pictures Memorial Day 2009 491st Bomb Group

Hello everybody,
 
We are Dennis and Gerda from the Netherlands.
Together we have adopted 4 members of the 491st bomb group who are buried on the Ardennes War Cemetery, Dan W Means, Lincoln S Ricker, Raymond R Rhodes, Britt D Maxwell Jr, you can watch their story on our website.
Last May was Memorial Day in The Netherlands and in Belgium.
We have visited the following cemeteries and lay a rose by all the graves of the fallen heroes of the 491st Bomb Group who are buried there, the cemeteries are:
American War Cemetery Margraten in The Netherlands
American War Cemetery Henri-Chapelle in Belgium
American War Cemetery Ardennes in Belgium
We have taken photographs of all the graves, so if anybody wants a picture of one these brave men contact us by our website: www.theyfoughtforfreedom.nl
 
Also we are working on a database, on this database we are trying to fill in all the brave men who are buried on these 3 cemeteries, you can take a look at the database on the following link:
www.adoptiegraven-database.nl
If you have any information for us, please let us know.
 
Thank you,
 
Dennis and Gerda
 

Dennis and Greda,

Onthaal aan het Forum en dank u voor het geven voor onze geA<<erde doden.

Thank you Skybear 45.
I think I forgot to tell that if you click on the American flag on our website, you can read it in English. Very sorry I forgot to tell.
All the story's are written in English.
You also can reply in English, we understand, thank you.
 
Another thing about the database, if you click on this link:
http://www.adoptiegraven-database.nl/index.php?searchword=491st&ordering=newest&searchphrase=all&Itemid=61&option=com_search
You can see wich men of the 491st bomb group are already added to the database, if anybody has more information off these brave men, please contact us.

Dennis and Gerda

Dennis en Gerda,
My heartfelt gratitude to you and your wonderful group for the great tribute to our flyboys. I have visited almost all the memorials and tributes to our GIs in the villages and cities in South Holland and as they say here in the South US, "You Good People".
My command and spelling of the Dutch Language has greatly diminished over the years so if "dank u vel" is spelt wrong, you can still get the meaning. 

As a family member of Dan W. Means, I again want to thank you for the beautiful tribute you have made for the Means Crew buried at Ardennes American Cemetery.  Your web site is wonderful and I will check back often as you learn more about each of your adopted soldiers.
 
We have learned it is a very small world.  A man returned home to Kansas after visiting several cemeteries overseas.  At Ardennes he was given a tour and shown the grave of a young pilot also from Kansas, Dan W. Means.  He of course did not know anything about Dan but he was moved. Yesterday he was sharing this experience with one of his friends.  The man he shared his story with was my cousin, Kirk.  Kirk told me he got goose bumps when he realized who his friend was talking about. 
 
Even more amazing, he had taken a picture of the cross which he shared with my family.  We could still see the flowers and flag that my daughter had left just days before when she visited the grave with Dennis and Gerda.  So out of over 5000 men buried there, he took a photo of Dan's cross and showed it to the one person that could put all the pieces together! 
 
Mindy Kettner
Alberta, Canada

Dear Mindy,

Thanks to you and your family we were able to make this tribute of your uncle Dan W Means.
Also we thank the family's of our adopted soldiers for sharing pictures and story's.
Most important is that these brave men never will be forgotten and will be honoured.

Dennis and Gerda