Heinkel dig

WPG STATEMENT the suggestion of “planting something to find” is just outrageous! Not only is this hugely condescending, but it goes against everything that archaeology stands for! Surely that statement is a massive embarrassment for L.A.I.T.?

Hi Lee – As you have mentioned me by name several times in your post, I obviously feel compelled to reply – Though, firstly I would like to clear up the matter in the quote from your post above – I did not make any suggestion about planting finds – I simply responded to what was clearly flippant suggestion by another poster on this thread. I fail to see how anyone would take this seriously and to suggest that myself or anyone from our group would in anyway interfere with a site as a spoiler for another group is IMO quite out of order.

Other than that – Thank you for posting this “statement” as it is the first public indication of what actually happened on this project to have come from your group and is highly informative. It is good to hear that you surveyed the site and have such experienced members – However I do find it a little odd that you say we are “on the same-side”, yet I have never heard of your group, nor am I aware of any of the 400 investigation / excavations you have carried out – even though you are on our doorstep – so to speak. I do find this strange as we correspond with many other groups, including sharing research, resources and occasionally projects – perhaps you could let us know more about yourselves?

I am sorry if you feel my comments were in any way mocking you – they were certainly not intended as such, I was simply making observations based on my actual experience and knowledge of the site – NOT merely assumptions. When I first suggested investigating the crash site of HeIII, Werke No. 2989 – I did get a few raised eyebrows from members of our group and other groups we contacted – But we had clear and achievable aims for our project, based on our ongoing research project into the incident – i.e. to pinpoint the impact site and carry out a detailed electronic survey of the area. Personally I am satisfied that nothing remains at the site – but I am quite prepared to be proved wrong and wish you luck – We come across many of these stories concerning buried aircraft remains – we would all like to think that surely some of them must be true?

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Our meagre finds – The parts we can attribute with reasonable certainty to the aircraft – the two larger circular objects to the bottom centre are: left; part of an ammeter from the aircraft’s instrument panel and right; a tap from an oxygen bottle. The small aluminium buckle is, we believe, from part of a crewmember’s equipment as it matches similar buckles we have seen found at other crash sites. There is only one bullet cartridge casing in this photo, which is definitely German and of the correct date and calibre – we did also find several similar broken ones.

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We found several of these scattered over the area – it is all that is left of a German magnesium 1kg incendiary bomb after it has completely burnt out – probably relics of an earlier air raid.

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Souvenier apparently made by one of the barrage balloon crew that were partially credited with bring the HeIII down – it is made from aluminium from the aircraft and we understand each of the balloon team got one of these – it was given to one of our members during our research, interviewing witnesses to the incident and relatives of those connected to it.

Why do you feel the need to mock us?

Don’t feel bad, same thing happens any time somebody mentions Tighar (of which I’m a member). You’ll see by the reactions to this post, I’m sure.

There are many people who talk the talk, but very few who walk the walk.

WPG STATEMENT

My name is Lee Woods, and I am writing this brief statement on behalf of The Wartime Preservation Group, reference the crash site of Heinkel He111, Werk No2989. I must apologise though as unfortunately I’m unable to go into any great detail, as the project is still on-going.

Firstly, we are quite aware that it was a surface crash. We have interviewed, and taken statements from a number of people who witnessed the crash and the events following… including a member of the Home Guard who was on duty at the crash site on that evening in March 1941.

Using a credible eye witness report, combined with other information, we identified an area where the remnants of the aircraft could have been buried. A detailed survey was carried out using a Forster magnetometer, and the results were consistent with that of aircraft wreckage. A decision was then made to excavate the site.

Sadly, what we found was a large quantity of debris and rubble, which we believe to be from a nearby house that took a direct hit from a German mine during a bombing raid. Some of these items included – a couple of water tanks, iron struts and corrugated metal sheeting. There were also a number of household items, including a pre-war ink bottle, pots and pans, a mangled bicycle frame aswel as numerous other wartime items. Some of these items were presented to a nearby school for display.

Although we were unable to find the wreckage, the excavation was a partial archaeological success. We were able to positively confirm the depth of the wartime ground level, which will be extremely useful for future investigations.

I organised the project, and the excavation was carried out by a vastly experienced aviation archaeology team – with a combined experience of over 400 crash investigations and excavations. We also had a team of archaeologists on site, looking out for evidence of other potential archaeology.

We feel this statement was necessary, due to an apparent misunderstanding from some of the posters on this thread. We are not a group of amateurs who aimlessly wandered onto the fields with a JCB, but a highly experienced team who have tirelessly researched this crash site in the hope of locating a substantial portion of the aircraft’s wreckage. I appreciate that Nick Wotherspoon and L.A.I.T. have investigated the crash site, and we’re aware that they didn’t find much, but to suggest that nothing remains simply because they failed to find anything substantial, is a fairly bold statement.

You may well be right Nick. There could be nothing left on site at all. Time will tell. I’m not overly concerned that we didn’t find what we were looking for on this occasion, but we have another couple of sites that could bear fruit. We’re not trying to prove anyone wrong here. We’re doing this to unearth a piece of our town’s history. To be able to place an engine – or even part of an engine, on public display would be incredible.

What does bother me, is the snide remarks that have been posted on this forum. Why do you feel the need to mock us? Surely we’re on the same side here? We have a huge amount of respect for L.A.I.T, so to read such comments – from Nick in particular, is very disappointing. Also, the suggestion of “planting something to find” is just outrageous! Not only is this hugely condescending, but it goes against everything that archaeology stands for! Surely that statement is a massive embarrassment for L.A.I.T.?

I’m not here to argue, I just feel that some here have drawn their own conclusions based on assumption alone… and you know what they say about assumption!

Nick

My files with the Luftwaffe crash photos from that period are with Simon Parry at Red Kite for a current project. As soon as he returns them I will scan and post the relevant images.

Andy

Update

Quick update, even though it was obviously something of a non-story!

Aircraft salvage group doubts Heinkel dig success in Widnes

Nice thought re burying some bits Gareth, but you will see from the article we didn’t have too many spare!

Andy – any chance of copies of the pics you have?

Well you have heard the saying “its all there” well in this case it was 70 years ago:D
Nick any chance you could bury a few bits for him!!!