Adam Janik oral history interview

Adam Janik was born in 1924 into a Polish family in South Chicago and grew up with seven siblings. He left Bowen high school in 1943 before his graduation in order to enlist in the U. S. Army Air Force. He was a tail gunner in a B-17 bomber and was sent to England after training. A month after getting to England and on his tenth mission, he participated in a bombing raid of a ball bearing factory in Schweinfurt, Germany. On the mission his plane was hit by flak, and he was forced to bail out. He was captured and spent the remainder of the war in a German POW camp. After returning to the United States, Adam would remain a life-long resident of South Chicago.