2nd Lt. Russell W. Meyrick and Sgt. Joseph Marinello, Jr. went down with their plane. Their bodies were found with the wreckage. Lt Meyrick and Marinello, Jr. were found near the town of Rudice in the Eastern region of Czechoslovakia.
They received permission from the German authorities to hold a funeral for the American and were told that the body of Lt. Meyrick, which the Germans had discovered, could be buried as well. The German soldiers who attended the solemn funeral offered a salute to the American by firing shots in the air.
A short distance from Rudice is the larger town of Slavicin. Here, two days after the air battle, the bodies of twenty eight Americans who were killed during the battle were dumped into a mass grave by German soldiers. A wooden marker at the grave read: "28 American Flyers, Died August 29, 1944, buried August 31, 1944 ." German orders strictly forbade anyone from bringing flowers to the grave.
After the war, a group of people from the Slavicin area tried to uncover the details of the battle and to learn the names of the men who had been buried in their town. However, the political climate changed quickly after the war, and as a result the search for information was essentially halted. Nevertheless, the Czech people did not forget about their American Liberators. Every year since the battle, on the last Sunday in August, a special mass has been held at the church in Slavicin in memory of their fallen heroes. Slowly and patiently, the Czechs continued to collect information and pieced together details related to the battle and the men who fought it.
Finally in 1994, fifty years after the bombers had been shot down, the town of Slavicin formally thanked their liberators. On August 28, 1994, the town held a grand commemoration ceremony which included the dedication of a new stone monument to the site of the original grave. It is inscribed with the names of the 28 American men who had been buried there fifty years earlier.
Taken from an article that was written by Maura Gaffney in August 2001, information taken from: "Defenders of Liberty" and Joseph Owsianik 20th Squadron POW from New Jersey and member of Lt. Bill Tune's Crew Who arranged for this story to be written.
2nd Lt. Russell W. Meyrick and Sgt. Joseph Marinello, Jr. went down with their plane. Their bodies were found with the wreckage. Lt Meyrick and Marinello, Jr. were found near the town of Rudice in the Eastern region of Czechoslovakia.
They received permission from the German authorities to hold a funeral for the American and were told that the body of Lt. Meyrick, which the Germans had discovered, could be buried as well. The German soldiers who attended the solemn funeral offered a salute to the American by firing shots in the air.
A short distance from Rudice is the larger town of Slavicin. Here, two days after the air battle, the bodies of twenty eight Americans who were killed during the battle were dumped into a mass grave by German soldiers. A wooden marker at the grave read: "28 American Flyers, Died August 29, 1944, buried August 31, 1944 ." German orders strictly forbade anyone from bringing flowers to the grave.
After the war, a group of people from the Slavicin area tried to uncover the details of the battle and to learn the names of the men who had been buried in their town. However, the political climate changed quickly after the war, and as a result the search for information was essentially halted. Nevertheless, the Czech people did not forget about their American Liberators. Every year since the battle, on the last Sunday in August, a special mass has been held at the church in Slavicin in memory of their fallen heroes. Slowly and patiently, the Czechs continued to collect information and pieced together details related to the battle and the men who fought it.
Finally in 1994, fifty years after the bombers had been shot down, the town of Slavicin formally thanked their liberators. On August 28, 1994, the town held a grand commemoration ceremony which included the dedication of a new stone monument to the site of the original grave. It is inscribed with the names of the 28 American men who had been buried there fifty years earlier.
Taken from an article that was written by Maura Gaffney in August 2001, information taken from: "Defenders of Liberty" and Joseph Owsianik 20th Squadron POW from New Jersey and member of Lt. Bill Tune's Crew Who arranged for this story to be written.
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