ENGLISH MUSEUM TO HAIL AVIATOR'S U-BOAT HEROICS; VET TO REVISIT SQUADRON'S OLD DIGS.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

The contest for the seas and skies from England to Spain in the summer of '43 featured withering battles between American bombers and German war birds - a chapter of war Frank Antosz figured was forgotten.

Then the retired flight engineer heard from military aviation historians in England last fall. The Dunkeswell Memorial Museum wanted to honor his B-24 Liberator squadron for its often successful seek-and-destroy missions for German U-boats preying on Allied shipping during World War II.

``The first thing I thought was, I've never been honored in my life,'' recalled Antosz, who served three decades in the Army Air Corps and Air Force.

Today, the 77-year-old Antosz and his wife, Constance, head to England for a Memorial Day weekend program honoring the 19th Antisubmarine Squadron.

Thanks to resurgent appreciation for America's role in Europe, veterans once based at the Dunkeswell airfield have been celebrated in recent years at the museum there.

This marks Antosz' first return to the town his squadron called home, yet hardly knew with Britain under siege and most of Europe in German hands.

``We were always busy. They were hunting us, we were hunting them. We were really a thorn in their side,'' he said.

What he saw of Dunkeswell was buildings boarded to keep the town's lights from aiding German bombers. ``It was pretty rough over there at that time. The people were going through hell.''

Antosz experienced his own hell on a clear August day over the Bay of Biscay in 1943.

The B-24 Antosz was posted to as flight engineer and top gunner was on one of its 15-hour missions when eight German Junker fighter-bombers attacked.

The leader knocked out two of the B-24's four engines and shot away most of its left rudder. Two more attacks further disabled the bomber, though the gunners - led by Antosz - maintained harassing fire, according to an official account.

At 1,000 feet, the pilot gave the order to ditch, a difficult task for the notoriously fragile B-24. The plane hit the bay at a slight angle at 130 mph.

Six members from the 10-man crew escaped, but could thank Antosz and co-pilot Charles Moore for snagging two life rafts, a container of water and rations for the treacherous five days that followed, according to a report by the pilot, Silas Grider.

``It was just torture and misery. You would fry by day and freeze by night,'' he said. ``We got overturned at least five times. You didn't have time to get seasick.''

They rationed water and didn't eat much of the food rations because they only added to the thirst. Desperately hungry, one man shot a sea gull that the crew shared.

``When you're out there and you're starving, you'll eat anything,'' he said.

The crew's rescue was followed by more flights. Antosz logged more than 800 hours before the squadron was replaced by Navy fliers.

The Dunkeswell museum is honoring the Air Corps squadron for breakthroughs in anti-submarine warfare.

``They were the guys who developed a lot of the tactics,'' said Brian Lindner, a Vermont aviation historian who helped his British colleagues find Antosz.

``Those guys were breaking ground virtually every flight. They were creating this thing as it went.''

Antosz transferred to an Arizona base to train B-24 crews and didn't meet Grider again until Moore's funeral in Texas a year ago. The two surviving members of that B-24 squadron will come together again this weekend.

Buoyed by the occasion, both also are renewing efforts to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross medal, considered the highest decoration for a military aviation veteran.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

PHOTO (1) Frank Antosz, left, hopes to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross with the help of his daughter, Brenda Michaels, and her husband, Bruce, both serving in the California Air National Guard.

(2) Air Force veteran Frank Antosz hopes to add one more medal to the honors he has received.

Evan Yee/Daily News