He 111 - KG 54

[RudiS]

Does anybody have more information (place, date, circumstances & crew) about the attached picture of a crash landed He 111 of KG 54. The caption on the back of the picture only states that the plane came down in France.

Kind regards & thanks in advance,
Rudi.

[Larry Hickey]

Rudi,

This is an easy one: B3+BL of 3./KG54 down on May 19, 1940, near Epinoy, about 15 miles E of Arras, France. The pilot was Lt Horst Fricke pilot (POW). You can see the grave of Gefr. Konrad Sichtar, radio operator, KIA (his grave is next to plane).

I have many, many images of this FL in the EOE DB.

Regards,

Larry

[RudiS]

Larry,

thank you for your quick reply.

You are absolutely right. It's Lt Fricke's aircraft. I also have several pictures of this incident but I didn't realise it was the same aircraft since this picture was taken head on.

Question : you identify it as B3+BL. So does Siegfried Radtke in his book on KG 54. In Luftwaffe on Focus N° 8 & 10 however it's identified as B3+BK. Which is the right aircraft code?

Kind regards,
Rudi.

[Larry Hickey]

Rudi,

The info in the referenced "Luftwaffe im Focus" articles is incorrect. There is a clear color photograph of this aircraft, showing that the "B" is yellow with a white outline, not red. The Staffel code letter is also "L," not "K." Cornwell's book also indicates that this is a 3 Staffel loss, although he does not cite the aircraft code.

There are also errors in Radtke's KG54 loss list--at least two that come to mind are inaccurate locations for crashes. There are probably others.

Hope that this clarifies this one for you.

Regards,

[RudiS]

Thanks for clarifying this, Larry.

Kind regards,
Rudi.

[Bertrand H]

Hi,

According to “12 days in may” by Cull, page 267, combat report of Wakeham (N2711 SO-D, 145 A/Flight sqdn) states : " I was detailed to attack formation of He 111 and did n°1 attack on outside Heinked of section, but broke away on closing and being hit. On returning to attack again I noticed it was giving to ground level. I followed it to the ground, delivering two more attacks and saw it finally force landed in a field near ARRAS. On circling I saw the pilot (Horst Fricke) get out and some soldiers approched "

Page 269, in the detailed many losses of KG54 :

“He 111P of 3./KG54 flown by Lt Res H.F. shot down and crash landed south of Lille: one killed in the air others POW of French.”

Arras is in the south of Arras and Epinoy and Oisy-le-Verger are 23 kms east of Arras.

We can guess that this B3+BL of 3./KG54 a/c tried to join Epinoy but crashed before to join it ! it was not so far. It crashed between Epinoy and Oisy-le-Verger. Church in the back of print in LiF n°10 page 4 is Oisy-le-Verger.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Im...Verger-62.jpeg

HTH

Bertrand H

[Larry Hickey]

Bertrand,

I'm most interested in pinning down the correct location of this forced landing. It appears that the pilot tried to land on the very flat ground after being badly shot up by fighters, but the left main gear collapsed. One of our EOE Working Group members has a photo of this crash that has handwritten on the back (in German): "He111 force-landed near Sanchy Iestre." Someone had taken and printed "Sanchy Iestre" below the Sütterlin script, which is hard for me to interpret. There are two small villages near each other with the name Sanchy, one being Sancy Iestre, although I couldn't get the place to come up on either Google Maps or Mapquest just now. This seems to be some considerable distance, IIRC, from the Arras location. How sure are you of the Oisy-le-Verger location? Is the terrain around that place consistent with what is seen in the many photos of that FL aircraft now known? Quite frankly, there are so many churches in those little towns in that part of France, many of which are similar, that I'm far from certain that the photo in LiF shows the church at Oisy-le-Verger.

Any further thoughts on this?

Regards,

[Bertrand H]

Larry,

Sauchy-Lestrée (South west)_Oisy-le-Verger (North) and Epinoy (South-East) form a triangle.

This He 111 try to join a flat ground just in the middle of this triangle. Note that Epinoy flat ground will become Cambrai-Noth for the Germans some months later.

HTH

Bertrand

[Larry Hickey]

Bertrand,

I see now how this all fits together. You are right about the triangle. My further questions:

1) Have you visited this actual site and located the place of the FL precisely (We're trying to map each crash location accurately).

2) What would be the best description for this location: something like __ Km E of Sauchy-Lestrée and __ km NW of Cambrai?

Thanks,