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Old 3rd April 2015, 05:19
pdame141 pdame141 is offline
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Re: P-51 loss on 2 April 1945

All:

Absent another good candidate, I concur with Alex that Lt. Sodermark's F-6 fits the bill. By way of further check, I ran the coordinates given in MACR 13654 through the grid conversion tool at http://www.echodelta.net/mbs/eng-welcome.php.

The first grid given (R-7868) corresponds to the town of Waldangelloch, and the next (R-7795) is further north, which corresponds with Lt. Schutt's report that he and Sodermark turned north towards U.S. lines after Sodermark was hit. Morever, both R-7868 and R-7795 show as almost due South of Lohrback where the crash is recorded.

Moreover, based on the maps I can find of the U.S. ground offensive in this area of Germany, this area was a very fluid frontline area 1-3 April 1945 that would likely call for armed recce attention.

None of this explains the apparent discrepancy between the MACR compiled on 3 April 1945 that unequivocally states that the mission on which Lt. Sodermark was lost took place on Easter Sunday 1 April 1945 and the equally unequivocal statement on the German website Laurent found that states the crash happened on Easter Monday 2 April 1945.

Best regards,
Paul
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