F/S James E Linehan & the crew of Wellington X3757 KIA 8/4/1942

Nicola_G · Leading Aircraftsman

F/S James E Linehan & the crew of Wellington X3757 KIA 8/4/1942

Date: Apr 1, 2011

Hi Nicola,

To find more information about the New Zealanders you can visit and email

http://www.dolorescrossproject.org/. They have records of all the NZ who died during WOII and maybe they have familyrecords.

Kind regards

Astrid

Nicola_G · Leading Aircraftsman

Hi Astrid

Thanks very much for your reply. I've actually been able to contact his surviving family in Christchurch NZ and they have been able to supply me with lots of info and photos. There is actually very little information regarding him on the link that you sent me, as there is no known grave.

I have a thread running on www.ww2talk.com with all the information that I've found out so far: http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/war-air/26721-james-e-linehan-mia-1942-wellington-x3757.html

I'm now onto the UK members of the crew, which is proving more difficult

Thanks again

Nicola

avane · Pilot Officer

Hi Nicola,

First of all my condolences to you and your family regarding your Uncle. I was reading the message on ww2talk.
Did you find any more familymembers of the Wellington Crew or did you stop your research?

Regards
Astrid

Nicola_G · Leading Aircraftsman

Thanks Astrid, its the End of an Era.

I've not had much luck with the English crew to be honest. I have a few feelers out but nothing coming back at the moment. I haven't done anything for a month or so, but will probably start again in a few weeks

Nicola

avane · Pilot Officer

Hi Nicola,

I will keep looking for more information for you and try to find relatives of Lakeman, Naylor and Richard. I believe you´ve found relatives of Morse and Vogar?
I´m gonne visit the Groesbeek War museum today. It´s close to the German border where a lot of Canadians are buried. Also the Reichswald cemetery is not far away from Groesbeek and maybe they can tell me where to look for more information.

What I would like to know is how they flew from Feltwell to Hamburg. Did they fly over the Netherlands and part of Germany or did they fly over the North Sea, North of the Netherlands? Hamburg is in the North of Germany not far from the coast. Did they disappear on the way up to Hamburg or on there return home? Have you any idea? If they flew over land it would be easier to find something then when they crashed at sea.

I will let you know if I find something. Don´t give up the search, it takes time.

Astrid

Nicola_G · Leading Aircraftsman

Hi Astrid

Thanks very much for your help, its really appreciated.

Yes I've found the families of NP Morse and GH Vogan which is great. they've sent me info and photos which makes it all the sadder really as they were all so young.

The Lakeman family are shown on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as coming from Plymouth England, but I have a letter from Mr Lakeman senior (that was sent to my grandfather) that gives their address as 15 Finnart Road, Greenock West, Scotland, so its possible that they got bombed out of Plymouth and moved to Scotland to stay with family or friends. Someone on WW2talk has emailed a Lakeman on Ancestry.co.uk fro me, but hasn't had an answer yet. I have sent emails to newspapers in Plymouth but haven't had any response. I also contacted a reporter fro the Greenock Times in Scotland. he wrote a lovely article for me, but haven't had any definite response from that either.

NJ Naylor was the son of Joseph Claude and May Naylor, but again people on WW2talk have looked on Ancestry.co.uk for me and although there are several Naylor, none seem to match up with the one I'm looking for, so any information regarding his family would be fantastic.

As for RG Richards, there is no information on his family at all on the CWGC website and again the records on Ancestry.co.uk can't pin his family down. They've suggested that he either might have been adopted or even changed his name.

If you check out the attached Air Raid images I received from the Archive historian in Rotenburg (and the transcript) it shows that the planes that night came in over the North Sea on the North West part of germany, over all the islands:

Received from Gudrun Kudrick in the Rotenburg/Bremervorde archive.

in the archive of the district Rotenburg (Wümme) in Bremervörde there is a diary of air-rad protection for the region of the town Bremervörde.

(Signature: Stadt BRV Nr. 5619)

The runners of the air-rad-protection writes on the 8th April 1942:

21.57h unknown air traffic around Helgoland

22.05h air threat

22.12h air threat past

22.40h an incursion by enemies aircrafts north of the island Borkum

22.50h air threat 20

22.53h air threat 10

22.55h air-rad warning

22.56h several incursions north of the island Norderney, 30 km northwest of Borkum

23:09h the tip of the incursion near the island Pellworm, north of Helgoland, 15 km north of Cuxhaven, of Norderney and the island Juist

23:32h the tip of the incursion near Kaiser-Wilhelm-Kanal [today: Nord-Ostsee-Kanal], near Helgoland and in the river estuaries of Weser

and Elbe. 3 new incursion with the tip of Borkum and 40 km north of Terschelling course east

23:45h air raid in Bremervörde

00:14h an incursion in the region of Wilhelmshaven, Cuxhaven and Wesermünde

00:15h district adminstrator [Landrat] reports: Minstedt-Sandbostel [villages belonging to Bremervörde] unnumerable fire-bombs, nobody was injured in the bomb attacks, 6-7 barn and houses burnt. Report to Wesermünde and Hamburg.

00:24h the first return flights from Hamburg reach Bremervörde also incursions in the region Wesermünde-Cuxhaven

01:10h current return flights from Hamburg

01:49h current return flights from Hamburg

02:15h Bremervörde all clear

02:30h all clear

02:37h air threat past

Töpperwien doesn`t his patrol.

Signed by Knipping

According to the ORB records (unit diaries) at the National Archive in Kew, there was no further communication from the crew after they took off at 2205 that night, so I have no idea as to whether they were lost on the outbound or inbound flight.

The general concensus from expert Theo Boiten who wrote the book Night Fighter diaries and others is that X3757 went down on the sea 20km north of the island of Vlieland, north of Germany. However I'm of the opinion that it was a land based crash. again if you check the attached there is the list of shoot downs for that night and 2 near Hamburg aren't accounted for.

Thanks again

Nicola

-- Edited by Nicola_G on Sunday 17th of April 2011 05:19:10 AM

avane · Pilot Officer

Hi Nicola

It´s really strange that there is so little information about this aircraft. I´ve been in contact with http://www.aircrewremembrancesociety.com. There was nothing on their site. Kelvin Young sended me the following message today after asking if I could send you his email.

Yes of course.
I have seen that she has been very active on the forums but would be happy to place a page of remembrance to this crew and also place an appeal for others and people with further information to come forward.
This we have done on a number of occasions and others have contacted us.
I look forward to hearing from her as I know that she has several photographs that could also be used.

Kind regards and respect
Kelvin Youngs (Webmaster)

I´ve also been to the Groesbeek War museum and they have many many books with all divisions, squadrons etc which fought in the Netherlands. There was a list of the 57 Squadron but their missions were on a different date. Only the 83rd Sqdn flew on the 8/9 of April 1942. I will send them an email tomorrow to see if you can dig up more information. All crashes known in the Netherlands are listed somewhere but I can´t find the Wellington X3757.
The attachments are difficult to read. Is it possible to send them to my emailaddress? Hopefully I can read them a bit better. I can see that there were 5 crashed on the 9th of April but can´t read where.

Regards
Astrid