RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

In his book "Patton's Gap" by Richard Rohmer, ex 430 Sq, mentions that his personal records were lost when the Dakota carrying his logbook was shot down while flying from Evreux, France to Diest, Belgium.

Can anyone identify this loss?

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

If you look at the post 18 on this thread you can likely find the ORB to search.

http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/sho...crofilms/page2

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Or check:

Tugs and Gliders to Arnhem
A.J. van Hees, september 2000

A Detailed Survey of the British Glider Towing Operations During Operation 'Market Garden', 17, 18 and 19 September 1944.

and
Green On!
A.J. van Hees, september 2004

A Detailed Survey of the British Parachute Re-supply Sorties During Operation 'Market Garden', 18-25 September 1944

Jaap

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

I have "Aircraft For the Many" M.J.F. Bowyer, which has serial listing for the RAF Dakotas that served on D-Day. It would probably be one of these. Unfortunately, with the high losses in Market-Garden, it tends to prolong the search for the correct Dakota.

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Have you tried the squadron ORB as suggested?

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Hello,

Dennis - which squadron ORB?

K, I suggest you get yourself a copy of the following book:

Though Without Anger (Losses of Transport and Special Duties Aircraft and Assault Gliders 1940-1945).
Cummings,Colin (Comp. & ed.)
Yelvertoft:Nimbus Publishing,2008.

The section you need (Sept'44 - Oct'44,) is between pages 375-440.

Col.

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Thanks Col., I will try to get in on Inter Library loan.

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Have you tried to search the 430 Sqn ORB ? It is online here http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oo...4/1295?r=0&s=1
(link is on 1st September)

According to the ORB, 430 Sqn moved from Evreux to Dienst on 20 September, so this loss should be at this date or latter.

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Col, see post number one, 430 Sqn and see my first post, directing one to the RCAF ORB's and Bill Walkers index.

20th and 21st September the unit was being moved, and 21st mentions the loss of the transport with their gear.

Fair enough, the aircraft lost was not with 430 Squadron, so my directions were a waste of time

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Dennis,

Thank you,

Col.

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

I went through my copy of this book, looking at a period of September 19th to 21st. There are lots of Dakota losses but all seem to be connected to Market Garden.
There's this database too to look at
https://aviation-safety.net/database...&lang=&page=10

but nothing seems to match.

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Kaki,

Any pointer in the book where and how the Dakota was shot down? Flak or a German fighter? Since direct route Evreux to Diest was pretty much over liberated area in presumed months, an accidental loss may not be excluded.

Regards,

Leendert

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

In the online book "Generally Speaking" by Richard Rohmer more details are disclosed on page 170-171.

It appears that his logbook was on a Dakota detailed for the move from Evreux to Diest, but somehow the aircraft was then ordered to fly to the UK instead. There the cargo was unloaded. After some days the or another Dakota had to go to Diest with the original load.
According Rohmer the pilot mistook Diest for another Diest (haven't found out yet what other Diest is referred to...) which brought the Dakota over enemy territory, with fatal results.

A loss over Holland therefore more likely?

Regards,

Leendert

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

In the book "Though Without Anger", a 437 Sqn loss on the 21st was promosing but the online ORB shows that all losses that date for this squadron were during a Market Garden operation.

But I found a candidate thanks to Google: the Dakota KG512 of 271 Sqn. See http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/sho...ash-in-Belgium and http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=41891

"Though Without Anger" has the loss on the 25th of September with no detail at all.

A check of the 271 Sqn ORB could be useful.

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Hello,

1195055 W/O William David Bruce ALLEN RAFVR. Allen hailed from Fremantle, Western Australia, consequently he has an (undigitised) A705 at the NAA:

https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/Sear...1061099&isAv=N

see also: http://www.rafcommands.com/archive/07503.php

Col

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Only if we follow Rohmer’s assertion that the Dakota was shot down over enemy territory, then KG512 cannot be a candidate.

This a/c crashed near Nieuwpoort (Nieuport), Belgium, in the coastal area liberated some two weeks before and with no enemy action involved.

Also, and still referring to Rohmer’s book “Generally Speaking”, at what stage or how did he learn that the pilot had been flying to a wrong Diest and so came over German held land? A returned/evaded survivor of the crash? There weren’t any on the KG512.


Regards,

Leendert

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Just a point about Nieupoort, it is quite close to Dunkirk. Dunkirk was not liberated at this time. In fact it was held by the Germans until the end of the war. I have investigated other allied crashes of planes that strayed over these bypassed ports such as Dunkirk and were shot down. I am not saying that happened here, in fact this link says the plane was on a resupply mission: https://aviation-safety.net/database...id=19440921-30

but might be a possibility which could explain how a plane could "stray" over occupied territory and crash far away from what we think were the then current "front lines".

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Rolland,

Good points to ponder.
More info about circumstances of loss of KG512 are needed. 271 Squadron ORB can help?
Crashsite was Ramskapelle, near Nieuwpoort (there's also a Ramskapelle near Knokke).

Indeed, more losses are known of aircraft coming too close to Dunkirk...

Regards,

Leendert

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

And 430 Sqn knew their gear was lost as they record it in the ORB on Sep 21st. So aircraft lost on or before the 21st.

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Hello,

How do you know that it was the Ramskapelle near Nieuwpoort rather than the other ? The fact that the crew is buried at Agedem seems to indicate the Knokke area, as it is closer.

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Laurent,

Locally no Dakota loss known near Knokke in Sept 44.
But is is indeed worth to note that at that time (Sept 44) the Germans still held a small corner of NW Belgium, with Knokke only liberated in the first days of Nov 44 (Operation Switchback).
Circumstances may therefore coincide with Rolland's suggestion of the Dakota straying into harm's way over Dunkirk.

At Adegem Canadian Cemetery, roughly between Brugge and Gent, rest many soldiers from a wide area around, especially from the Battle for the Scheldt.

KG512 a candidate still, only cause of loss to be established.

Regards,

Leendert

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Laurent,

Correction of my last message....In a Sept 2005 post on Rafcommand fellow Belgian air history friend Luc Vervoort got advised by late Henk Welting that KG512 was shot down by Flak Unit 6./203. I gathered that this particular Marine Flak Abteilung was at Heist (Heyst), adjacent to Ramskapelle.

KG512 is said to have exploded over Ramskapelle, so the one near Knokke after all.

Laurent, thanks for questioning me, it made me dig deeper.
The Dakota must have flown over that one part of NW Belgium still in German hands, precisely the "Dunkirk" scenario Rolland brought forward.

I still wonder what "wrong" Diest the pilot had in mind. Ursel (B-67) between Brugge and Gent?

Regards,

Leendert

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Maybe the confusion was between actually between "Diest" and "Heist", i.e. not a 2nd Diest, but a total misreading or misspelling of the name, perhaps even by Rohmer.

Re: RAF Dakota loss Sept-Oct 1944
 

Hi all,

The second ' Diest ' was B.66 Blakenberg.

Have an eye on :
http://www.forgottenairfields.com/be...b-66-s219.html

quote :
Blakenberg airfield (also known as Assent airstrip or B.66 Blakenberg, or incorrectly 'Blankenberg') was an airfield 50 kilometers east of Brussels.
Construction began at 15:00 on 11 September 1944, east of the village of Assent and south of Diest on the border of the provinces Limburg and Brabant in a field known locally as 'Tienbunder' (ten acres). Even though it already froze during the nights, the airfields dirt track was completed on the evening of 13 September. The first three test landings (by a Typhoon) on the 14th were successful, but the decision was made to lay out SMT and build a perimeter track from the following morning. As a result, the airfield was not completed until the evening of Saturday 16 September, just in time for Operation Market Garden.

The airfield, codenamed B-66, was to be used by the Canadian 39th Reconnaissance Wing. It had a very short operational 'carreer', as rain made the field one large muddy pool. Applying PSP had little or no effect and as there were no hangars, mechanics had to perform maintenance in the open air in the middle of winter. A Dakota (C-47) that was to have brought tents and the luggage of the pilots never arrived and was listed as 'missing' on 21 Sep 1944. As a result, officers and crews of the wing were quartered with families in the Diest area. 6168 Servicing Echelon, a unit specialised in retrieving and repairing crash landed aircraft, began using the airfield as their base from 21 September.

On 4 October, the 3 squadrons (including 414Sqn) and 6168 Servicing Echelon left Assent/Blakenberg to operate from Eindhoven, which was both more comfortable and closer to the front. Blakenberg remained as an emergency airstrip, manned by a small contingent of Americans repairing the aircraft that were forced to land here, such as three 479FG P-51s that were short on fuel and landed on the airfield on 18 October 1944.
On 25 November 1944 a B-17G (42-40007 VP-M "Honey" of 381th Bomb Group, 533th Bomb Squadron) belly-landed here with heavy Flak damage, but as it was deemed beyond repair, it remained at the base. Over time it was slowly dismantled by the local population.
unquote

Best regards

Luc