Cycling route Death Valley De Peel - Monument Frank Doucette (#2)

Monument Frank Doucette

This monument was erected in 1974 in memory of the American air gunner Frank E. Doucette who fell in Lierop during the Second World War on September 19, 1944.
From the end of 1943 to September 21, 1944 there was a well-hidden hiding camp 'Dennenlust' in the woods near Lierop under Moorsel.
Several dozen people in hiding were hidden there; Dutch and shot down Allied pilots, a Pole, a Canadian and Americans. Sergeant Frank Doucette was one of them. He was a gunner on an American B-17 bomber. Doucette's plane was shot down over Eindhoven on August 9, 1944. The wounded gunner ended up in the hiding camp.
During the operation 'Market Garden' Frank joined the resistance. Towards the end of the war, the men increasingly undertook expeditions in small groups against the surrounding Germans. They captured NSB members who had betrayed people in hiding and carried out a sabotage operation on a railway line. On September 19, 1944, an ambush was staged with a machine gun stolen from the Germans. Doucette, who was after all a gunner, wanted to come along. Frank loaded the machine gun and shouted 'I'll put a hundred tube in it' and immediately there was a rumble from the Germans. The 22-year-old American was fatally shot and two Dutchmen were injured. That night, Frank Doucette was buried behind the church in Lierop and after the war his body was transferred to the United States.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar
• Photos: Martin Damen