Memorial

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S/Sgt George Petula was employed at the Velvet Weaving Department of the Smith plant.

He enlisted in December 1942.

Directly after the B-24s had dropped their bombs on the target of opportunity, they turned to the southwest, still chased by tail-attacking FW-190s.

High over the village of Buinerveen, things went deadly wrong for Lt James Urban’s crew 28, flying the B-24H, serial no. 42-52123 Thirty Days Furlough. A rocket, fired by one of the enemy fighters, hit the plane between the fuselage and the right inner engine with devastating results. The right wing broke off, and the plane suddenly lost altitude. The unsteerable plane started to tumble down in circles towards the earth. The plane was completely wrecked and still burning. Dead, burned crewmen lay on the forest floor. Several parts of the plane came down in a wide area at Exloo. The broken wing came down in plot 123 in the forest, just east of the crash site; an engine fell down in the village of Exloo without causing severe damage, and another engine fell in the forest, west of the crash site. A piece of the tail dropped just in front of the farmhouse of Jaap Smegen. None of the people of Exloo was injured, and Exloo had escaped a great disaster.