1/Lt. Bill Francis Moore was the pilot of B-24 42-52506. This Liberator was hit by flak on leaving the target area and eventually crashed at the Elspeterweg near Uddel on April 29, 1944. The crew including Moore bailed out in time and he landed a few hundred meters of the fire watchtower in the woods near Niersen. After discarding his parachute, he met gamekeeper Ter Mors who took Moore with him to his house. He stayed here till May 1st when Ter Mors and an English-speaking boy took him to the woods near the ‘Aardhuis’ hunting lodge where Moore was reunited with his bombardier, 1/Lt. John L. Low (E0477). Ter Mors and the boy left the two airmen for a while then. In the evening the boy returned with civilian clothes for Low and Moore. After they had changed in civvies, the airmen were led out of the forest to where their guides Aart Kliest and Ms Narda Terwisga were waiting for them. Terwisga was the leader of the local ‘Narda’ resistance group. When Low and Moore had mounted their bikes, the group cycled to the house of the parents of Kliest at the Valkenburglaan 25 in Apeldoorn.
On May 14, Moore and Low were joined by Staf Sergeant David L. Smith (E0470). When Smith caught a cold, he was transferred to the house of the De Bree sisters at the Badhuisweg 121 where he could sleep in a normal bed. After about a week he returned to the Kliest family. In August two more airmen arrived at Valkenburglaan 25: Staff Sergeant George P. Paulk (E0464) and Sergeant Floyd Ragsdale (E0465). On October 1, all five airmen were transferred to the house of Ms Jacob at the Mr. van Hasseltlaan 22 in Apeldoorn. On October 2, 1944, the Gestapo raided the house of Ms Jacob, who was absent at that moment, and arrested Bill Moore. The four others managed to stay out of the hands of the Germans in spite of a thorough search and fled the house i the early hours of the morning. Moore was taken to the Willem III barracks in Apeldoorn where he was imprisoned. On 22 November, the SD arrested 15 leading members of the Dutch resistance at a meeting in Utrecht. They were all brought to Apeldoorn and imprisoned in the same barracks as Moore.
Three members of the resistance tried to find a way to liberate prisoners on the 28th of November, but they were caught and killed. As a repercussion the SD then decided to execute some of the prisoners. On Saturday morning 2 December 1944 a firing squad of the Luftwaffe shot twelve Dutchmen, nearly all resistance men. The soldiers of the firing squad hesitated when Moore stepped forward and loudly protested in English, they were not allowed to execute an American soldier. The German commander of the barracks, Oberleutnant Adolf Gluck, then shot Moore in the back with his machine pistol.
Bill Frantz Moore was initially buried at the Heidehof cemetery with the executed resistance members but now rests at the American Military Cemetery at Margraten (Grave G-9-27). |
