In a fenced courtyard framed by hedges adjacent to a parking lot.

An inscribed polished purple colored stone, about 4 feet high.

The memorial remembers 2LT John Halstead Banks III who was killed after being shot down while flying his P-47D on April 17, 1945.

On April 17, 1945, 2LT Banks, piloting a P-47 (44-20222) with the 397^th Fighter Squadron, 368^th Fighter Group flying out of Airfield Y-73 (Frankfurt Main Airfield) was on an armed recon (without bombs) over Dresden, Germany.  His mission came under heavy anti-aircraft fire and Bank's plane was hit.  Banks bailed out and came down in Lom, in present day Czech Republic.  Banks was captured, beaten and then shot by local police.  His body was buried without a coffin behind a cemetery wall. His grave was marked by a women grave digger by knocking off a brick on the spot, so that a tombstone could be erected later. After the war, an investigation team found his grave and he was finally identified and buried with honors at the Ardennes American Military Cemetery in Belguim.  Reference:  Missing Aircraft Report (MACR) 14203 and Honor States.Org website. 

The text on the monument reads:

-Etching of a P-47- 

-photo of 2LT Banks-   -etching of the 9^th Air Force Symbol-

JOHN HALSTEAD BANKS III

* 23.9.1923  + 17.4.1945

U.S.A.A.F.