Mystery German bomber 8/9 May 1942.

🙂 Many thanks Eric… BTW, I wasn’t questioning your source I was just intrigued to learn where it was taken and what evidence there was that WNr.5367 crashed in/off Holland. For additional interest, here is the same loss as it appear on the Luftwaffe Gen.Qu.6.Abt loss lists for Luftflotte 3, dated 11.05.42:

http://www.luftwaffe-experten.org/do217loss.jpg

Note that there is no mention of Norwich… but having said that, the other Do217 loss discussed above (WNr.5375) has no location logged against it either…

Cheers
Pete

🙂 My pleasure Richard… I haven’t looked at my electronic scans of the Luftwaffe Gen.Qu.6.Abt loss records to see if they match Balke’s entry, but the anomaly with Eric’s records showing the same loss in Holland is interesting. Perhaps he can share the source so that it too so it can be investigated further. The fact that you appear to have an eye witness to this mysterious second loss would seem to point to the Luftwaffe loss records being correct. I do find it strange that very little appears in the British records though…

Cheers
Pete

Of course Pete, My source was the Verlieslijst 1942 (loss list 1942) as compiled by the SGLO. They have done a quite well documented extensive survey on all Dutch WW2 wreck sites (thousands of them), and I am sure they are able to give their source for claiming it off IJmuiden. And they’re happy for you to prove them wrong too 😉

Having said that, there’s always the odd mistake in their list (such as it would appear the WNr in this case), but it would appear to have gone down in the sea for sure and have nothing to do with the mystery bomber above. Check their site: www.studiegroepluchtoorlog.nl.

🙂 My pleasure Richard… I haven’t looked at my electronic scans of the Luftwaffe Gen.Qu.6.Abt loss records to see if they match Balke’s entry, but the anomaly with Eric’s records showing the same loss in Holland is interesting. Perhaps he can share the source so that it too so it can be investigated further. The fact that you appear to have an eye witness to this mysterious second loss would seem to point to the Luftwaffe loss records being correct. I do find it strange that very little appears in the British records though…

Cheers
Pete

Not much, but perhaps a lead?

Bit of an understatement there, Pete. It’s a great leap forward “Thank you.”
Ok it does not tell us the exact location, it at least tell us that this crash is logged in files somewhere, otherwise all the crew would have been listed as MIA.

Hi Eric… I’ve just pulled my copy of “Der Luftkrieg in Europa, Teil 2” by U.Balke [Bernard & Graefe, 1990] off my library shelf and the author does indeed have this loss listed as WNr.5367 with the loss location simply recorded just as Norwich. He also has the complete crew listed for U5+CT as:

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that the Luftwaffe Gen.Qu.6.Abt loss records might have recorded the loss location incorrectly…

Pete

I have access to a loss database which shows that as well as the Poringland example, we also have a second Do217 loss for 9th May 1942:

• Do217E-4 – WNr.5367 – coded U5+CT of 9./KG2 – 100% loss, England on 09-May-42. Lost, cause unknown. Oblt.Hermann Obermeier MIA, 1 other MIA, 2 KIA [sources: Gen.Qu.6.Abt. (mfm #6)-Vol.9 & Balke, Der Luftkrieg in Europa, p.431]

Not much, but perhaps a lead?

Cheers
Pete

That seems to be the same one I listed that came down off the Dutch coast. WNr. has a typo in mine or yours, I would say, but even the crew name ties up.

I have access to a loss database which shows that as well as the Poringland example, we also have a second Do217 loss for 9th May 1942:

Not much, but perhaps a lead?

Cheers
Pete

Without any other source of information I love to go over the testimony of witnesses to these incidents; a sort aviation ‘whodunit’ if you like.

When I first read your post I made a witness ‘mistake’ myself; I read it that the witness has seen the aircraft crash into the wood, not that he had seen a crashed aircraft in the wood. And when I corrected myself I made another classic mistake; I assumed that because he had seen the crashed aircraft on 9th May 1942 that it crashed on 9th May 1942. Could it have been there longer?

Another thing that caught my attention was the date; 9th May 1942, not May 1942, in the spring of 1942 or just before the school holidays 1942. Why so precise? I’ve seen an aircraft crash, I was there to watch it display but I couldn’t tell you what the date, or even the year was, and that wasn’t over seventy years ago.

I don’t want you to think that I am sceptical of your witness (and I certainly do not want to cause offence) but, as I said, I cannot contribute any additional information so I am confined to extracting as much information from what he said that he saw.

Thanks ericmunk. the second one looks to be the one.

Creaking Door no offense taken. It’s difficult to know what to think, about memories from 70 yrs ago.
I had thought the same as you, but then thought again, he was a lad roundabout 10 -14 yrs maybe he knew about planes. I will have to have another chat with him to see what else I can find out.

The thing is that no other plane allied or axis is recorded crashing that day or even any other day during the war in that location.
There is a wartime airfield nearby so did one of our planes come down there and was recovered the next day and no report ever filed.
Was it an exercise carried out by Churchill’s secret Army?
There are so many variables to look at, might take awhile to find out what was there.
I have looked at a 1946 aerial photo of the site and a couple of places looks as if something could have crashed there 4 yrs earlier.
Early days yet to make a firm decision on what he saw.

Interesting puzzle; I can’t help with information about German bombers but I’d start from a different point.

Without wishing to cause offence; how sure are we that the witness saw what he thinks he saw?

You’d have to get pretty close to a crashed bomber in a wood to tell it was German. If you couldn’t see obvious markings or your aircraft recognition skill weren’t very good how would you tell, considering the condition a crashed bomber would likely be in if it had crashed into trees? Maybe a British plane crashed in the wood and the witness went to investigate only to be told it was a German bomber by the recovery crew or somebody else (in an effort to improve morale)?

Two bombers crashed in The Netherlands that day:
08-mei-42, Leeuwarden (airfield) Ju 88 A-4 3607 Kü.Fl.Gr. 106 Hptm. H. Mikuteit B
09-mei-42 0135 hours, Noordzee (in sea off IJmuiden) Do 217 E-4 3567 9./KG 2 Oblt. H. Obermaier B

Yours may be the second one.