My brother, William (Bill) J. Heath,
was born on March 21, 1922 at home on my parent’s homestead in
the timbered hills about 5 miles above Locke, Washington. That
general area today is used by the Air Force as survival training
for pilots to live off the land for a few days alone. He
graduated from Newport High School in 1940 and enlisted in the
Army Air Corps on January 9, 1942, one month after the Pearl
Harbor attack. One week later he was on his way to Sheppard
Field in Texas for basic training. He then went to Kelly Field
for pilot training and learned to fly solo. On one of his solo
flights he was in an area that 3 other training planes were in
and the 4 planes "buzzed" workers in a cotton field. The next
day the 4 of them were in front of the commander and he informed
all of them that they would not be pilots or copilots, but could
choose some other position. Bill chose to be a bombardier and he
was sent to San Angelo Army Air Field for training. He was in
training class #43-5 graduating as 2nd Lt. on April 1, 1943.
Most of my life I have lived with the story the government told
my parents about the death of my brother, 2nd Lt. William (Bill)
J. Heath, Bombardier on a B-17, was "They were on their way back
from Bremen on Oct. 8, 1943 when they were attacked by German
fighters. Their Squadron had shot down a German fighter, which
was on fire and out of control and collided with my brother’s
plane. Both planes went down on fire and out of control. No
parachutes."
Since then I have found out they were on their way to Bremen
with a full bomb load.
Three years ago this coming Memorial Day my wife Carol and I
went to the cemetery to put flowers on her father’s grave and as
we left we noticed a WWII exhibit by the office, which we went
to look at. Several people were dressed in old military uniforms
and there were exhibits and memorabilia. In the center was a
large table with WWII type books, which people could look at. I
picked up only one book, "Flying Fortress" by Ed Jablonski and
opened it. I WAS LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF A FLIGHT OF B –17’S
OVER BREMEN ON OCTOBER 8, 1943.
I had made a few half-hearted attempts before to find
information on my brother but had found none. Seeing this
picture was to me a special sign. At this time I did not know
what group he was with. I drove to my older sister’s home and
asked her and to see if she had any information. She finally
found an old envelope with Bill’s overseas address. I then found
out he was in the 100th Bomb Group, 351st Squadron.
I searched on my webtv unit the 100th BG web page (www.100thbg.com)
and found some information that I had not known before. I
discovered the B-17 Bill was lost on was named the "Marie
Helena", (42-3386 EP-H), and that the Gormley crew (2nd Lt.
Raymond J. Gormley) was on their 7th mission when they were lost.
After they crossed the enemy, the group encountered aggressive
fighter attacks. Fifteen minutes into the battle, two FW-190’s
flew through the formation and one FW-190 collided with the
Marie Helena. A huge fireball erupted and both planes broke up.
The wreckage of the Marie Helena came down near the small
village of Bellingwolde, The Netherlands. The entire crew of ten
were KIA.
The following is from the 100th BG Message Board – MPFaley:
B17F sn# 42-3386 EP-H "Marie Henela", 100BG, 351st BS.
- 2nd Lt. Raymond J. Gormley P
- 2nd Lt. Edward J. Fox CP
- 2nd Lt. Peter T. Motta Nav
- 2nd Lt. William J. Heath Bom
- T/Sgt Jay B McPhee TTE
- T/Sgt Dale A Von Seggern ROG
- T/Sgt Donald R Hilton BTG
- S/Sgt Charles Presley WG
- S/Sgt William A. Avery, Jr WG
- S/Sgt Clay E Rife TG
Marie Helena was rammed by a FW 190 flown by Oblt. Erich
Hondt. Both aircraft went down and disintegrated in mid-air, the
wreckage falling over a wide area near Bellingwolde, 28 miles
east of Groningen, Holland at 15.30 hrs.
Most of the bodies were burnt to 3 degrees. Lt. Gormley, Lt.
Fox, T/Sgt Von Seggern, T/Sgt McPhee, and S/Sgt Presley were
buried in the protestant churchyard Bellingwolde.
Lt. Motta, Lt. Heath, S/Sgt Hilton, S/Sgt Avery Jr, and S/Sgt
Rife were buried on 18 Oktober 1943 in the nearby Lutheran
cemetery at Leer, Germany. S/Sgt Presley’s body was found a week
later in canal Ron-Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
From the MACR report: "Top Turret gunner Sgt. John Ehlen on
Piccadilly Lily reported the FW 190 crashed into the left wing
root. Gormley had been flying a wing position and the whole
formation was in a flat turn. The FW 190 passed over our wing
and crashed into eh B-17 (Marie Helena) on the turn."
Walter "Chief" Moreno flying nearby in Messie Bessie noted "Red
nose FW 190 crashed into ship #386 and both went down in flames
20 miles SE of Emden." The shattered remains of Marie Helena
crashed near Bellingwolde, Friesland." MPF]
I also found the chronology of the Oct. 8, 1943 raid to Bremen
in Marvin "Red" Bowman’s S-2 Diary, page 3. It tells what time
they started the engines, the time of take-off and in what
order, what time they left the English coast, which planes
aborted and why, the time they crossed the enemy coast, and what
happened to the planes that were lost.
The 100th BG lost 7 B-17’s on this mission to Bremen, one of
which was the famous "Piccadilly Lily" flown by the Crew of
Capt. Thomas E. Murphy. Two days later on October 10, 1943,
thirteen B-17’s were on a raid to Munster and only one returned.
"Royal Flush" flown by 2nd Lt. Robert "Rosie" Rosenthal, made it
back to Thorpe Abbotts on two engines with two severely wounded
on board. These were the days of no long-range fighter
protection for the bombers over Germany. October 8-14, 1943
would later become known as "Black Week" for the 8th Air Force
due to severe bomber losses. It was during this time that the
100th Bomb Group earned its nickname "The Bloody Hundredth."
I also discovered on the 100th message board, towards the bottom
of the page posted months earlier, a message from Paul West
asking if anyone had pictures of the Marie Helena crew as they
had none. Guess what! I had some and sent them in to Mike Faley
and they are now on the 100th website. Thank you for answering
all my questions, Mike.
I searched the internet for information of the small village
where the Marie Helena crashed, hoping to find a website. I
happened to get on a website of WWII people trying to contact
others. I read one message of a man from the Netherlands trying
to find a Scottish soldier in the British Military who lived for
a time in his parents’ home when they liberated them from the
Germans. I noticed on the end of his e-mail address nl, which
meant Netherlands. On the spur of the moment I e-mailed him
asking him if the village of Bellingwolde had an e-mail address.
He wanted to know why, I told Mr. Bert Buitenhuis of Zwolle my
story.
Mr. Buitenhuis then made many phone calls to the village and
contacted officials in the city hall telling them that I was
looking for information of the crash. Netherlands has privacy
laws and somehow Mr. Buitenhuis prevailed by proving to them he
was getting the information for me and obtained the archives of
the crash and mailed them to me. One set was in German and one
set was in Dutch. I found a high school German teacher and had
her translate it and it so happened that her mother, who lives
in Tacoma, lived in Bremen at the time of this air raid.
The archives were several pages of eyewitness reports of several
people telling what they saw of the flaming B-17 coming down and
what they witnessed at the crash site. Some of the report is a
little repetitious but very interesting. It tells of the Dutch
civil air defense arriving and guarding the wreckage and the
bodies until the German Police arrived and took over. Some of
the bodies had ID and some of them did not. One of the German
soldiers took a watch from one of the bodies and looked at it
and threw it back because it was broken. It also tells that the
five crewmembers buried in Bellingwolde received a Christian
burial and oak crosses were put on the graves along with 2 steel
helmets. I have a picture of the 5 graves with the crosses on
them taken by a Dutch woman during the war under German
occupation. She is now 92 years old. At that time they were
buried in a new area of the cemetery with no other graves. The
Germans took the other five crewmembers across the border to
Leer, Germany, and they were buried there. I have learned
recently that Bill was one of the five taken there. I still have
not found out why they were taken to Germany. I now know which
crewmembers were buried in Bellingwolde and which ones were
taken to Leer.
The archives also reported of a steel helmet with my brother’s
name and serial number on it found near the crash site. I was
surprised as I had never heard of or seen pictures of aircrews
wearing steel helmets so I sent an e-mail to Mike Faley to ask
him about them. He replied that the photo-ops were always done
before or after missions and that is why you never see a picture
of them. These were Flak Helmets worn by the crews as they
entered enemy territory. Some of the early helmets had to have
holes cut into them to accommodate the headsets.
I posted a short 60th year memorial message on the 100th message
board for the crew of Marie Helena on October 8, 2003. I
received a message back "We in England appreciate the sacrifices
made by many brave Americans so we can be free today". This is
how I came to know and appreciate Mr. Ron Leigh. Later, Mr.
Leigh sent me a fist sized piece of the main runway from Thorpe
Abbotts telling me that this piece was from about the place on
the runway where a fully loaded B-17 would be struggling to lift
off and become airborne. It is now on my mantle. Thank you
again, Ron. He also suggested I get the book "We’re Poor Little
Lambs" by Paul Andrews from the 100th’s Jan Riddling. I am glad
I did as it tells of the last mission of Piccadilly Lily and
mentions what happened to the Marie Helena. They both went down
within 15 minutes of each other. The book also has a diagram of
the 100th formation that day, top view, head-on view, and side
view. It shows the Piccadilly Lily ahead and above the Marie
Helena in formation which fits the description of when the 2
FW-190’s fly down through the formation as on the Gormley crew
page on the 100ths website.
I was curious about the title of the book "We’re Poor Little
Lambs". The movie "Twelve O’Clock High" had some background
music of "We’re poor little lambs and have lost our way, baa,
baa, baaa". It is called "The Whiffenpoof Song" and I searched
and found that it came from Rudyard Kipling’s writing of
"Gentlemen-Rankers". Read it, about British soldiers overseas in
the late 1800’s. A couple of lines from it are " God help us,
for we knew the worst too young!" and "And we die, and none can
tell Them where we died".
 Carol
and I thought that at our age we would never be able to make the
trip overseas as she is partially handicapped and uses a cane.
She cannot stand very long or walk very far and I would also
have to take care of the luggage. It crossed our mind in 2004 to
go but then we found out that she needed surgery so we could not
go that year. In 2005 we decided that if we were ever going to
make the trip it had to be this year because Carol’s condition
is getting worse. We had never been overseas before and the trip
was rather intimidating to us. We were still undecided but the
encouragement from our family, from Mr. Buitenhuis in The
Netherlands, and from Mr. Ron Leigh in England made up our minds
to go for it. Without the help of these two wonderful people we
had met on the internet, this trip would not have been possible
for us. Before we left home we did not realize how much we would
have to depend on them. Also we would not have been able to make
this trip without wheel chair assistance at the airports.
We left Spokane on a United flight at 6:55am April 27 to Chicago
with a five and a half hour layover before leaving on a flight
to Amsterdam. During our overseas flight I got into a
conversation with a flight steward and he became interested in
the reason for our trip. I showed him the chronology of the
Bremen raid and he was amazed at the detailed account that I had
been able to find on the internet after sixty-two years. Later,
as we started to descend, he stopped by our seat and said the
pilot would like to talk to us after landing if we didn’t mind.
We talked to the pilot and he was very interested in seeing the
chronology of the raid and hearing the reason for our trip. We
would be very surprised to see him again on our flight home.
At 9:15 am on April 28, 2005 we landed in Amsterdam and Bert and
Rie Buitenhuis had driven 90 miles from their home in Zwolle,
and were there to meet us. We introduced ourselves to each other
for the first time. With their help we had booked a hotel for 9
days in Zwolle and during that time he drove us every day to
interesting places to see within driving distance of his home.
Two days after we arrived it was necessary for Carol to seek
medical care for a minor emergency and Bert very kindly found
her the help she needed. One of the very interesting places Bert
and Rie took us was the beautiful fishing village of Urk. Many
years ago Urk was a tiny island fishing village in the middle of
the Zuider Zee. When the Dutch people reclaimed the land from
the sea it became a small fishing village on the edge of the
mainland. There is a viewpoint that looks out over the North Sea
and has a statue of a fisherman’s wife with her back to the sea
and she is looking over her shoulder waiting for her husband to
return. Along the wall are plaques that have the year, name, and
age of the fishermen that lost their lives from this village.
Some years, whole families of men were lost. The plaques go back
to the year of 1717. We were impressed with The Netherlands.
Everything was very clean, no litter, good roads and beautiful
homes and farms. No dilapidated buildings. Buildings hundreds of
years old almost looked like new. The homes are mostly brick
with tile roofs and a few old-fashioned homes and windmills have
straw roofs.
While at the hotel in Zwolle we met a couple at breakfast on two
different mornings, Meta and Bram Sneep, who lived near
Amsterdam. Two days after they left, we received a letter at our
hotel from them asking us to call them when we passed through
Amsterdam again on our way to England or as we passed through on
our way home. We would see them again later.
Mr. Bert Buitenhuis had made an appointment with Mr. Beeno
Stikker, to visit the Marie Helena crash site at 3:00pm on May
5th, which was the 60th anniversary of the Liberation Day of the
Netherlands by the Allies. Mr. Stikker is the owner of the farm
where Bills’ plane crashed and he was a boy 11 years old and was
coming home from school when it happened.. When he found out we
were coming he made plans with Bert for us to meet at his home.
When we arrived, we were greeted by Mr. and Mrs. Stikker, their
son and daughter and other guests they had invited. The
Burgomaster of the village, Mr. Drenth, presented Carol with a
beautiful bouquet. After lunch we went in several cars out to
the crash site in the field. Mr. Stikkers son stood in the exact
spot of the wreckage in an ankle high green cornfield. The corn
was not in rows and in the area where he was standing you could
see an oval landmark of corn a shade lighter green than the
rest. Sixty-two years after the crash it still showed the area.
When Mr. Stikker tills the soil he still finds small bits of the
B-17.
Another guest at the luncheon was Mr. Chris Timmer who
investigated many WWII crash sites since about 1986, including
this one. He has one of the engines from the Marie Helena in a
museum in northern Netherlands. He had brought some small pieces
of the plane he had found here for me to see. There were small
pieces of metal, bolts, two bullets, small bits of Plexiglas,
small globs of melted aluminum and other small unidentifiable
pieces. The largest piece of Plexiglas was one half inch thick,
one and one quarter inches wide and about five and one half
inches long. I asked Mr. Timmer if I could possibly have it and
he graciously gave it to me. I told myself that it was part of
Bill’s bombardier compartment, the Plexiglas nose of the Marie
Helena. Later, I will prove myself right.
 I
could hardly believe that I had a piece of Plexiglas that Bill
had been looking through 62 years ago. Another guest at the
luncheon, Mr. Kuiper, was 25 years old when the crash happened
and had to run to get out of the way of some of the wreckage
falling out of the sky. A blade from one of the props hit a tree
and imbedded itself in the ground close to him which he tried to
pull out but was unable to do so. At one end of the field is a
row of trees along a small canal. Fifty meters beyond the canal
is the German border. On one side of the field is a row of trees
along a country road and beyond it one of the engines of the
plane was found. It is now in a Dutch museum. On the opposite
side of the field is a row of trees you cannot see through and
beyond that is a large Dutch brick barn where the tail section
of the plane landed. I visited the barn, which still had a
repaired crack in the wall from the tail section falling against
it. I also visited the village cemetery, which now has hundreds
of headstones and grave markers close together. In the middle of
them was a small grassy spot. That spot is where five of the
Marie Helena crewmembers were buried during the war. Those sites
have never been used again.
We were the only family members of the "Marie Helena" crew to
ever visit the crash site.
Two days later, on May 8, 2005, VE Day of 60 years ago, our
Dutch friends, Bert and Rie Buitenhuis, drove us to Ardennes
American Cemetery 12 miles SW of Liege, Belgium. The day
President Bush was at Margraten American Cemetery in The
Netherlands with thousands of people, we were 25 miles away at
Ardennes. We visited my brother’s gravesite. My wife and I and
our friends who drove us there, were the only visitors in the
Ardennes Cemetery where more than 5000 Americans are buried. We
went into the cemetery office and told the escort which
gravesites we would like to visit. He then looked up the
location and took us in a golf cart. He told us to wait in the
cart while he located it. He came and escorted us to the Bill’s
gravesite. The escort had rubbed damp sand in the engraving so
we could easily read it. The crosses are all white and it is
very difficult to read the engraving so that is why he rubs damp
sand on it. Carol and Mr. Buitenhuis each said a prayer and we
laid the beautiful flowers she had received at the crash site
luncheon on Bill’s grave. I spoke to my brother that day. We
were the first next of kin to ever visit his gravesite in 62
years. The visit to Bill’s gravesite at Ardennes was a very
emotional time for us.
The "Marie Helena" navigator Peter Motta is buried about 100
feet away from my brother. They are both buried in Section….D.
Ardennes American Memorial Cemetery is a very impressive place.
The cemetery has been kept in beautiful condition through the
years. The large memorial building is very nice inside with an
altar at the far end with a tall golden angel on the back wall.
The other 3 walls have huge maps of the war, one of which is
devoted to the Air Force showing the routes from England to the
different targets in Germany.
Bert and Rie drove us to our hotel near the airport in Amsterdam
as we were to leave the next morning for England. We did not
expect to see Bert and Rie again. How can we say goodbye to two
people who we have known for such a short time but who did so
much for us. We can never thank them enough. In those ten days
we had formed a very close friendship. Thank you again, Bert and
Rie.
 We
flew into Heathrow and it is SW of London and the train station
we needed to go to Diss to go to Thorpe Abbotts was in the NE
part of London. It worried us at the time as we had made an
appointment to meet Ron Leigh at Diss early in the afternoon. We
took the Heathrow Express to Paddington Station and then the
tube to Liverpool Street Station and got on the train to Diss.
We enjoyed seeing the countryside from the train as I have
always felt close to England because both my parents were born
there, my mother in Uttoxeter and my father in Norton, close to
York.
We got off the train at Diss and it left us on the platform
looking at the small station a short distance away with not a
person in sight. It reminded us of an old western movie. We
turned around and there was a pedestrian overpass across the
tracks and Ron was just coming down the stairs. What a relief to
see him! He helped us with our luggage to his car and he took us
to our hotel where he was staying also.
We settled at the hotel with a short rest and then Ron took us
on a drive around the area. We visited a pottery shop and large
kiln, then stopped at the Duke of Marlborough for some tea and
scones. Ron picked up his friend, Jim Gintner, and they showed
us some of the sites around Thorpe Abbotts. The dilapidated and
overgrown remnants of a few Quonset huts, what is left of the
taxiway, the 351st shower room that Bill would have used, the
short runway drainage ditch that used to go along the main
runway to drain rainwater, and where the main runway used to be.
There, Ron had a recording and put the headphones on me and
played a recording of a B17 start, taxi (with the squealing
brakes), take off and land. I had a perfect picture of it in my
mind. Then we all went to the Half Moon Inn, got better
acquainted and had a very nice supper.
The next day Ron took us to the Thorpe Abbotts 100th Museum. We
were there all day looking at all the different exhibits about
WWII. They were all very impressive to us. We talked with Carol
Batley and she told us much information we had not known before.
We stood on the top of the control tower and could see what is
left of the taxiway and where the main runway used to be. Bill’s
plane, the Marie Helena was assigned to hardstand #1, which
would have been all the way down the field on the right hand
side. I could imagine him taxiing all the way from one end of
the field, past the control tower, to the other end for
take-off. With Ron’s recording I could imagine it happening
right then.
It was late afternoon and almost time to leave after a wonderful
day at the 100th Museum when a biplane flew over and started
doing loops one after the other for several minutes and then
flew off. We started to say our goodbyes to Carol and getting
ready to go when the biplane reappeared and did many more loops.
We were about the only visitors there this late in the afternoon
so we told ourselves that the pilot had put on the show just for
us. We were sure Carol Batley knew who the pilot was and we hope
she told him "Thank You" from us.
After leaving the museum Ron spotted a fish and chips place
along the way and we stopped and enjoyed some authentic fish and
chips. Ron drove us back to our hotel and made sure everything
was ok and then he had to drive home in the evening as it was
most of the way across England and must have been a several hour
drive for him.
Carol and I cannot thank Ron Leigh enough. He had met us on the
internet, had to change his schedule, get time off work, drive
most of the way across England, baby-sat us for 2 days and
showed us the countryside and Thorpe Abbotts, Then he had to
drive back across most of England to go home. All this and more.
We appreciated it very much and are very grateful to him. How
often does one find a gentleman like him and to do what he did
for us. Thank you again, Ron.
We originally had only booked 2 days at the Park Hotel in Diss
and booked 2 more as we had not made plans for the next few days
before we had to be at our hotel at Heathrow Sunday night. We
went into Diss and visited their beautiful old church and while
we were there we met a lady who had her own WWII story to tell.
She had been engaged to a British airman and two months before
she was to be married her sweetheart was killed also in a
mid-air collision. We looked through some of the shops on our
way to the mere by the center of town. We found out that our
hotel in Diss was booked full on Saturday and the proprietor,
Robin Twigge, had another small hotel in Thetford, a short
distance away where he would take us later and we could catch
the bus the next morning to Heathrow.
The evening at Thetford we took a short walk along the small
river Little Ouse, next to the Anchor Hotel where we were
staying. We met an American, Daniel Galbreath, with his 3 small
children who were watching the swans in the water. He was
retired from the Air Force and his wife worked for Civil Service
at Mildenhal, which now has the 100th square D logo. We told him
a little of the history of the D and about my brother and Thorpe
Abbotts Museum which he had not previously known about. He was
very interested and I understand that they have visited it
since. I recently received a very nice poster from him, showing
a KC-135 refueling tanker with the square D on the tail and a
ghostly B-17 with a square D on its tail.
Early the next morning (Sunday) Robin Twigge cooked our
breakfast and served it to us before the regular breakfast
hours, and helped carry some of our luggage to the bus stop
behind the hotel. Everywhere we went on this trip, people went
out of their way to help us, just as Robin Twigge had done for
us. We appreciated everything he had done for us and would like
to thank him again.
We enjoyed the scenic three and a half hour bus ride through the
English countryside on our way to Heathrow. We left our luggage
at the hotel and took the tube to Piccadilly Circus where it
seemed to us that in several minutes you could see people from
all over the world. We took an open-air tour bus around London
and saw the sights and the contrast in architecture before
returning to our hotel as we were flying to Amsterdam the next
morning.
 We
arrived in Amsterdam in the early afternoon and took a shuttle
bus to our hotel, checked in and just got to our room and a
minute later there was a knock on our door. We thought it was
the clerk from the desk but when we opened the door it was Bert
and Rie Buitenhuis . They had driven couple of hours to see and
surprise us on our last day in Holland, as we were to fly back
to the USA the next day. They had stayed out of sight and
watched us while we checked in and went to our room. Needless to
say, we were very surprised to see them. We visited and invited
them to have supper at the hotel with us so we could visit
longer. While we were visiting with Bert and Rie, Meta and Bram
Sneep, who lived nearby, came to surprise us also on our last
night in Holland. We had met them at breakfast in the hotel in
Zwolle 2 weeks earlier. When we passed through on our way to
England, we called them but were unable to meet with them
because Meta was ill, so we hoped to catch them on our way back
through before we left for home. We introduced them to Bert and
Rie and asked them to join the four of us for dinner. They
agreed to stay and we had a very wonderful dinner and evening
together with our new friends.
We were visiting and having coffee and dessert when two men from
two tables away, came over to our table. One of them said "I
thought I heard a Washington accent over here". I said "I didn’t
know there was a Washington accent" and he replied, "Oh yes
there is". I asked him where he was from and he said, "LA but I
was born and raised in Seattle". About that time we all happened
to look at the second man that had come over and Carol said "I
know you, what is your name?" The man replied, "David" and Carol
said "David Carradine!" Both men wanted to know why we were over
there and we told them part of our story and they seemed very
interested in it. We had our picture taken with them and they
went back to their table. We visited a little more with our
friends and had a very wonderful evening and then we all said
our last goodbyes. Carol and I stood by the entrance to the
hotel and everyone waved as they drove past, then turned around
and came back for one last pass. It was very hard to let them
go.
The next morning we flew home and when we landed in Chicago and
taxied to the gate, we paused for a few moments in our seats
until the rush of passengers were over and we went off the
plane. As we did we almost bumped into the pilot, we looked at
him and he looked at us. We recognized each other, he was the
same pilot we had on the way over three weeks earlier, and he
wanted to know all about our trip of following my brother’s path
in WWII. As we slowly walked the long halls going to the
passport area, he was very interested in the story Carol and I
told him. We had a six-hour layover until we could get our
flight back to Spokane, arriving at our airport at 10:30pm May
17 where we were met by our daughter and son-in-law, Sherry and
Pete, who drove us home.
That was the end to our once-in-a-lifetime trip that we had
thought we would never make.
We are very grateful for the outstanding treatment we received
from the Dutch people and from the English people, and the many
people we met along the way.
Carol and I felt that God was with us on this trip,
Ken and Carol Heath
Since then:
Mr. Bert Buitenhuis in the Netherlands had a website on the
internet and on it he had a page in memorandum about my brother,
Bill, with much information. (It is presently down and under
construction). One of the pictures he had on it was a close-up
picture of our "sign-in" name and city we were from in the guest
book at Ardennes Cemetery. A few days after we were home, Bert
sent us a message and told us the nephew of one of Marie Helena
waist gunners (William A. Avery Jr.) had been to The Netherlands
on business and happened to find Bert’s website. He told Bert
that he could hardly believe the information he had and said
that the family had none of this information and were excited to
find it and there was a brother and sister still living of
William Avery. A day or two later I received a call from Vernon
Avery of Michigan, the younger brother of William. I was
surprised and I asked him how he got my phone number and he said
he saw the picture of the visitors sign-in on Bert’s website and
got it through the white pages on the internet. I forwarded him
all the websites with information and sent him a copy of the
translation of the archives of the crash. He was very happy and
thankful to receive them.
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