Berendrecht, Belgium
Sint-Jan-Baptistkerk
Evader Memorial
One of the most perilous missions in the war, the planned double-strike on Regensburg and Schweinfurt, Germany, took place on August 17, 1943. The targets were German aircraft factories. En route to the target, more than four hours of unrelenting attacks diminished the force of B-17 Fortresses as they flew steadily onward. The mission was ultimately successful and earned the 95th Bomb Group (H) its first Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation.
A 95th BG aircraft dubbed Assassin succumbed to attack over Belgium. After bailing out, the navigator, Lt. William K. McNatt, landed in the village of Berendrecht, near Antwerp. A young Belgian man named Alfons Koch rescued the American flier, passing him to members of the Erbo family, who were active in the underground Resistance. They helped McNatt get to the Belgian-French border. From there, he successfully evaded and eventually made it back to base in England.
Alfons Koch held onto McNatt’s silk parachute. He gave part of it to his sister Jeanne, who made a blouse from it with her monogram on the pocket. Today, that blouse is permanently displayed in a small museum called Poldermuseum in the village of Lillo. After the war, Koch gave the remainder of the parachute it to the village church of Berendrecht, where today it serves as a cloak for a statue of the Virgin Mary. This beautiful gesture memorializes all the young American airmen who parachuted into Belgium during World War II.