Info for visiting crash sites in Germany

Gazza · Flight Sergeant

Info for visiting crash sites in Germany

John W · Group Captain

Gazza,

Most crews were buried first of all at nearest local cementry so the crash site would be nearby. You could ask some locals who may know the location.

Good luck,

John.

MikeH · Air Vice Marshall

Hi Gazza,

crashed between Moorhausen & Kirchhof.

You could try asking the question on the site below.

http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/index.php

Regards,

Mike

-- Edited by MikeH on Sunday 12th of February 2017 02:52:26 AM

Gazza · Flight Sergeant

Thank you Gents. I've just google earthed Kirschof and found Morhausen. The area between the two looks wooded and as you say it is very close to Spangenburg where they were interred. Got me thinking again........

Date: Mar 14, 2017

Hi Gazza

I just recently did this with my Great Uncle Harold Paddison whose Halifax was shot down between Stapel and Zeetze Germany on January 20th, 1944. Since both of these towns a very small, I searched for any email addresses I could find in both towns (restaurants, hotels, local government, businesses etc) and then wrote an email saying I was looking for information regarding my uncle's crash. I then translated the email into German using Google translate and sent both the english and German versions to all the email addresses I found.

I eventually heard back from 3 individuals who offered to help me and ended up connecting with a gentleman who had a piece of the tail of by great uncle's plane in his yard. I ended up visiting the town and meeting with this gentleman for 3 days. He showed me where they had found the tail piece, showed us where the crew had been buried before they were moved to the Berlin cemetary and introduced me to people who had stories about the crash or had seen it first hand. It was a very emotional visit and helped give closure to our family.

I would definitely give this method a try and see what you come up with.

David

Gazza · Flight Sergeant

David - Thank you for this post. I am very pleased that this worked out for you and as you say it must have been very emotional for you. I tried some thing similar on a much lesser level, I sent an email to a public official but as yet I have had no response. I googled museums and such like, but I will follow you advice and try to contact local business. I am fortunate that my Uncles Leslie's maternal uncle was in the army and stationed close by and visited the crews graves very shortly after the war and I have his note book and a photo graph of the graves in Spangenburg cemetery.

Thank you again for the post David, much appreciated.

dleggett · Flight Sergeant

Hi Gazza

You bet. Looks like Spangenberg is about the same size as Stapel. I would recommend trying to reach out to the Church expecially as they may know some older townspeople who may have information. I would also ask in your email/letter if anyone knows of any veterans groups in the town as that might be a great source of information.

Good luck.

David

Gazza · Flight Sergeant

An update. I have had some success on this. Basically I just typed in Spangenberg on Google and a Facebook page came up for a hill close by. I sent a PM to the page and within hours I got a response. It was suggested that a I join a local Spangenburg Facebook page and post on there. I did this and I got several PM's about my Uncle Les.
I got a description of the raid from a Kassel newspaper. Offers of help from the local church warden. A couple of messages to put me in touch with a local historian. Most importantly I got a PDF extract from a book with an eye witness account of the crash and the exact crash location. A lot of it ties in with the official info I have.
The response from the people of Spangenburg has been first rate and much much better than I ever anticipated.
The historian as yet has not come back to me, but I have enough already and at some point I will go and see the crash crater which still exits and the church yard from the original interment.