A monument in Banica honouring seven Polish RAF airmen shot down in August 1944 on the way back from Warsaw.
The monument in the hamlet of Banica in the village of Krzywa commemorates seven Polish airmen of No. 1586 Special Duties Flight RAF, based at Campo Cassale airfield near Brindisi in Italy. They died in the night of 27 to 28 August 1944, when their Halifax aircraft was shot down on the return from a flight carrying supplies for insurgent Warsaw.
According to a website devoted to local history, the crew consisted of: 2nd Lt pilot Kazimierz Widacki (commander), Capt. navigator Franciszek Omylak, 2nd Lt bomb aimer Konstanty Dunin-Horkawicz, 2nd Lt gunner Tadeusz Mroczko, Sgt flight engineer Andrzej Balcarek, Sgt radio operator Jan Ozga and Sgt gunner Józef Skorczyk. After the front passed in March 1945 they were buried in two coffins in the cemetery in Krzywa.
The first monument, funded by the community of Gorlice County, stood on a hill by the road to Krzywa. It was dismantled on 12 June 2009, and a new one was unveiled on 28 August 2009, on the 65th anniversary of the crash.
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