media-23716.jpeg UPL 23716 The monument to Norvell's and Snyder's crews of the 490th Bomb Group. They were shot down over Sedlcany, Czechoslovakia two months before the war ended. From Norvell's crew everyone except the pilot and top turret gunner bailed out and landed alive and unhurt in and on the edge of a Nazi SS training camp. From Snyder's plane only three bailed out before their plane exploded mid-air. They also landed in the SS training ground Nine of those who bailed out were captured and taken to SS Headquarters at Konopiste Castle and executed by the SS that night. Only three men, the pilot, R. A. Norvell, the tail gunner, Newton Parker and the top turret gunner, Wendell Snyder, escaped alive. Newton Parker was taken in by a farmer and his family and concealed as a deaf mute farm hand. He was returned to forward units of Patton's army at the end of the war. Every year in April at the monument near Konopiste Castle the Czechs have a ceremony and wreath laying service in remembrance of the American Airmen executed by the SS on April 19, 1945

Tommy Lee (son of C/Msgt Wendell Lee of the 490th BG) and Scot Lowry, (nephew of Newton Parker of the 490th BG).