A Herman Ottó Múzeum évkönyve 47. (2008)

Alabán Péter: „Légi háború" Ózdon 1944-ben

"AIR BATTLE" IN ÓZD IN 1944 The Russian and American airplanes shot down in the Ózd area near the Czechoslovak border rank among one of the most enigmatic and controversial events in the history of County Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén during World War 2. New documents have emerged from a private archive, providing new information on the bombings, which are not even mentioned in the local history' annals. In fact, historians specialising in wreck research knew about these events. An investigation begun in 1999 on the outskirts of Sáta, a small settlement near Ózd, brought to light the remains of an American bomber, which was shot down by the anti-aircraft defence in December 1944. It is not entirely clear who opened fire at the plane, which was returning from a Polish mission. The two studies providing a detailed discussion of the events published in 2002 and 2004 by Zoltán Jánkfalvi, an aviation history researcher, provided the basis for this study; however, recently discovered documents mention serious damages to Ózd several months before the events discussed by him. According to the eyewitnesses, airplanes were shot down above Ózd on October 31, 1944 too. The applications for apartments and various movables owing to the bomb damage caused by the air attack indicate the areas hit in the town. This brief study merely offers new data on the local events of World War 2 by presenting new, formerly unknown primary documents. These contain data on a relatively large-scale bomb damage assessment in a well-defined area, while the appended letters containing the eyewitness reports can to some extent be treated as historical source. Taken together, the two offer a reliable account of the events. The supplementing of the descriptions of the better known military operations on land with the history of the airborne attacks offers a sound basis for a better and more detailed knowledge of the local events of World War 2. Péter Alabán