Trio of ASU cadets spend 3 weeks in Poland aiding a recovery effort from a World War II bomber crash
<img src="https://news.asu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/block_image_16_9_lge/public/2026-11/No.%206.jpg?itok=kyvi5pUe” alt=”Black-and-white photo of WWII service members in front of a bomber plane.” loading=”lazy”>
Lt. Avery Gilliland (back row, second from right) poses with fellow members of the nine-man B-24J Liberator crew. All nine died on Dec. 26, 1944, when anti-aircraft fire struck their bomber during a bombing mission in Poland, breaking the plane in two. Three ASU ROTC cadets had the opportunity to work on the recovery site through a study abroad program facilitated by the Arizona Center for the Missing in Action. Courtesy photo
Story highlights
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Three ASU ROTC cadets spent three weeks in Poland, working at the site of a World War II bomber crash.
- The study abroad program teaches cadets an essential lesson about learning to lead: Understanding what can be lost.
- While working on the project, the team received news that previously recovered remains had been identified as an Arizona resident.
Note: This story is part of ASU’s 2026 Salute to Service coverage.
As the spring 2026 semester came to a close, Caden Wloch was on the lookout for a summer adventure. Beyond Air Force ROTC field training, the Arizona State University student had a largely open calendar.
Wloch, a third-year civil engineering student, found his adventure: A study abroad program that took him to Poland.
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But he also found something a bit more meaningful. In addition to the opportunity to experience another country, the program gave Wloch the chance to forge a connection across time with fellow young Americans who had also left home with a similar fire in their bellies — but never returned.
The study abroad program, facilitated by the Arizona Center for the Missing in Action, coordinates opportunities for students at Arizona’s public universities to help recover the remains of Americans lost in past conflicts.
Wloch was one of three ASU ROTC cadets, representing the Army, Navy and Air Force, who spent three weeks digging and sifting at the site of a World War II bomber crash, joining a recovery effort years in the making.
For Lt. Col. Rich Ingleby, director of the Arizona Center for the Missing in Action, the lesson students learn from participating in the program is simple: Understanding what can be lost is an essential part of learning to lead.
“It really just grounds you and shapes your perspective,” Ingleby said. “Our cadets get to see firsthand the sacrifice these service members have made that have gone before them.”
For Troy Takesian, a third-year history major and Army ROTC cadet, the mission also offered a chance to put his interest in military history to work.
“I love everything history, especially World War II history,” Takesian said. “I thought it would be a great thing to do to try to bring people back.”
Fulfilling a purpose
Ingleby helped create the Arizona Center for the Missing in Action after joining an earlier recovery mission in Poland. Looking across the crash site that had been under excavation for years, he asked what would help the team finish sooner.
The answer was simple: more people.
The ASU contingent supplied some of those hands. From June 29 to July 17, they joined a mission run by Alta Archaeology in partnership with a University of California, Davis, field school and in support of the accounting agency. Polish archaeologists worked alongside the Americans.
“We just plugged in with them and gave them additional manpower,” Ingleby said.
The work required patience as much as strength. Historical research and exploratory work had helped establish where to search. The teams now had to move systematically through the site, preserving evidence that could help specialists account for the missing.
For Takesian, days began with breakfast at a hotel in a small Polish town before heading to the site. There, he learned to balance the demands of the work: moving enough soil to make progress while protecting what lay within it.
For roughly eight hours a day, he and the other students dug by hand, carried buckets and sifted soil through screens. The terrain limited the use of larger equipment, making progress depend on patient, repeated examination.
Workers rotated among tasks. Some filled buckets with excavated soil. Others hauled loads that often weighed 20 to 30 pounds. At the screens, team members searched for possible evidence and set aside promising finds for archaeologists to examine and wash.
The cadets’ job was recovery. Scientific identification would fall to the accounting agency’s forensic specialists.
At the site, Air Force Capt. Chris Hekowczyk, an ASU ROTC instructor and assistant professor of aerospace studies who had accompanied the students on the trip, carried and sifted alongside them.
“Rank was put aside,” he said. “We were all in our regular civilian gear and got to work.”
For Takesian, the long days took on added meaning whenever the team found evidence that could advance the search.
“It felt important,” he said. “We were there for a purpose.”
Being part of something bigger
On Dec. 26, 1944, 2nd Lt. Avery M. Gilliland, a resident of Yuma, Arizona, was serving as co-pilot aboard a B-24J Liberator with the U.S. Army Air Forces’ 828th Bombardment Squadron, 485th Bombardment Group. Nine men were aboard the bomber on a mission targeting an oil refinery in Blechhammer, Germany.
Over the target, anti-aircraft fire struck the bomber. It broke in two and crashed near the village of Korzonek, Poland. Witnesses flying on the same mission reported seeing no parachutes emerge. All nine crew members were killed.
Gilliland’s name would be inscribed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium. His service had ended, but the effort to bring him home had not.
More than eight decades after the crash, people were still searching the soil where his aircraft fell.
Between 2021 and 2025, partner teams working with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA, excavated the site. They recovered human remains, aircraft wreckage and an identification tag bearing Gilliland’s name. Evidence went to the agency’s laboratory for analysis.
After the students returned home, they learned that the DPAA confirmed the identification for Gilliland’s remains, forensic work that included a DNA match.
The identification marked a breakthrough in an effort that extended well beyond any single team’s visit. For the ASU students, it gave greater meaning to the work in which they contributed.
Wloch said the news gave him “goosebumps.”
He thought of his own family, their encouragement and their investment in the future he hopes to build. He could not fully imagine what families whose loved ones never came home had experienced. But he understood why the search should continue.
As he prepares for military service, he carries that understanding with him. The men aboard the bomber are part of the history he will inherit, and their sacrifice has deepened his desire to serve.
“So that makes me excited to go ahead and represent that for the future of the Air Force and Arizona State and then the country as a whole,” Wloch said.
The mission also carried personal meaning for Hekowczyk. One grandfather had been a Navy deep-sea diver during World War II; another flew C-130s for the Air Force in Vietnam. Hekowczyk also has Polish ancestry, a connection he shared with Wloch.
Learning about the lost crew brought another connection into focus. The airmen had been young, just beginning their adult lives, much like the cadets now helping search for them.
“They were lieutenants, so they were in their early 20s,” Hekowczyk said. “They’re just getting started in life, and they’re out here … sacrificing for their country.”
Takesian saw that sacrifice as he considered his own future. After commissioning as an Army second lieutenant, he hopes to serve in combat arms, with infantry his first choice. His family has a substantial history of military service, and working at the crash site strengthened his desire to follow them.
“The people before me and my family did it, so why not me next?” he said.
Alongside lessons about leadership, the students saw the lasting commitment to account for the missing.
“To know that the United States is still out there searching for our missing was the biggest thing that probably hit me the most,” Hekowczyk said.
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