Hi,

If I could suggest you edit your email address (take out the "@" and replace it with "AT". This will avoid you being inundated with spam.

I take it you are aware of this:

http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/lost-trails/lost-trails-search/2012/corin-gelderblom

Lost trail by Corin Gelderblom

15 March 2013

Corin Gelderblom is looking for relatives of Sgt. Bruce Forrester Bird

Last seen:
Where: RAF Kirmington
When: 1944

Extra details:
Sgt. B.F. Bird was a navigator on the RAF Lancaster ND956, coded AS-I, from 166 Sqn which aircraft was shot down during the night of 21-22 may 1944. Sgt. Bird survived the crash in Holland near the village of Goudriaan. He became a POW and returned to Britain after the war. A while later he probably moved to Australia. People in Goudriaan are looking for relatives and a photo of B.F. Bird for a memorial which will be erected in due time.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Allan Andrew Anderson. Aged 21, born 21 April 1923.  In RCAF Casualty List No. 918, dated 25 June 1944, his hometown is given as Huxley, Alberta and his next of kin, his wife, name not given, but that she is "overseas". I am presuming she was also serving.

There are currently two families named Anderson in Huxley. As you are in BC you may wish to give them a call, considering one shares the same first name:

http://www.canada411.ca/search/?stype=si&what=anderson&where=Huxley%2C+AB&x=0&y=0

Stanley Derek Spencer: son of Basil Geoffrey and Hilda May Spencer, of Cultus Lake, British Columbia. Same details re hometown given in same Casualty List as Anderson. Age 22, born 15 March 1922.

Photo of Stanley Spencer here:

http://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/collections/virtualmem/photoview/2635451/75950

Image courtesy of the Chilliwack Museum and Archives so you may wish to contact them:

http://www.chilliwackmuseum.ca/ as they may be in contact with any family.

There are currently no families with the surname "Spencer" with telephones in Cultus Lake, BC.

Hope this helps a bit.

Regards,

Dave

Hi,

by all accounts the Lancaster was brought down by flak. However according to Theo Boitens Nachjagd War Diaries there is a probable luftwaffe claim for Lancaster ND956 on the night of 21/22 May 1944.

Oblt. Wilhelm Henseler : 1./NJG1          Lancaster            10 km. N.E     Dordrecht :             6.000 m.           01.37          Prob. 166 Sqn Lancaster ND956 

The link below has information about the crew and an email address for a Stephen Moffat, who looks to be a relative of Sgt Jacky Moffat.

http://www.knoxetal.com/raf/619.asp

Regards,

Mike

To confirm Dave's point, the Bomber Command Night Raid Report for 21st May 1944 shows that the bomber stream were over the target between 01.06 and 01.22 so aircraft on this operation would not have been flying during daylight hours.

35 Squadron aircraft involved landed at around 03.00

Regards

Pete

Kees

It may be worth back tracking a little.

Having read your original story, you obviously have a rough idea of where the aircraft came down. Are you able to access Google Earth and, if so, would you be able to provide rough co-ordinates for the crash site area so that we can see where it came down.

We may then be able to make use of our resources to see if we can trace an aircraft coming down in that area.

Regards

Pete

Hi Dave,

How much does it cost to research a file in Ottawa?

Kees

THE SHOT DOWN BOMBER HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED!! THANK YOU DAVE AND ALL. HERE IS THE FINAL STORY. KEES

THE SHOT DOWN BOMBER
by Kees Vermeer
Posted: March 23, 2013

"There is another one!", I shouted, pointing to a parachute unfolding against the blue sky one summer day in 1944.1 "Rotmoffen (Bastards)!" I shouted again as German flak exploded among broken pieces of an Allied bomber and unfolding parachutes with crew members hanging from them. "Keep your mouth shut!", shouted my mother, which was sound advice, as German police occupied several houses not far from us.

I was 13 years old and seated at the table with my family for lunch. When we heard the noise of a whining plane and explosions, my mother and I ran out of the house. My brother Jan and sister Ali perhaps ran to the upstairs balcony. We could not see the plane in front of our house, so we ran across the street to the neighbors' homes from where we could see the bomber. From that location, my mother and I, and a few neighbors, watched how a life and death drama of a shot down bomber and its crew unfolded in front of our eyes.

The bomber was going down, then the flak exploded. 2 When the flak hit the bomber, there was no fire; the plane engine just whined one last time, then the plane spiralled out of control, somersaulted a few times, and broke up in large pieces. About 5 parachutes unfolded after the bomber split up, one of which disappeared quickly.3 The flak stopped soon afterwards and the crew floated further unmolested to the ground. The parachutists landed near Gorinchem, a small Dutch city where I lived. Pieces of the plane were scattered between Gorinchem and Hoornaar, a village founded in 642 AD. I heard the parachutists were caught by German soldiers and brought to Gorinchem for incarceration in the old army barracks of Dutch pontoniers, then occupied by Germans.4

The next day, my friend Sjors (George) de Winter and I set out into the polder to look where the plane pieces had dropped. We knew the polder around Gorinchem very well, as we often went out in spring to search for Mallards nesting in old pollard willows. Mallard eggs were a good substitute for chicken eggs which were scarce during wartime. We trekked as straight as the crow flies through the polder; and jumped across many ditches with the aid of long poles to where we thought the pieces of the bomber fell. We saw a few people standing where the wing of the bomber had fallen across a large ditch. A pair of feet of a crew member were sticking out of the water beneath the wing. The dead airman's feet were only dressed in socks; obviously someone had pulled off his shoes. Sjors and I were upset that someone could commit such a sacrilege. That person may have needed the shoes, but had no respect for an Allied airman, who paid with his life to fight against our common enemy.

People were helping themselves to anything from the plane they thought they could use. Shortly after, I informed my older brother Jan where we found pieces of the bomber. He collected strips of rubber from the wing site. The rubber was used to repair the big holes in the soles of my shoes. I was on my last pair of leather shoes, which after the repair, lasted for several more months. Several weeks later, my older sister Cato found a pair of sunglasses, still intact in its case not far from the wing site. I can no longer consult her but her son, Johan, has the case with the sunglasses (Photo 1). Inside there is a note from the manufacturer -- American Optical Company with some serial and order numbers. My sister Cato also wrote a note "Wednesday, July 28, 1943 found in the surroundings of Hoornaar. Fallen out of an American warplane. Signed C. Vermeer."

Later on, I found an airplane turret which had slammed into a griend, a place where willows grow in dense rows. The turret was partly submerged in muddy ground, and landed about 1 km from the site where the wing rested. I brought Jan to the site; he collected phosphorescent tipped light switches from the turret as we could use those at home. We also collected pieces of shatter proof glass from the turret dome. People carved rings, little airplanes, and other items from that glass. These were then much in fashion as souvenirs from shot down Allied airplanes. People wore the rings on their fingers and pinned little airplanes on their blouses and jackets. They were also traded for goods and scarce commodities such as eggs, sugar, tea, coffee, cigarettes, etc.

The griend, where the turret landed, was in a very isolated part of the Dutch polder. It later became one of my favorite places to visit. Many songbirds sang from alder and willow branches. Plants such as Noli-me-Tangere, bitterroot, hop, marsh ferns, and tall wespenorchis (wasp's orchid), which were uncommon elsewhere in the polder, grew there. I took some of the tall orchid stems home, and shook the spores near red currant bushes in our garden. Beautiful wespenorchis showed up each year in the shade of the currant bushes, and were visited by bees and wasps until I left my home for good in 1954 for Canada.


KEES


FOOTNOTES (written at the end of our research)
1. The date of the bomber crash was July 28, 1943.
2. Five German fighter planes FW190s shot down the bomber.
3. Nine parachutists bailed out of the bomber. The parachute which disappeared quickly may have been hit by the flak.
4. Eight parachutists were incarcerated ; Sgt Robert M. Martin was seriously wounded and his parachute was torn. He was buried in Rotterdam.



EPILOGUE

This story was written for my family. It is the original version with some additions. The Footnotes show what actually happened. This Epilogue explains how my wife Rebecca and I went about our research and were able to identify the shot down bomber, the wreckage and the dead airman.

My nephew Johan Collee's interest in my story encouraged me to look further into the identities of the shot down bomber and its crew, particularly the dead airman I found at the wing site.

Johan and I believed that my sister Cato made a mistake with the year 1943 as Johan could not find a bomber which crashed near Hoornaar that year. So he proceeded to search for bomber losses in the spring/summer of 1944. He came up with a Lancaster bomber which crashed near Goudriaan on May 22, 1944. I pursued the Lancaster crash through the Bombercrew.com Forum while Johan searched for others in the Gorinchem-Hoornaar-Hoogblokland area for 6 days (Mar 14-19, 2013). They all proved to be night crashes. We were told that daylight bombings were under US Command and started in June 1944.

On March 20, 2013, we decided to search for crashes of American bombers in the summer of 1944 near the Hoornaar/Gorinchem area through the Army Air Forces Forum. By March 21, we heard from Ivo de Jong that he was quite sure our shot down bomber was B-17F 42-3116 of the 92nd Bomb Group which was shot down on July 28, 1943 and which crashed near Gorinchem.
Hal, another Forum member, provided us with the list of names of the crew and the MACR 0373.

Kees,
If Ivo's identification is correct one crewman is buried in Netherlands Cemetery and the other in Ardennes Cemetery. I could not find the Missing Air Crew Report but attached below is a photo I took from the book by Stan Bishop and John Hey, Losses of the US 8th and 9th Air Forces, Vol 1.
Hal




Pete Tresadern, who had assisted me at the Bomber Crew Forum with the crash of Lancaster NB 956 near Goudriaan, suggested that the dead airman was Sgt Robert M. Martin. I do not think so because in the above MACR 0373, it was reported that Sgt. Martin was badly wounded; his parachute was torn; and his body was buried in Rotterdam.

From the same report, it can be seen that the body of Sgt Jerre M Algeo was recovered from the wreckage on 17 August 1943 and initially buried at the Schelluinen Cemetery. That Cemetery is very close to where I found the wing of the shot down bomber across the wetering (large ditch) and the body of a dead airman (see Map 1 & 2). Moreover, the body remained at the site almost 3 weeks after the crash. I think that the body may have been quite decomposed when it was removed so it makes sense that the body would be buried in nearby Schelluinen. I recall people who went to the site after me still saw the feet. I also recall the Germans did not discover the wing site for quite sometime as it was in an isolated part of the polder at that time.

Then came Peter den Tek. He sent me an account (in Dutch) of the July 28, 1943 crash of the B-17F bomber near Gorinchem. In it was a photo of the wreckage across the wetering (Photo 2). I immediately recognized the site and the wreckage. Only it was not a wing --it was the rump of the bomber!!! After 70 years, I hope you can excuse my poor memory !! Also mentioned were the account of eyewitnesses having seen two feet sticking out beneath the wreckage which belonged to Sgt Jerre M. Algeo of Kansas, USA. It was also mentioned that he was initially buried in the Schelluinen Cemetery.












PHOTO 1-- FLYING SUNGLASSES FOUND NEAR THE WING SITE
(COURTESY OF JOHAN COLLEE)



MAP 1--KEES VERMEER'S SKETCH OF THE WING AND TURRET SITES


MAP 2-- WING AND TURRET SITES LABELLED BY KEES VERMEER
(BASE MAP COURTESY OF PETE TRESADERN)


PHOTO 2 -- B-17F 42-3116 WRECKAGE NEAR HOORNAAR AND SCHELLUINEN
(COURTESY OF PETER DEN TEK)

Hi Kees,

the link below shows the B17 was shot down by Fw Peter Ahrens in Fw 190A-5 of JG 26/3 at Schelluinen,

http://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=51565

Mike

-- Edited by MikeH on Tuesday 11th of June 2013 12:28:24 AM

Hi Kees,

I, am bit younger as you, I was born in April 1943, I lived till 1971 in Gorinchem after that I lived in Australia. We lived in the last street towards the village Arkel in the Gorinchemse area then known as Zandvoort, now the Lingewijk.

All I note next is told to me of course as I was only then a baby.

About 500 metres away at or near the Arkelse Dike stood in the war the German air defence. There were a few allied bombardments in the old town of Gorinchem, also near wars end bombs rained down above our area.

As my mother told me, looking in the sky very small pin like objects were right overhead. I presume the bombing was intended to wipe out the Germain anti aircraft gun. All the bombs fell at the farmland 150 to 300 away, missing the target & no damage as far as I was told was caused.The houses shook from the bombs inpact. I'm also told by others that because of the swampy Dutch soil, some bombs did not explode & are still there. Most of the area there is now build on, bombs or no bombs.

My mother told me that near the Haarweg (the road to Hoog Blockland & Hoornaar) did lie a shot down plane for a long time, this plane was likely shot down from that German anti air craft gun at the Arkelse Dike I would say. The anti air craft gun about 1.5 km distance of the plane wreck. I understood the wreck or part of the wreck was close to the last houses of Gorinchem perhaps only 3 km, it is impossible in my opinion that part of that plane would have ended up in Goudrian, the distance just far too large.

The Goudrian wreck must been an other plane, the anti aircraft gun could well have shot down several planes over time. There are still people alive in Gorinchem who know a fair bit what happend in the war.

The allieds did also bomb 3 or 4 places in the old town, one of them the German militair equipment building, which also destroyed about 6 houses with citizens deads.

Per Peter Waleson in Australia   email: pandbwaleson  at  gmail.com