft … As I kissed her candied duke I could see, she wore a credible aureate arena on her finger. It was good-bye to the Isle of Capri.”
Frank smiles. But abandoned for a moment.
For anon it was additionally good-bye to freedom.
THE RESCUED CREW MEMBERS anticipation they were headed home. Instead they were anon aback on the B-24.
“We didn’t appetite to, but what the hell are you gonna say? That’s what we active up for,” Frank says.
The adviser flew at 20,000 anxiety or higher. No pressurized planes aback then. It was generally 30 or 40 degrees beneath zero. Frank was a waist gunner. A ample gap provided allowance for his weapon. The algid was miserable.
“Not fun,” Frank says.
The men persevered. But 10 acknowledged missions later, the B-24 aggregation was in agitation again. It was their 24th mission.
“We were over Vienna, Austria, bombing some ball-bearing plants,” Frank says.
The abuse was horrendous.
“We knew we weren’t activity to accomplish it back,” Frank says. “We anticipation we ability accomplish it to the Mediterranean Sea, but we anticipation ‘why booty a adventitious on ditching?’ We’d bailed out afore and been OK.”
So they parachuted out.
“I anamnesis it was a actual abandoned activity aback you hit the ground,” he says. “You’re bottomward in the abuse mountains and you don’t see a soul. You don’t alike apperceive what country you’re in, really.”
They had bailed out over what they anticipation was an breadth captivated by Tito’s Partisans.
“But it wasn’t,” Frank says.
THE GERMANS confined the men in a Budapest jail. The SS took all their dog tags and for the abutting nine months the men were prisoners of war. Six months were spent at Stalag Luft IV in Poland.
“Then the Russians started authoritative their drive to Berlin,” Frank says. “So they put us on the march. And we marched for 600 miles.”
Frank avalanche silent.
MUCH OF THE advance was during a frigid winter.
“We didn’t beddy-bye in any goddam motels, I’ll acquaint you that,” Frank says. “We slept alfresco on the ground. We didn’t accept our clothes off for 80-some days. Can you imagine? The lice …”
Frank’s eyes able-bodied with tears. He all-overs his arch and takes addition sip from his bottle of milk.
For several minutes, he says nothing.
LIFE AS A POW is doubtful for abounding Americans today.
“I got one letter in those months I was in the bastille camp,” Frank says. “It was from my brother-in-law autograph to acquaint me about my family.”
The Red Cross delivered the letters. Any responses from the POWs were censored by the Germans.
“That’s aloof the way it was,” Frank says.
He advised 185 pounds as a 17-year-old football amateur at Great Avalanche High. He estimates he was 130 or 140 afterwards months as a POW.
“We had potatoes, mostly. And I anticipate soups,” Frank says. “But mostly potatoes. In the affected the Red Cross would accelerate us parcels. They were actual acceptable but we didn’t get actual many. We breach it amid four guys.”
THE DAYS WERE long. What kept him going?
“I aloof kept cerebration that I capital to get home to my family,” he says. “What were my sisters, my brothers-in-law and my mother doing? My mother was alone. I afraid about her.”
He finishes his cookie.
“I don’t like to decay food,” he says. “You see that debris can over there? There was a time aback I’d accord my appropriate arm for what is in that garbage.”
He looks up for a moment.
“But we capital live. So you anticipate about girls,” he says.
Then he smiles a bit.
“But not aback you’re hungry,” he says. “When you’re athirst you anticipate about annihilation but food. And the hell with the girls. But contrarily you anticipation about girls.”
And now his 93-year-old eyes twinkle.
“I still do to this day,” he grins.
DOES HATRED for the adversary linger?
Frank says animus was not a motivation, admitting analysis from his captors was not altogether kind. Frank recalls a bouncer application a board bulk to bash the POWs at times. Sometimes for no credible reason.
“I got hit a few times,” Frank says.
That wasn’t all.
“On the advance if you didn’t do absolutely what they capital you to do, they had dogs (German shepherds) and they’d sic ‘em on you. And they didn’t accept English, the dogs didn’t.”
Thoughts of revenge, though? No.
“That wasn’t what we were cerebration about aback we got freed,” he says. “We thought, Geez, I’m activity home.”
Did he anytime anticipate of escape?
“Well, that was your duty. Supposedly,” Frank says. “But breadth in the hell are you activity to escape to? You’re in Germany and can’t allege German. And all the farmers are German.”
He all-overs his head.
FINALLY, MERCIFULLY, with the Germans added on the run, the POWs were larboard unguarded. A Canadian catchbasin accouterments came aloft the group.
“And things got a lot better,” Frank says.
Not anon thereafter, the war was over.
“That was a blessed day,” Frank says. “We aloft some hell then, you bigger accept it.”
FRANK MARRIED Fran in 1948. In Great Falls. They had two children. There are several grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the family.
“My kids are all retired,” he says with a baby smile. “And if you don’t anticipate that makes you feel old …”
Frank formed as a bookkeeper, and afresh as a architecture contractor. He enjoyed Great Falls.
And he has no abjure about enlisting in the Army Air Corps.
“It was affectionate of expected,” he said of the aggressive service. “If I didn’t admit they would accept taken me (via the draft) and I’d maybe met up with a altered fate. You went with the abstraction that you could get killed, that’s for sure. But you aloof had to go with it.
“When you’re 18 you anticipate you’ve got the apple by the tail.”
HAVING LOST his ancestor as a adolescent boy, with a ancestors that included his mother and several sisters, Frank grew up quickly.
“I had to go to work,” Frank says. “And be the man of the house.”
The administration qualities artificial from that difficult accomplishments served him able-bodied aback he ejected from the B-24.
“Nothing absolutely agitated me,” he says. “I ample I could do this and I could do that.”
He pauses.
“I’m annoyed with my life,” he says. “I met all the challenges I could and I’m still here.”
HOLIDAYS SUCH as Memorial Day or Veterans Day authority appropriate acceptation for Frank. But there is no celebration.
“I accept a few bodies who alarm me and ambition me Blessed Veterans Day,” he says.
Then Frank, who absent his wife Fran in 2005, pauses already more.
“It was a continued time ago,” he says. “I’m still aggravating to balloon it. But yes, every already in a while I anticipate about it. Aback all my aggregation associates were still active we had reunions. But now I’m the abandoned one left. And that’s why I feel like I should allocution about it a little bit. For them.”
He wipes his eyes.
“I’ll acquaint you, aback you were over a ambition and abuse was advancing up, boy you would pray,” he says. “Just argumentation with the Lord to additional you one added day.”
He bites his lip hard.
“I’ve had a acceptable life,” he says. “I can’t complain. I aloof admiration why I’m still here.”
Mansch On Montana appears best Mondays in this space. Contact Scott Mansch at 791-1481 or smansch@greatfallstribune.com
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