Memorial

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Sgt Jerry R. Mc Eldowney attended high school for 4 years and was an architect. He volunteered for the Air Corps of the Army of the United States in Wheeling, West Virginia on 20 April 1942.

This A/C was hit by enemy aircraft. It caught fire and went down. The entire crew bailed out, but Mc Eldowney went down over the German front which was noted for shooting parachuting American airman.

The plane was attacked by enemy aircraft. Eyewitnesses of other planes watched two parachutes open between Karlsruhe and Strassbourg. The airplane crash-landed near Zegelsem, SE of Oudenaarde, Belgium.

John Dubinskas and John Waldren were killed in the plane. Pilot Clayton Child was captured and survived the war. Jerry Mc Eldowney and Grady Lucas were also made prisoner but they died in captivity, most probably during a forced march in the winter of 1945, although Mc Eldowney's official date of death is 9 August 1944.

Other records contradict this and mention that Sgt Mc Eldowney bailed out in the vicinity of Braine-Le-Chateau, Belgium and was shot by Germans soldiers and that all four killed were initially buried at the cemetery of Oudenaarde, Belgium.

Four men managed to evade capture: Henry Colt, Harold Kilmer, Andrew Kuhn and Kenneth French.

At the place of the crash, a monument was inaugurated on 20 August 2017.