Memorial

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On the 8th of April in the early morning, the crew heard about the target of their next mission: the Oil reservoirs of Nieheim, Germany. They expected the mission to be easy, even tho there would be heavy flag. The start of the mission was good, and the piloot (Fred C. Christ) took his position as nr. 6. A couple of minutes before entering the target area, flag became very heavy. All around the planes you could see the flag exploding as grey and black clouds. Some of them exploded so close you could hear them inside the plane. It shocked the plane a couple of times. Suddenly the pilot heard a loud bang. The plane started to pull to the right and the pilot had to do everything he could to keep it in formation. Other planes came very close, and a collision with an other plane was a matter of time. The pilot yelled to Joyce that he needed help from him to keep the plane in formation. Joyce did not responded and Christ feared for the worse. He yelled for Ed Ely (Gunner) to help out and Ely saw that Joyce was in a bad condition because of a big wound on his head. Ely tried to pull Joyce from his chair but his right feet was stuck under the direction rudder and that cramped the control of the plane. Meanwhile Chester Axthlem (Navigator) came out of the nose of the plane and managed to pull the right foot from Joyce free again. At that point the plane became under control again. Ely and Axthlem pulled Joyce back to the area behind the cockpit. Charlos Moore (Radio/Gunner) and Michael Orrestein (Mechanic/Gunner) started to give him first aid en at that point they noticed how heavily injured he was. Joyce was already unconscious. Moore was also injured but after they treated his wounds, he went back in his position again. The condition of Joyce made the pilot decide to look for a alternate aerodrome and the choose the airfield of Venlo. After a while the landingfield of Venlo came in sight and even though Christ had no radio contact, he started the landing of the plane. They fired some red flares to show the airfield that they a wounded man on board. The ambulance came out a few minutes later and right after the plane stopped, the nurses came in and took Joyce out of the plane. They asked Christ to join the ride because of the bad condition Joyce was in. The small hospital on the airfield was not made for injuries like Joyce had, so they had to drive to a hospital in Venlo. During that ride, Joyce died of his wounds, leaving a dejected team behind. William P. Joyce was the last victim of the 394th BG. On the 9th of April Joyce was transfered to the American Cemetery in Margraten and buried there on 12:45 PM. Joyces Mom had the opportunity to bring Joyce back to the US in 1948, but she decided to leave him at the American Cemetery of Margraten. He was reburied on the 9th of August 1948 in his final resting place.