Wreck of JU88 and crew recovered.

Didn’t realise this was closed until I saw Bruces Message,
I edited out Post #23 due to the macabre comments made therein.

mmm, agreed

I cannot help thinking this thread has run its course?

Sounds a bit like some other stories of people who went digging for a certain aircraft where it was known that the crew had escaped but – big surprise – they actually stumbled onto a different one nearby and – even bigger surprise – they found unexpected human remains. Incredible.

Actually well put.

Its very difficult to see how any respect is shown by the people who dig on these sights with a JCB, to fallen airmen if they know full well someone is missing. the article i read on the site was a load of rubbish how they stumbled accidently on this bomber in 1992 !! they were out with metal detectors against the wishes of all the local people. One of the wing spars or under carriage legs was sticking out of the ground. several sq meters of rubber fuel tank was also sticking out of the ground and a huge bundle of wire from the burnt out tyre.
I found lots of bits and pieces although i was only 11 in 1970, of note was German money and side arm bullets. It was an incredible peaceful spot off the main paths, the only real give away was the strong smell of fuel from the rubber tanks that had stained the clay black all about and the line of much younger trees where it had come down. One day a team of vandals turned and desecrated the place with a JCB cutting a wide path through the woods and digging up what they wanted and then clearing off leaving the place turned over and filled in. If ever there was a case of total lack of respect for the dead it was these so called enthusiasts who just couldn’t let things be.
What happened to the bits ?? well most of the small bits went to a museum that shut down soon after and they were lost. Lets hope it was all worth it for the few who justify this vandalism in the name of history.

Some people on this forum seem to have very selective memories. Page 679 of Battle of Britain Then & Now makes my point.

You can only be talking about Holmwood Common, surely?

Yes, some crew there are still missing.

I find it a bit odd that you would say……

Using Ducatipaddy’s ‘logic’ one would suppose, therefore, that he might be advocating no respect should be shown to an RAF crew who might be found today who had bombed Berlin or Dresden.

When my previous post said…

I have a wealth of sympathy for those sent to fight and nothing but admiration for each of them but it stops short of those who started it and perpetuated it for 6 years.

You do not know the site i refer to as all personal were accounted for and buried. As you say, using my logic do the people of Dresden have respect for the RAF bomber crews ? well i would imagine its an individual and personal thing.

Edited 🙂

TonyT…I think you misunderstand my post. Please re-read it!!! I am not talking about disrespect with regards to the main subject of this post. I am talking about disrespect demonstrated by another post in this thread.

As it happens, I think I know precisely and exactly the site/incident being referred to and it relates to a crew where some are still missing.

Using Ducatipaddy’s ‘logic’ one would suppose, therefore, that he might be advocating no respect should be shown to an RAF crew who might be found today who had bombed Berlin or Dresden.

I am also rather confused by your apparent agreement with me (#31) and then an apparently conflicting message. It might just be me!

Respect is a personal thing anyway, i don’t think its a rule of thumb or some political correct thing. You either have respect for some one or not. i dont suppose a bomber pilot on ether side had a lot of respect for those he was bombing so they are unlikely to get a lot of respect back from the opposing side ?/?

The guy has been identified, he has been reunited with his family and intered, all the photograph shows is some pieces of cloth…
As for him having the right to be buried in his uniform, that can open up a whole can of worms, not everyone in Germany were ardent Nazies and you may find this gentlemen was not, his wife may also in the light of the current view of Nazi Germany requested he wasn’t buried in his uniform but requested that he be intered without it. … No one knows, though a lot seem to think they do.

At least with the closure the search may be over for this family, however the debate on the P-40 one as to the pilot and his whereabouts, with mentioning his name and speculating his possible terrible fate will instantly flag up on any family members search upon hearing of the p-40’s aircrafts discovery…. Personally I don’t think speculation as to who it is should be open to discussion on an open forum until the identity has been established, the family informed and his body, if that is the case, located and recovered.

I agree and as time goes by such will be the case. You notice i was talking about the attitude in the 1970s, already that attitude is changing but not much respect, if that’s what is needed, is shown to the jews being shovelled up by bulldozer in archive footage from death camps so i doubt people will be too bothered about any greater respect for German airmen.
The Germans as a nation ruined nearly a century of generations lives around the world . Even when my mum died at 88 years old last year she still couldn’t stand aircraft flying over here head, she was bombed shot at and spent here teenage years working in a hospital full of horrendously wounded troops..I have a wealth odfsympathy for those sent to fight and nothing but admiration for each of them but it stops short of those who started it and perpetuated it for 6 years………..basically because they lost the first time. Can i discriminate between an German airman dropping an HE bomb on a row of houses or a guard shooting jews in cold blood for fun ?? not really.

Ducatipaddy

I am far from unaware that war is a nasty business. I have daily reminders of that, and on more than one level.

There can be few who do not abhor the horrors inflicted upon the world by the Third Reich and my own family suffered considerably as a result of that, too.

However, the fact remains that these were young men and human beings. Somebody’s son, husband or brother who were serving their country – however wrong or misguided the cause. There is no justification whatsoever in disrespecting their war dead “just because they were German”.

Hindsight!

Thanks to the mod for changing my original title, with hindsight perhaps not the best title to have chosen.Certainly reads a lot better.Regards David.

Having only just read this version of the thread i have no problem with the topic or photos although some of the thoughts of a poster on here may be read as rather near the mark BUT everyone is entitled to their opinion .
It is nice to hear about Axis recoveries and commemoration,allied gets alot of press but not alot of tributes paid to the others.
The colours of the uniform have survived really well,may they R I P.

There is always a need to respect the dead, but on the other hand I don’t
think we should get so touchy feely. Especially when it comes to lecturing
others as to what they should or shouldn’t be doing or saying.

Leave that to the forum moderators, and don’t try to take the moral high
ground. It seems to happen too often on here.

Tangmere
War is a nasty business and you cant sanitise it to stop upsetting others. fact is this “we love Europe thing” is quite new, i am 53 now but i was brought up on the comics like Tiger and Hurricane in the 1970s that even then said the only good German is a dead German.As time goes by a generation will die and things will get forgotten but my dad was badly wounded by a German and i don’t have a load of sympathy for them. Lets face it !! it wasn’t the first time they tried to wipe out Europe and it will not be the last i don’t suppose. Even as we speak they are buying up Greece 🙂