Norvell Robert A.
Murder at Konopiště
Robert A. Norvell, Bomber Commander, 849th Bombardment Squadron, 490th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Army
It was April 19, 1945. Less than three weeks remained before the end of the war in Europe, and the American and British air forces were destroying one target after another with unrelenting force. Places in the territory of the then Protectorate were increasingly coming into the view of planners. Pilsen, for example, which was bombed at least ten times during the war, could tell its own story.
On that day, a remarkable story took place over the city, the main protagonist of which was the American aviator R. A. Norvell, a member of the 490th Bombardment Group of the 8th Air Army. Norvell's story began to unfold in the early hours of April 19, 1945, when the “Mighty Eighth” sent two hundred “flying fortresses” over the North Bohemian city of Ústí nad Labem and the West Bohemian city of Karlovy Vary. The target was railway stations, the destruction of which was to paralyse all rail traffic in the Czech area, where the huge German army was still located.
The 93rd Bombardment Squadron, which included machines from the 490th Bombardment Group, was moving in the area of Příbram, Central Bohemia, when German Me 262 Schwalbe jet fighters appeared on the scene. They belonged to the dreaded Jagdgeschwader 7, which had moved into pre-Mnich Czechoslovakia in mid-April 1945. One of the many bases where the “turbines” were stationed at this time was Pilsen. This is probably why part of the bombing force that struck Pilsen on 25 April 1945 was given the task of finally eliminating the danger posed by the “Švalbini”.
A German fighter opened fire, the victim of which was Lieutenant Stovall's machine. The heavily damaged “flying fortress” was gradually abandoned by all men on parachutes. The empty bomber flew for a while until it crashed uncontrollably to the ground in the Křivoklát region. Another Fortress exploded shortly after being damaged by 30mm shells fired by one of the “turbines” of JG 7. The entire crew of Lieutenant Snyder died either in the wreckage of the bomber or at the hands of assassins at the military training ground near Konopiště.
The stirring fate of P. A. Snyder's crew was followed by Lieutenant Norvell's men. His “B-seventeen” was hit by a jet fighter missile to both right wing engines. Because of the imminent danger of explosion and uncontrolled crash of the machine, Norvell gave the order to abandon the deck. Navigator Lake was the first to jump from the fuselage of the damaged bomber, followed by Bombardier Borden and co-pilot Smith. Three other crewmen, side gunner R. A. Johnson, ball turret gunner C. B. Johnson, and radio operator Peter Malires, jumped out the rear side door. Rear gunner Parker also got out. Several of them parachuted near Vojkov in Sedlčany, another landed near Minartic. All but Parker were captured and taken to a nearby SS weapons training ground. Sergeant Malires was captured shortly after landing by a Hungarian soldier who used a gun against him and seriously wounded him. Peter died shortly afterwards.
Meanwhile, his comrades waited for hours in uncertainty as to what would happen next. None of them knew that soon their blood would be spilled by men in black uniforms. Sergeant Parker managed to disappear from the patrols into the woods, where he hid for several days. He crossed the Vltava River in his westward march until, completely exhausted, he arrived at the railway station in Tochovice, a few dozen kilometres from the site of the landing. Here he was found by the railwayman František Pařízek. This good Czech hid him until the end of the war.
The captured airmen from the crew of Lieutenant Snyder and Lieutenant Norvell were transported to Konopiště, where the headquarters of the local SS weapons training area was located in a hotel near the castle. After interrogation, SS Major General Alfred Karrasch, who was present, ordered their shooting. The murder of the group of young American airmen took place in the night hours of 19 April 1945.
At that time, their commander, Lieutenant Robert Norvell, was already in German captivity. While seven of his men bailed out, he remained aboard the damaged “flying fortress.” His only company at the time was a mechanic, Sergeant Snyder. The burning bomber continued to fly due west and the two men even managed to get the fire under control. When their badly damaged machine got as far as over Pilsen, it was clear that it would go down sooner or later. They both jumped out and landed a short time later in Pilsen - Doudlevice, where the branch of Skoda Works was located. The very factory that had apparently been the target of other bombers from the “Mighty Eighth” just the day before. Meanwhile, their machine flew away from the area above Pilsen and disappeared to an unknown destination. Perhaps it landed on the Czech-German border or on the territory of pre-war Germany.
Robert injured his leg in the crash and had to be treated. He was captured along with W. S. Snyder and lived to see the end of the war. Little did he know the terrible fate that would befall his friends, with whom he had completed an impressive 27 combat missions before that fateful flight.
Decades after the end of the war, he returned to this tragic event in his memoirs, "When our group had finished training and the trainers had accepted that we could go to fight, we boarded a ship with many infantrymen and after eight days of sailing it took us to England. Here I became the commander of the "Flying Fortress", which the crew renamed "Little Red's Wagon", probably because I was smaller in stature and red-haired, and to make matters worse, our co-pilot also had red hair. We flew 27 missions until the fateful 19th of April 1945. The attack on Ústí nad Labem was our last raid. Unfortunately, for most of us, it was the last day of our lives.
It was quiet during the flight, no Flak or fighters. But it didn't take long for the Me 262 turbines to appear on the scene. Our rear gunner saw them and opened fire on them. But the Germans returned fire. One 30mm shell flew through the wing near engine 2 and then exploded. The blast knocked out its controls. The co-pilot and I tried to keep the plane on course, but the machine kept veering off course. The propeller was spinning at high speed and pulling the plane very hard. The rear gunner called out to me that flames were shooting up around him. Then I saw them too. At that moment I realized that we couldn't hold the formation and the tank might explode soon. So I ordered the crew to abandon the aircraft. In order to make sure that everyone heard the order and left the badly damaged machine, the deck engineer had to wait a while and see for himself that there was no one in the plane except us. In the meantime I tried to keep the machine in straight flight. After a while the mechanic came and said that the machine was empty. I secured the flaps in a straight course and engaged the autopilot. I looked out the window and saw seven open parachutes below me. I was relieved. Now we're going to bail out and that's it.
If only I'd known what awaited my friends down there. It wasn't until much later that I was informed that they had been shot. That was the worst thing that could have happened. I learned it from our rear gunner, Sergeant Parker, who had managed to escape from the self-appointed executioners. He said that when he hit the ground, he couldn't get his bearings at all, so he walked back and forth for two or three nights just to avoid being captured. When he could go no further, he was found by a Czech patriot who not only fed him but also hid him from the occupying power. With him, he also found freedom.
Together with the mechanic, we stayed in the fuselage of the plane for about five minutes after the jump of our friends, when our "flying fortress" got over Pilsen. I gathered my things and jumped from an altitude of about 15,000 feet over a street. I was in free fall for a while until the parachute luckily opened and filled with air without any problem. But suddenly I got a terrible fright. What if they start shooting at us? So I started pulling on the ropes with all my strength, just to move as much as possible in the air. I felt a great pain in my leg. I was hit by shrapnel, when it happened, but I don't know.
I was hovering over the streets and children were watching me from the yards, playing. When it looked like I was going to land in one of these yards and I got scared I was going to hit a fence, I pulled half of my parachute and went right down. I landed on the stone paving of the street where the tram was running. I wanted to get up, but my sore leg wouldn't allow it. It wasn't long before two or three military cars appeared. Several officers jumped out of them, one of them from the air force and the other from the SS. The man serving in the Luftwaffe not only spoke good English, but was fortunately forceful enough to explain emphatically to the SS man that I was his prisoner. Eventually I handed him my personal weapon and even my pilot's badge.
Finally, I got to the infirmary. My leg was in terrible pain and I was glad that the doctor had bandaged it. The next day I was taken to the hospital where the medics fixed my injured leg with splints. However, they did it wrong and I carry the effects of the injury with me to this day. I was here for several days and experienced the air raid firsthand. Although the hospital was not hit, a bomb fell nearby and cut off the water supply and electricity. So the management decided to evacuate us. We were loaded onto a train, but during the journey, a "P-Fifty-One" attacked and put the locomotive out of service. With difficulty, we eventually made it to Klatovy, where we were better off than in the hospital in Pilsen. We had a bed and the treatment was also better. Because it was known that there were wounded American soldiers in the hospital, it happened that young Germans came to us and asked how they were to be saved. And we would just say, "Just surrender."
Finally, peace came. Patton's 3rd Army saved us. Our soldiers took care of us, put us on planes and took us to France and eventually to England where I was operating. They said I was their last patient. Then I took a hospital ship to Boston. In the States, I went through several more hospitals and underwent more operations. I ended up serving in the Air Force for a total of 27 years, flying various aircraft."
From the book 500 Hours of Victory/500 Hours of Victory by Karel Foud, Milan Jíša, Ivan Rollinger
