Kamper See Do24

In the wake of Spitfires in Burma and the desert P40, I see the largely overlooked search for the Dornier Do24 in Poland has started filtering through to the British press – this must be one of the saddest aircraft recovery operations ever attempted. Four crew and 75-80 children and their teachers were being evacuated from the advancing Russian forces when the aircraft crashed into a relatively shallow lake near the Baltic sea and sank. The cause was never ascertained – either overloading or a lucky shot from a Russian tank depending which account you read, but the result was the same – only one survivor, a female teacher, and no recovery ever attempted as the tragedy was soon forgotten in the chaos of the closing stages of the war.

As usual our wonderful press seem to be making a bit of a hash of it – I especially love the Telegraph’s accompanying illustration of the Dornier Do X !!!! However some details are out there if you can use Google! Though you will need to translate from German.

Die Kinder von Kamper See – Main website on the story of the tragedy.

The search of the lake whilst conveniently frozen! “The specialists from Lublin have found the wreck lies 800 meters from the northern shore and is broken into two parts. The debris cover an area of 18 square meters. A detailed report is available at the end of March. Then, a reliable estimate of the cost of the salvage operation will be possible.”

And official Volksbund coverage including interesting details of the survey of the wreck with illustrations showing how much is left – certainly a lot more than the widely scattered fragments mentioned in the British press reports and from what’s shown the project makes a lot more sense now and hopefully there is a good chance of the recovery of the remains of the passengers and crew for burial.