Lt Richard Noble was Pilot of B-17 #42-39941 'Lucky Lady', shot down 12 May 1944 over Southern Belgium.

After Lt Noble bailed out and landed near Liege, Belgium, he joined his Co-Pilot, Lt Daniel Viafore and they managed to evade together with the help of Belgian civilians. (See Viafore's page at http://www.evasioncomete.be/fviafordg.html) They ultimately were brought to Sibret, near Bastogne, where they were hidden in a Maquis. Lt Noble and a Canadian airman, RCAF W/Off Henry Dubé, decided to try it on their own and join the approaching liberating forces in France. They left the camp on July 27/28, 1944 and walked into France. It seems that they were in the company of a French Resistance man when they were arrested a few days later. Lt Noble and the RCAF airman were put aboard a train to be sent to a Prisoner of War Camp in Germany.

The two men managed to jump off the train and arrived near Olizy, France by 8 August, 1944, where they were again captured by the Germans. After being held almost all day in the village church, they were taken to a place called “Le Canapé” and were coldly shot the same day by a bullet in the head.

A stone plate to their memory stands at the foot of the church steps in Olizy-Primat and their respective names have been given to two streets of the locality.