Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

On 24 Jan. 1945 , my uncle , named above , was declared MIA . He was the Squadron Commander of the 328th FS of the 352nd FG . He was flying a fighter sweep NE of Aachen Germany when he disappeared in pursuit of a ME 109 . No crash sight has ever been found and the Major is still MIA . A few years ago JAPAC received a tip that a armor plate from a P-51 had been discovered in a field in the vicinity of Bruggen Germany witch would have been along the flight path he was last reported seen . The source of that tip was deemed very reliable . So reliable in fact that JAPAC had scheduled a mission to the area to check it out . To my dismay and disappointment the mission was scrubbed due to lack of funds on JAPAC's part . Now JAPAC has been disbanded and the search for MIA /POW's has been taken over by the DOA . This is a GOOD thing . They have a much bigger budget and promise to be more pro-active in these matters .

My question to this forum is , is it possible that one of the members is the source of this information ? Am I inquiring in the right place or is there another forum that I should be looking at ? Are any of you familiar with this case ? I would appreciate any feed back I can get . Thank You ....Bluenoser

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

Bluenoser - do you have a copy of the Missing Air Crew Report for your Uncle?

It is No. 12319 and is available online through the website www.fold3.com. The MACR has the serial numbers for your Uncle's aircraft (44-14710), it's engine, as well as the six .50 caliber machine guns on board. These should be useful in identifying any wreckage that may be discovered.

It also has the coordinates of his last known position (5052 N -- 0622 E) and heading (180 degrees).

Hope this helps.

Best regards,
Paul Dame

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

Yes , thank you . I have all that info . What I need to know is if anyone on this forum has ever heard of a crash sight in the area of Bruggen .

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

I am pretty sure there are people in TOCH who are dealing with MIA in that area.

ClinA-78

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

Please excuse my ignorance , but what exactly is TOCH ?

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

You are settled on our marvellous Twelve O' Clock Forum :D !

ClinA-78

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

Duh !! Sometimes not the sharpest knife in the drawer . Wonder who it might be that is looking in the Bruggen area .

Bluenoser

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

Morning!
Do you have ever asked for the IDPF-File from your Uncle? The small village named correct Brüggen, near Nettetal.
h.

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

I think that this thread should be removed and discussed more in another context: http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/forumdisplay.php?f=7

Just to remind that here we should be discussing pre-WW2 military and naval aviation...

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

GuerraCivil : Sorry , I don't know how this topic got posted to the wrong thread . I originally posted on WWll in general .

hanshauprich : Yes , I have the IDPF file for the Major . I have been at this for over 40 years now and have , I think , just about everything that is available . So far nothing I have done has led me any closer to an answer .The discovery of the armor plate in the Bruggen area is the best lead I have ever gotten . I was hoping one of the members here may have some knowledge of that .

Thanks for your response ,

B .

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

I know of a B-25 that crashed in Brueggen.

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

Ok, I know who informed JPAC, but it is also very likely the crash-site of CPT James D. Stevens, of the 370th. Danny

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

Danny ; I was totally blown away by your response ! I looked up Capt . Stevens on fold3 and found some interesting info on him . I see he was lost on 20 Mar 1945 and is laid to rest at the American Cemetery in Margraten , Netherlands . Wish I could get a look at the MACR but couldn't locate one . I wonder , if the armor plate is from his ship why wasn't it salvaged long ago when they found the Captains remains and buried him in Margraten ? In addition , I have never been able to come up with anything suggesting that there were any other aircraft lost in that area , don't know how I could have missed that . Would they have retrieved his body and left his aircraft at the crash site without salvaging it ? You have me scratching my head here . Anyways , thanks for the input . If possible , I would like to speak with the informant . Bob

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

I googled Capt. Stevens and found reference to him being shot down by British AAA near Venlo, Belgium on a training flight. My limited experience researching my Great Uncle's 9th AF P-47 unit suggests that no MACRs were created for losses over friendly territory.

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

Thanks pdame141 , you are 100% correct about Captain Stevens . There is no MACR to be had . Being shot down by so called friendly fire is one of the tragedies of war . That's also what happened to Maj George Preddy of the 352nd FG in Dec of 1944 . He was the leading Mustang Ace in the ETO . He and my Uncle Earl were great friends and they died in less than 30 days of each other ! After thinking about this at great lengths I cannot correlate The Capts. crash site and the circumstances surrounding it to that of Major Abbott's possible crash site . I will do more research . Thanks again . B

Re: Major Earl L Abbott O - 660088
 

Bluenoser, those loss records (MACR) are sometimes as accurate as a fortune teller's predictions :)
They go from last known location. I had a MACR that said, lost near Landshut, but the P-51 came down 200km away at Nuernberg.
Venlo to Bruggen in a P-51 is less then 5 minutes flight!
To answer your question, yes, the Allies would not have interest in recovering his wreckage, they never did on the Continent, that I know of. The Germans would have salvaged it for raw materials. In 2003 I recovered the P-47 of MAJ Chester Slingerland, he is buried in France. I found over 4000 lbs of wreckage and that was after the Germans had salvaged as much as they could. Besides, if the P-51 impacted with the cockpit down, the armor plate could have gone in quite a bit. Also, it was made of steel, which was of limited interest. They wanted aluminum! According to my friend, the site where the armor plate was found was from a very shallow impact crash, not a dive.

Danny