Sadly, Józef passed away at the young age of only 20, while in service as a Corporal Radio Operator with the Polish Air Force during World War II when his airplane, flight 1586, was shot down while bringing help to insurgent Warsaw. There were no survivors from the tragic crash.

Józef shares a headstone with CPL Jan Florkowski, age 24. The other heroic Polish airmen who lost their lives on flight 1586 were: Tadeusz Jencka, Brunon Malejka, Jan Marecki, Zygmunt Pluta, and Bernard Wichrowski. May Józef, and all his fellow Polish airmen, rest in heavenly peace. ❤

Source: www.sekowa.info -- information contributed by Józef's brother Mieczysław (Mike):

Józef Dudziak was born on 18 March 1924 in Drohobycz, Poland, eldest son of Piotr and Maria née Stypa. His hometown after 17 September 1939 was occupied by the USSR, which sought to incorporate the occupied territories of the Republic of Poland into its area. One of the methods of achieving this goal became mass deportations. As a 15-year-old boy, together with his whole family, he was deported to Kazakhstan (USSR) in February 1940. My father, as a pre-war policeman, was imprisoned in a labor camp in distant Siberia (at the end of the 40s, he returned to Poland and settled in Boleslawiec, where he soon died).

In January 1942, Józef Dudziak joined the Polish Army in the USSR together with his brother Mieczysław, and with the Army of General Władysław Anders, he left the "inhuman (occupied) land" and got to the West. He arrived in Great Britain at the beginning of June 1942. He began his military service in aviation on August 4, 1942, and was immediately sent to the Polish Aviation Technical School for Minors in Halton for PTTS course No. 35, which took place from August 25 to December 17, 1942. It was a course for radio operators and shooters at the same time releasing graduates with the degree of strz. X-ray.

Józef went through the next courses in Cranwell North and in Evanton - 8 AGS (School of Deck Gunners). After this training, he was transferred to the 18th OTU (Combat Training Detachment) at Bramcote. Here, from September 21, 1943 to February 21, 1944, he served in the 300th Bomber Squadron. On March 18, 1944, Józef was transferred to the transit center and flew with his colleagues through Gibraltar to Cairo, after a few days he is in Palestine in the Lydda center. Here, he underwent training on Liberator aircraft in 1675 HCU (Heavy Conversion Unit). On June 12, 1944, he was assigned to the 1586th Special Purpose Squadron, and on June 16, 1944, the crew reported to the airport in Campo Casale near Brindisi (Italy). From then, until the last flight to Poland, Józef made 25 special flights.

For its last flight, the crew took off on a B-24Liberator VI GR-R (EW275) in the evening of August 16, 1944, with the task of dropping containers on Warsaw. On the flight back to Italy, the plane was attacked and shot down by a night fighter. He crashed in the village of Olszyny near Biecz. Józef's body was initially buried at the local military cemetery from World War I in Olszyny. After the post-war exhumation, since 1948 he has been buried at the British War Cemetery in Krakow. He was awarded the Field Rifleman's Badge. Józef was the youngest aviator (20 years) in the crew of Capt. Z. Pluta.

The flight crew lost their lives far too soon. After all, they were only 20, 21, and 24 years old. All that remained of them was a photograph and the tears of mothers, fathers, siblings, and a letter from a loving mother, whose faith and heart filled with love and longing tirelessly told her that her son would return from the war.

Józef was survived by his loving parents, Maria E. (nee Stypa) Dudziak and Piotr Dudziak, and his two younger brothers.