Do 217 recovery from French mineshaft

The condition of the remains is quite amazing after all those years. Thanks for posting the links.

here we go !

here is the full story of how we found Do217 parts, and what they look like.

click on this link:

http://www.petit-fichier.fr/2014/02/19/a-bomber-pdf/

then on “télécharger le fichier”.

Huge operation, beautiful parts, nice story;

if you want more pictures of the parts, go to :

http://www.petit-fichier.fr/2014/02/19/descriptif-des-pieces-gb/

aircraft were from 9/KG100

DO 217 K2
6N + IT Wnr 4555
AND
DO 217 K3
6N + HR Wnr 4749

Subject will taken in March by “Flugzeug Classic” and in June by “le fana de l’aviation”;

I hope you will enjoy it.

GC

a global view of the parts found:

[ATTACH=CONFIG]221125[/ATTACH]

Thankyou Gilles for clarifying that for me.

Hi Paul,

it was the remains of only one aircraft that we retrieved, as the other crashed on the other side of the mountain, a few kilometers from the first one and the remains of this second aircraft were recovered after the war for the metal, as usual.

We did not take back tons of hardware from the cavehole: some crushed skin, airframe, a couple of equipments components like this fuel management instruction : I shall try to post more pictures soon.

Best regards

Gilles

[ATTACH=CONFIG]221122[/ATTACH]

I will be interested to see what is recovered. Is it likely to be the entire remains of 2 aircraft? I would have thought that would have required a very large effort to dump it all and clear the area of all the wreckage?

Yes, thanks Gilles for clarifying the bit about the Resistance. I did wonder how the airmen’s bodies didn’t also end up in the cave if it was a case of covering up the whole event! Congratulations on recovering the wreckage from such a difficult
situation.

Welcome Gilles and thank you for your contribution.

The BBC correspondent obviously thought the story needed a bit of drama so introduced the resistance involvement. It seemed a little odd as I listened as (presumably?) the crews remains were handed to the Germans / buried rather than joining the aircraft down the mine, so there would have been little chance of concealment of the accident.

Moggy

Gilles

Good to hear from you and that the operation was a success!

I am sorry that I wasn’t able to join you due to commitments here, but I thank you very much for your invitation earlier this year to be part of the project.

Can you post any images?

Andy Saunders

Hi everybody,

I am “the guy named Gilles Collaveri” , the leader and organizer this recovery plan;

LEMB team kindly pointed out this link to me , so I am glad to share the following information with you all here.

Basically, what is described here above is correct: we prepared this operation during one year, we were an excellent team of four people, we had the official green light of all French Administration, we have a sponsor: “328” the group based in Germany (British owner) providing aircraft services and in charge of the Do328 navigability, group which who was already involved in the Chanel DO17 recovery, let me thank them officially foe their support, and the challenge was to go 90 Meters deep to get Do217 parts back.

This was really a success: good team, good spirit, good food, and nice parts. Although we found no outstanding items, we took back many airframe parts, some with marking.

Yes, some parts will go to the Berlin Technik museum and some to Toulouse museum, “Aeroscopia”, to open next year.

Just an observation concerning this remark here above :

“The Resistance who operated in the mountains feared they would be blamed for the crashes and set about hiding all evidence down a very deep cave. Nobody spoke of it for years after that in order to protect the local community“.

This is not exactly correct: the resistance was never involved. It is the local inhabitants who throw the remains in the cavehole. The exact reason is unknown, but it was most probably to get rid of the past and clean the forest. In this area, all the hole are used as “trash bin”.

I shall write a full article on this operation in a few months : if you want to receive a copy, send me your mail with a PM.

Have a look at the BBC article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24159975

where you have a couple of nice pictures made by my friend Pierre Etienne Langenfeld,

All best, and have a good day.

Gilles

Right, so now I’m a Nazi for trying to bring some order to the proceedings? Come on, credit me with some intelligence. Lets stick to the topic please…..

Chill Bruce, where’s Mel Brooks when you need him?

Looking forward to some pictures and less moaning from those above

Clearly an example of German tactics for combating the underground.

Mothminor. Thanks for the info!

So you deleted my response, to add your own which is essentially the same wording….

Isn’t that the sort of thing the Nazi’s might have done?

Right, so now I’m a Nazi for trying to bring some order to the proceedings? Come on, credit me with some intelligence. Lets stick to the topic please…..

🙂 Not a problem Ian… for additional info, the thread linked below identifies the two Do217K’s which collided:

http://www.luftwaffe-experten.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=17881

Cheers
Pete

Quite a resource there.

Never seen a Tiger Moth with Iron crosses before !

Thanks Pete, interested to see what comes out!

Seeing that there has been an unprecedented number of membership applications today as a result of the original topic of this thread (not the subsequent nonsense) I’ve unrestricted access to the forum so that non-members can see what we get up to 🙂

Also, as an important aside, if you do take the plunge and apply to become a member, please can you give some thought and come up with a sensible username… its a simple request, so please don’t be offended if your application is rejected. Why not just try again but this time use something sensible 😉 If you want to take this up with me personally, can you drop me a PM rather than dilute the original topic of discussion here…

Finally, I’ve dropped Gilles Collaveri an email via the LEMB and asked him to pop here and provide an update…

Cheers
Pete

Interesting story, however this thread has gone off on a unrelated tangent to say the least!