WW2 Fallen - B-17 bombardier Lawrence Grubisich

Lt. Lawrence Grubisich was a bombardier in the 490th Bombardment Group
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/81077440/lawrence-edward-grubisich
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/490th_Bombardment_Group

Lawrence Edward Grubisich, Jr. never had a chance to reach 100 years old today. Instead, he sacrificed his life for our freedom.

If you have enjoyed reading the stories of the WW2 fallen, Can you help write some stories? It's a big project. The more help, the better.  Announcing "The Stories Behind the Stars", see https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org. This crowd-sourced national project has the goal of compiling stories of all 400,000+ of the US World War 2 fallen in one free-to-access central database. We are going to need a lot of volunteers. Anyone visiting a war memorial or gravesite will be able to scan the name of the fallen with a smartphone and his story will appear on the phone.

    

Lawrence was born on July 8, 1920 in Illinois. His parents Lawrence and Vincenca were both born in Croatia, Austria-Hungary. They came to America before 1900. His father worked as a coal miner. Lawrence had three older brothers and two older sisters. By 1940 Lawrence had completed four years of high school. He was still living at home and was working as a carpenter.

He enlisted in the army in January 1942 and volunteered for the Army Air Forces in November 1942 and applied to become an officer. He eventually became a second lieutenant in the 848th Bombardment Squadron, 490th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force which was equipped with B-17 Flying Fortresses. The 490th BG arrived in England in April 1944 and began flying bombing missions in May.

On October 6, 1944, Lt. Grubisich was the bombardier on B-17 43-38180 on a mission to bomb Berlin. His plane was shot down by flak and crashed at Spandau. He was originally listed as missing in action. Four of the crew were captured by the Germans. Lt. Grubisich and four others were killed.

His grave is at Saint Joseph Cemetery in Canton, Illinois.

Thank you Lt. Grubisich for your sacrifice. Let's Earn It for Lawrence.

This is one of the final 100 stories (57) to be written as part of this project which ends on September 2, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. At that time more than 1,370 men and women will have been profiled. The project will live on in an expanded program to write the stories of all 400,000+ US World War II fallen. Visit www.storiesbehindthestars.org to learn more. We welcome your continued support and interest and encourage you to help write some of these stories.

Last year on this date I profiled B-17 pilot John McGarry. You can read about John 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.

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WW2 Fallen 100 is supported by

The Greatest GENERATIONS Foundation

“Where Every Day is Memorial Day”

http://www.tggf.org