[Peter Cornwell]

The A.I.1(k) Reports were not exclusively compiled as the result of prisoner interrogation. There are many such reports included in the AIR40 series at NA(PRO) detailing enemy losses where no crew survived. However, there are also many instances where no report was filed despite the fact that enemy casualties and/or prisoners were involved. The first such case I have noted being the loss of an He111 of Wekusta 51 in the English Channel off Margate on 12 June 1940. Nor, does it seem that enemy aircraft losses over the sea or otherwise ‘off-shore’ failed to generate a report for there are many reports on the recovery of bodies at sea or those washed ashore in the UK submitted often many months after the actual date of loss. Some otherwise well-documented crashes on land also escaped the attention of A.I.1(k) officers. You will find no report on the Bf110 of III./ZG76 that impacted on the Verne Citadel at Portland on 11 July 1940 for example. The fact of the matter is that the AIR40 collection, though far from being a definitive record, and littered as it is with wartime errors and assumptions, does form excellent prime source material for more thorough research into Luftwaffe losses throughout the war.

The A.I.1(g) Reports were digests of the same original reports, but concentrated on technical matters such as armament, bomb-loads, armour, engines, etc. Information could therefore be more readily disseminated through the intelligence community as required without duplicating the bulk of individual reports.

Unfortunately, there was no A.I.1(k) Report compiled on the loss of BRANDENBURG and his crew on 16 August 1940 despite the fact that the partial remains of (what was then thought to be) two unidentified German Airmen were subsequently recovered and buried together at Whitstable. As Joe says, the funeral director’s records of these burials includes ‘58209/88’, that being the EKM of BRANDENBURG, so there should be no dispute over the identity of the crew. However, when the grave was opened for re-interment in October 1962, close inspection revealed that remains from all four crewmen were included in the same coffin. Hence their collective grave at Cannock Chase.