WWII flier Lt. Steve Nagy returns home; to be buried in Lorain on Friday

LORAIN — On Aug. 24, 1944, 2nd Lt. Steve Nagy and thousands of other U.S. airmen were given a mission: Disrupt the Nazi war machine with a massive bombing raid targeting the I.G. Farben refinery outside Merseburg, Germany. The facility was a synthetic oil refinery that extracted usable petroleum from coal, "and was thus an essential military target," according to U.S. Army Air Forces documents. The task of the American fliers was to drop almost 3,000 tons of high explosives on the facility. Twenty-eight combat wings, including 834 B-17 Flying Fortress and 485 B-24 Liberator bombers with 19 fighter groups in support, were assigned to the operation. Thirty-five B-17s from the 92nd Bombardment Group were part of the raid. A Lorain native, Nagy's wartime service had taken him across the pond to England, where he ended up serving in the 407th Bombardment Squadron (Heavy), 92d Bombardment Group (Heavy), 40th Combat Bombardment Wing, 1st Air Division, 8th Air Force. His plane, serial number 42-31771, took off from Bassingbourn airfield in England at 6:55 a.m. the day of the raid "under light rain," according to the U.S. Army, and was assigned to the Lead group flying at 8,000 feet. Above him at 9,000 was the High group and below, at 7,000 feet, the Low group. Nagy's eight-man crew included co-pilot 2nd Lt. John McTigue, navigator 2nd Lt. John Ketzner, bombardier 2nd Lt. Daniel Giove, top turret gunner Staff Sgt. Willard Best, ball turret gunner Sgt. Wilbur Wulfeck, waist gunner Sgt. Francesco Iadevaia, tail gunner Sgt. Peter Cimino Jr. and radioman Sgt. George DeMott. The plane crossed over the English Channel at 9:34 a.m., and at 10:53 a.m., about 30 miles northwest of Hamburg, the first German anti-aircraft fire was encountered. Flying southeast across Germany, the American bombers were attacked by Nazi fighters shortly before noon. A witness, who was a waist gunner in another B-17 on the mission, would later report that a German Messerschmitt 109 fighter plane came up behind Nagy's plane and fired on it just before noon, setting it ablaze. "Moments later, an explosion ripped the plane apart," according to a U.S. Army report provided to Nagy's family more than 70 years later. Ketzner, DeMott, Iadevaia and Cimino parachuted to safety, but all were captured and interned by the Nazis until the end of the war. Giove would later be verified killed in action, but lieutenants Nagy and McTigue and sergeants Best and Wulfeck were listed as missing in action. Unidentified remains found at the crash site would later be buried by German civilians in a nearby cemetery. Nagy was posthumously promoted from second lieutenant to first lieutenant while still listed as missing in action by the War Department. He would be declared dead a year after his final mission. More than 26,000 U.S. airmen assigned to the 8th Air Force died in the campaign, according to various sources. An additional 28,000 survived, but lived out their service as prisoners of war. "A popular saying at the time was that to 'fly in the Eighth Air Force then was like holding a ticket to a funeral — your own,'" wrote Seth Paridon, a staff historian at the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, in an October 2017 article about the U.S. bombing campaign against Germany that was posted on the museum's website. The homefront Steve Nagy was one of five children — Margaret, Mike Jr., Larry and Bill were the others — who lived with their parents on the family farm on Dunton Road in Sheffield Township. Steve Nagy, whose nickname was "Pete," was a 1938 graduate of Clearview High School. He ran track his freshman year, was in the dramatics club all four years and also participated in football, Library Club, Glee Club and "C" Club, according to his yearbook entry. "Curiosity once killed a cat," was his quote in the 1939 Clearview yearbook. The U.S. entered the war in December 1941, and Nagy's path through the armed forces took him into the U.S. Army Air Forces, predecessor of the U.S. Air Force. The Dec. 18, 1943, edition of The Lorain Journal ran a story about Steve Nagy's entry into the officer corps. Among eight Lorain County men who entered the service in November and December that year was the newly minted 2nd Lt. Steve Nagy, The Journal reported. Living in Vermilion after the war, Margaret (Nagy) Miller made a number of inquiries with the U.S. Army about the fate of her younger brother. Letters bounced back and forth between her and U.S. Army representatives for several years. The U.S. Army couldn't guarantee a return of his remains, representatives wrote the family. Rich Nagy was born in 1946, two years after his uncle died 4,300 miles away from Lorain. The Nagys bought a plot in Elmwood Cemetery in 1949. It was the site of frequent visits over the years, but all Rich Nagy had were those stories of the uncle he never knew, lost in a war that ended before he was born. "We knew he wasn't really there," he said. Lt. Nagy was married to his wife, Norma, at the time of his death, and the couple had no children. Norma later remarried, and she died some time in the mid-1980s, Rich Nagy said. Identification After the war, the U.S. Army determined there were multiple remains among those recovered from the German cemetery American Graves Registration Command personnel disinterred the remains and reburied them in U.S. military cemeteries in Europe, the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency reported. The DPAA is the arm of the military tasked with recovering and identifying the more than 72,000 American service members listed as unaccounted for from World War II, as well as the remains of those lost in other wars, including the Korean and Vietnam wars. In 2017, a DPAA historian connected the circumstances of the deaths and the unidentified remains that had been recovered, determining they probably were part of Lt. Nagy's bomber crew. Rich Nagy said he and his cousin Larry, a Sandusky resident, were sent DNA kits by the U.S. Army to provide samples to help identify his uncle's remains. It took nearly two years, but on Sept. 3, 2019, DPAA laboratory specialists positively identified Lt. Nagy's remains. Military personnel then visited the Nagys and over four hours provided records outlining the successful 75-year quest to put a name to the remains. "The military, they never give up looking for MIAs and POWs," said Rich Nagy, himself a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam. The homecoming Just about 6 a.m. Friday, Sept. 17, a Southwest Airlines plane left Offut Air Force Base, home of one of the DPAA's two U.S.-based labs, carrying Lt. Nagy's remains. It landed at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport at about 5 p.m. The pilot and co-pilot and a U.S. Army captain disembarked and greeted members of the Nagy family on the tarmac as the flag-draped casket of Lt. Nagy was solemnly rolled off the airplane. Representatives of the Ohio Army National Guard also were there to greet the family and Lt. Nagy's remains. Inside the casket was a dress uniform that Rich Nagy said will stay with his uncle when he is buried, even though the U.S. Army said he could have it. Lt. Nagy "deserves to be with his uniform," Rich Nagy said. Six Lorain police cruisers and Patriot Guard riders on motorcycles then led a procession including a hearse from Gluvna-Shimo-Hromada Funeral Chapel in Lorain and a limousine carrying the Nagy family down Interstate 480. Cleveland police officers blocked off entrance ramps to allow the procession a clear route back to Lorain. "It was some kind of a procession, right to Gluvna's," Rich Nagy said. A procession will leave the funeral home at 3224 Broadway after 10 a.m. Friday, and travel past Clearview High School at 4700 Broadway on its way to Elmwood Cemetery at 640 North Ridge Road for a funeral service. The city of Lorain has donated a plot in the new veterans section at Elmwood Cemetery on North Ridge Road in which to bury Lt. Nagy. Rich Nagy said it's not far from the place where his family put a marker without a body more than 70 years ago. Lt. Nagy's name still is listed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Hombourg, Belgium, though the American Battle Monuments Commission has added a rosette marker next to his name to show he has been found and identified. According to the DPAA, there are more than 72,000 service members still unaccounted for from World War II, with the remains of less than half of those — about 30,000 — believed to still be recoverable. Lt. Nagy's medals — a Purple Heart, the Air Medal (with one bronze oak leaf cluster), the American and European-African-Middle Eastern campaign medal (with three bronze service stars), the World War II Victory Medal, an honorable service lapel button and the Army Aviation Badge — are inside a shadow box on a shelf in the office in his nephew's Lorain home. The U.S. Army also made copies of Lt. Nagy's dog tags, which Rich Nagy said will be shared among his living relatives. Rich Nagy's wife, Barb, said the return of her husband's uncle to his home soil is a "dream come true," and thanked all the armed services personnel and DNA experts who were able to identify him. "Without them, it wouldn't all be happening," she said. And though the coronavirus pandemic threw a wrench into the family's plans to honor Lt. Nagy for nearly two years, Rich Nagy said one of his main goals for 2021 was to finally bring his uncle home. "It's beautiful, it's amazing," said Rich Nagy, whose middle name is Stephen, in honor of his uncle. "We want to do everything we can to make it right." To learn more about the Department of Defense's mission to account for Americans who went missing while serving in the military, visit the DPAA at dpaa.mil or on Facebook. Contact Dave O'Brien at (440) 329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com. Follow him at @daveobrienCT on Twitter.