[Peter Cornwell]

Sorry that I am a late-arrival to this thread. This question raises its head fairly regularly because surviving contemporary documentation seemed to provide contradictory information. However, I suspect that was imperfect interpretation of the original documentation that created (certainly my own) confusion.

The Ob.d.L Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt. returns dated August 16, 1940, (item 43) records the loss of Messerschmitt Bf110D of I./ZG76 on a sortie to ‘Mittel-England’ the previous day. The crew of two are both recorded ‘missing’ and named as ‘Hpt. Restemeyer Gr.Kdr.’ and an un-named NCO. A subsequent amendment dated January 18, 1943, reports one of them ‘killed’ rather than ‘missing’. The same document (item 112) adds the name ‘Hpt. Hartwich W. Leitstelle 15’ as also being missing in this aircraft.

As Chris points out, the Namentliche Verlustmeldungen for I./ZG76 for August 15, 1940, only records the personnel losses of Hptmn.u.Gr.Kdr. Werner Restemeyer and Uffz.u.Bordf. Werner Eichert both missing following a sortie to ‘Engl. Ostküste (Nähe Newcastle)’ and combat with enemy fighters. This document further confirms that Eichert was Bordfunker to Restemeyer and reports that it was his death that was confirmed in a signal dated January 9, 1943. There is no mention of Hptmn Hartwich for, as Chris rightly says, such returns tend to be unit-specific and he was not a permanent member of I./ZG76. Restemeyer remains ‘missing’. He is listed as such in DRK Vermisstenbildliste (LJ 511) as late as 1959/60.

In November 1976, WASt informed me that Hptmn Ernst-August Hartwich of Funkhorchkomp. X. Flieger Korps had been lost with Restemeyer. But I confess that my remaining confusion in this case stemmed from the original Qu.6.Abt document reporting that only two went missing, naming them as Restemeyer & Hartwich, while the NVM also only gave two names but those of Restemeyer & Eichert. Both Bekker (1964) & Mason (1969) both followed the Qu.6.Abt version of events while I chose to follow the NVM. None of us seems to have correctly interpreted the original document, nor subscribed to a crew of three being carried, though it now seems crystal-clear that was indeed so.

Surely it would have taken considerable modification to shoe-horn all the necessary ‘gubbins’ into a Dachelbauch and that work must have been initiated long before the actual date of the attack ? But that is one for the more technically-inclined.