[Larry Hickey]

Adam and Brian,

Your additional comments are helpful. Adam, there are several additional photos of the He59 during the rescue, but the quality won't allow a definitive resolution of the full coding on this a/c. NE+TD certainly is a possibility. I hope that "Seaplanes" will jump in here if he has anything to add.

Brian, I'd noted the victory claim. Unfortunately, I've compared the known victory lists for I./ZG26 for the mid-August period, when I think these photos were taken, and almost all of these (11-18 August 1940) are by unknown pilots, and against unknown aircraft types. There is no "Oblt." among the few that are attributed to a specific pilot. However, Hans Ring reconstructed his take on this period with so-called "Turks" (apparently best guess-estimates), but in the several cases that I know of since this was done and subsequent hard info has been developed, these have turned out to be very unreliable (on the order of about 50%). That said, none of the claims listed are for Hurricanes--all are Spitfires, but he does attribute possible victories during this period to Oblt Wilhelm Spies of 1 Staffel (11.08.40, 13.08.40, 18.08.40 {Eng Jäger}); Oblt. Johannes Kiel of 3 Staffel (11.08.40, 13.08.40, 18.08.40 {Eng Jäger}); Oblt. Hans-Jürgen Kirchhoff of 3 Staffel (11.08.40, 13.08.40) and Oblt. Karl Fuchs of 3 Staffel (11.08.40). If both the photo sequence and the van Ishoven account are the same incident, it is very likely that one of these four pilots is the "Oblt." referred to in the account. So, if anyone has any info to support one of these four pilots being shot down and rescued from the Channel or being "injured" during this period, he is very likely the pilot of our plane. Besides the unreliability of the "Turks" attribution in general, it should be noted that I./ZG26 was known for very significant over-claiming of victories during this period, as were pretty much all the ZG units.

Brian, although I don't believe that the account will turn out to be the III./ZG26 ditching in the channel on 25.09.40, we have complete German records for the claimed victories of that unit on that day, and one of the two victories, was to an Oblt., Ernst Matthes, a 7 Staffel pilot who reportedly got a Spitfire SW of Bristol. However, I know of no source indicating that Matthes was shot down into the channel and rescued that day. Perhaps John Vasco has some insight into that issue.

Regards,