Memorial

Biography

Arlie Jr. en zijn crew: een terugblik (De Maasgouw)

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S/Sgt Arlie R. Bridge Jr. worked in a paper factory.

He enlisted in Syracuse, New York on 17 September 1942.

He was the youngest of six children.

The plane suffered damage from flak and fell out of formation with the #3 engine smoking, and the entire nose shot up badly. One crewman was seen lying in the nose, apparently dead. Another fell from the nose and was thrashing about, apparently his chute wouldn't open. The aircraft was still under attack from the rear as it crashed in the mouth of the Eider River. It crashed into deep water, burned, and sank.

Three crew members survived and were taken prisoner; seven were killed.

On 1 August, the Harbor Security Detachment of Bussum found the remains of an American flyer on a sand bank on Blauort. These remains were so badly decomposed that they were falling apart, and therefore, the salvaging of the body was impossible, and the remains were buried on the spot in the mud. In 1947, the American Graves Registration Command tried to locate the grave. The burial site was supposedly marked with a rock; however, since the burial, the sands of the beach had been constantly shifting, and the water line of the island itself had changed considerably, so no traces of any human remains could be located in the entire area that was excavated.