Well worth a visit...
This Memorial was erected in memory of the seven crew members of the Halifax JN920, which crashed on this site on the night of October 22, 1943. They gave their lives for our freedom.
Passerby remember them:
Flt. Sgt. C.E. HALL
RCAF Pilot, aged 25
Sgt. G.H. BENNET
Navigator, aged 20
Sgt. R.S. SITCH
Wireless Operator / Air Gunner, aged 21
Sgt. J.C. COWIE
Mid Upper Gunner, aged 20
Sgt. T.V. LEWIS
Rear Gunner, aged 25
Missing / Missing Sgt. M.S. WILLIAMS
Flight Engineer, aged 29
Missing / Missing
Sgt. E. PARKER
Air Bomber, aged ???
Memorial was inaugurated on October 23, 1999
'Until the dawn breaketh'
A witness report:
On the evening of October 22, 1943, 569 planes took off in England to bomb Kassel in Germany.
To distract the Germans, they first made a mock attack on Frankfurt. But the Germans were not deceived.
25 Halifax aircraft and 18 Lancasters were shot down that night.
One of those Halfaxes was the new Halfax JN 920 that crashed here in Beverdonk.
Jan Stessens, then 11 years old, heard the anti-aircraft guns that evening.
Together with his father they went outside to look at the front of the house.
Through the flares they saw that it came from the German anti-aircraft guns that were positioned at the Castle of Retie.
Suddenly a Halifax was hit from the back of the tail and the fire spread rapidly, forward.
Jeanne Mariën saw how the plane, burning and roaring, skimmed over their farm in Beverdonk and exploded two hundred meters away in a sea of fire.
The five crew members perished here.
Four of them are buried in Antwerp.
Sergant Sitch is buried in the cemetery in Retie.
On November 11 of each year, a poppy wreath is placed on every grave of an English soldier.
This is a wreath of poppies for the honor of their country."