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| Sgt. Francis Zambie was a B-17 ball turret gunner. He looks kind of tall for this role. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13103325/francis-a.-zambie |
Francis A. Zambie never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.
He was born on October 22, 1918 in Arkansas. His parents Joseph and Eggia were both born in Syria and came to America in 1898 and 1908, respectively. His father owned a restaurant. Francis had two older brothers and two older sisters, . By 1940 Francis had completed four years of high school and was working as a checker while living with his parents.
He was drafted into the army on October 21, 1941 and volunteered for the Army Air Forces where he became a sergeant and ball turret gunner in the 526th Bombardment Squadron, 379th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force, which was equipped with B-17 Flying Fortresses.
On May 7, 1944 Sgt. Zambie took off for his very first combat mission. Best guess is that his plane had the name Blues in the Night. The target was Berlin. Sgt. Zambie's plane was downed by flak. Only the bombardier safely parachuted out. The rest of the crew was killed.
His grave is at St.Mary's Catholic Cemetery in Helena, Arkansas. If someone is able to take a photo of the grave and send it to me, I would be happy to add it to this profile.
Last year on this date I profiled PBY flight engineer Arvo Ranta. You can read about Arvo here.
On behalf of the fallen, if you would like to see more people become aware of this project to honor the WW2 fallen, be sure to share with others on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thanks for your interest!
I created this video to explain why I started this project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXt8QA481lY.
Please consider joining the public Facebook group to increase the exposure of this project. Go to: WW2 Fallen 100
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