Memorial

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Sgt Roland H. Erdman enlisted at Camp Dodge, Herrold, Iowa on 26 December 1942.

He attended high school for 4 years and worked on a farm before he enlisted.

The primary target was the Heinkel aviation industry in Oranienburg. Due to cloud cover, the secundary target, the city center of Berlin, was atacked. The aircraft collided at about 1330 hours with B-24H / AF# 41-29416, nickname "Rebbel Gal", 15 seconds before bombs away. 5 crew members were killed, 5 were taken prisoner.

Exerpt from the book "B-24 Liberator Units of the Eight Air Force", by Robert F. Dorr:
"B-24H 41-29434 Terry and the Pirates, piloted by 2nd Lt William Terry, was suddenly flying upside down over the target. A crew member on another Liberator 'wondered what the heck he was doing in that attitude'. Another crew member said, 'Suddenly I saw directly ahead and below a bomber with one tail missing. Mid-air collision! It was trying desperately to stay upright, but finaly it slid off to the left and slowly turned belly up with its bomb bay open, the bombs still in the racks. Then it went into a helpless spin. The realisation struck me that a bomber could spin easely as a single seater'."

The deceased men were initially buried at the POW Cemetery of Elsgrund-Döbertiz. In June 1951 an investigation was conducted to find several American deceased at the grounds where the POW Cemetery of Döbertiz was situated. The former caretaker, however, stated that the Americans exhumed their remains in 1947, in 1948 the French and in 1949 the Italians, Germans and Russians completely exhumed the cemetery. This was done systematically, field by field, row by row. In late 1949 the former cemetery site was returned to its German owner. In 1951 it was planted with potatoes. The conclusion of the investigation was that when the cemetery finally was disinterred all remains left, were evacuated to Russian or German Honor cemeteries and buried in unmarked graves.