Archive photo of the day
From the archives: Belgians celebrate US bomber shot down in WWII
Stars and Stripes
April 25, 2026
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(Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Fouleng, Belgium, April 2014: Troy Hollar, center, speaks with an American airman moments before he is granted honorary citizenship in the village of Silly (Fouleng), Belgium, where his B-17 bomber crashed in World War II.
Hollar and three others survived, bailing out before the plane hit the ground. One was captured by the Germans; three were rescued by local residents.
Seven decades later, the town of Fouleng was still celebrating that day as if it were a holiday. It was the villagers’ first brush with the forces that would, five months later, liberate Belgium.
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Richard Arsenault, assistant superintendent of the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, Netherlands, explains the markings on the headstone of Calvin Anthes to Anthes’ daughter, Lois O'Keefe, who was born a day after her father died. Anthes and five other airmen died April 13, 1944, after their B-17 bomber was hit by German flak guns and crashed in Fouleng, Belgium. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
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Ernest Schrasser, who cares for the grave of Staff Sgt. Raymond Marz at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands, shows a picture of his parents undertaking the same task. Schrasser’s father adopted the grave in 1946, and the job of caring for it has been in the family ever since. All 8,301 American World War II graves at the cemetery have been similarly adopted by Dutch families. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Troy Hollar, seated center, poses for photos with Belgian officials and the relatives of some of his former crew mates from World War II in Fouleng, Belgium, on Sunday, April 13, 2014. The village, along with U.S. forces from nearby Chievres Air Base, held a memorial ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of a B-17 bomber crash here in which Hollar was involved. Hollar and three other crew members bailed out before the plane, hit by German flak, crashed in a field. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Albert Brady, whose father Lloyd Brady was killed in a plane crash during World War II, shakes hands with Troy Hollar, who managed with four other men to bail out. Hollar, Brady and about two dozen other family members of the crew went to Fouleng, Belgium, on Sunday, April 13, 2014, for a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the crash. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
Richard Arsenault, assistant superintendent of the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, Netherlands, talks with relatives of World War II veterans who came to visit the graves of the six men who died when their plane was shot down over Belgium on April 13, 1944. (Matt Millham/Stars and Stripes)
“The reason we are here in Fouleng is that we all have a duty to remember,” Mayor Christian Leclercq said in a ceremony Sunday, marking 70 years to the day that the Flying Fortress crashed there.
The commemoration drew at least 100 people — the best-at-tended event marking the crash since a church service in 1944. Those numbers were driven largely by the return of Troy Hollar, 94, the sole surviving member of that ill-fated flight, and of more than 20 family members of the crew.
Read more from the original article on the event here.