NEW: 
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A commemorative table in the woods west of Prague, where a P-51D Mustang crashed on April 18, 1945, was unveiled under a common project of the aviation archaeology group called Prazsky letecky archiv (Prague Air Archive) and the local museum in the town of Rakovnik.
Contrary to some of his colleagues on previous days, the pilot 1/Lt Oscar T. Ridley of the 362nd Squadron of the 357th Fighter Group of the Eighth Air Force had a lot of good luck. Not only he bailed out, but he also succeeded to avoid captivity thanks to the local citizens who hid him until the end of the hostilities.
357th Fighter Group's task on this mission was to provide cover for heavy bombers attacking the marshalling yards in Kolin and Plzen, Czechoslovakia, and to prevent formidable Me 262 jets taking off from the Ruzyne airdrome to intercept them. They also strafed enemy planes on the ground. 1/Lt Ridley's Mustang was hit by AA fire at 1.20 p.m.
A metal tag of one of the six 0.50 cal. machine guns, fragments of the gun camera, the fuel level indicator and pieces of armored glass of the canopy (please see the pictures).
1/Lt Ridley (at that time in the rank of 2/Lt) shared with Capt. Paul R. Hatala of the 364th Squadron one air-to-ait victory (a Bf 109 fighter) in the vicinity of Leipzig, Germany, on March 2, 1945 (please see the encounter report).
In 2000 BGen. (ret.) Ridley visited the Museum of air battle over the Ore Mountains.
