[RSwank]

Manni,
I will try to contact some other families, but it is always a slow process. I will post any new developments.

I have researched many other crashes and located veterans’ families. In a majority of cases, the war was not discussed. Most of the people I have contacted had only a vague idea of their father’s or grandfather’s war experiences. Details of a crash, escape or evasion or time in a POW camps was rarely, if ever, discussed. Some families would say “Dad sometimes talked with Mom about some of it but never with the rest of us”. Some of the veterans were suffering from what is now called PTSD. (Other European researchers I have worked with have also expressed surprise that the war was not discussed in veterans' families so your reaction is not unique.)