Memorial

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The pilot, 2nd Lt Allan H. Strom stated the following about the faith of 2nd Lt Monroe: "I have talked to all members of my crew but no one has any concrete information as to what happened to the bombardier Richard C. Monroe. At the time the ship was hit and caught fire. I talked to the bombardier over inter-comm and he was perfectly coherent, to my knowledge, he had not been wounded. After the navigator helped him on with his chest pack (he had been firing the nose gun) he picked up a large walk-around oxygen bottle and fastened it to his oxygene mask. Whether he wanted to take a couple of deep breaths of oxygene before jumping or intended to jump with the bottle, I do not know. Shortly after he nudged the navigator and indicated to him to jump. We presumed he followed - no one else use the nose escape hatch so there was no further way of checking to see if he actually left the plane. If he jumped with the large walk-around bottle held in front of him it may have impaired his chest chute from opening properly or the force of opening may have thrown the bottle back toward his face and even broken his neck, but not one member of the crew saw him after leaving the plane."

The Germans told the crew members that they saw a hand in the wreckage and because 2nd Lt Monroe was the only crew member who was still missing, indicates that he did perish either in the crash or the fire of the airplane.