He111 crew murdered on the 11th of may 1940.

[Bernard]

Good evening,

On the morning of the 12th of may 1940, S/Ldr Halahan C.O of R.A.F N° 1 squadron was shot down and force-landed safely west of Maastricht.

On his way back ( by road ) to Berry-au-Bac, he saw the wreck of a Heinkel He111 wich force landed in a field by the road a short time ago.
( I cannot tell wich place nor wich time.)

The crew of this aircraft would have been decapitated by Senegalese troops.
Does anybody know about this terrible event. Is it true ? Wich unit ? Wich crew ?

Thanks in advance.

Bernard.

[Sergio Luis dos Santos]

I remember to have read this on an old book. Maybe Angrifshöne 4000 (I know I wrote the name competly wrong since I have the edition published in Portugal...)

[Nick Beale]

It could have been in Paul Richey's "Fighter Pilot", Halahan was his Squadron Leader and his name is mentioned frequently.

[Bernard]

Good evening,

Yes indeed I read this in " Fighter Pilot " by Paul Richey. And I would like to know if there is any record about this in Luftwaffe records.

Thanks.

Bernard .

[Brian Bines]

Details of the incident appear in both the 1941 and 1955 edition of the book ' Fighter Pilot '. I thought that S/L Halahan returned to No 1 Sqd. on May 13th and he witnessed the incident on his travels back to his unit, so is the date of May 11th. definite for the crash of the Heinkel.

[Bernard]

Good evening,

I am awfully sorry, I just checked AIR27/1. S/Ldr Halahan was shot down on the 12th of may during a cover patrol over Maastricht. He returned to Berry au Bac on the 13th.
So this Heinkel must have been shot down on the 12th.

Thanks for your attention.

Bernard.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

If he came back from Maastricht to Berry-au-Bac, the area in which he drove (mostly Belgium) had few black French troops. Most of the troops engaged here were metropolitan or North African troops.

Two Machine Gunners half-brigades of Madagascar were engaged in Monthermé area, along the Meuse River.

But this story is closer than German propaganda than I would have believe. AFAIK roughly a dozen German airmen were executed by French troops or armed civilians during the 1940 campain, but I have not heard of such a case. In fact all the cases I know happened later, once the Luftwaffe had started to bombard more French roads and cities. In the first days of the campain, the main targets in France were the airfields. In 10-12 May, on the other hand, several Belgian cities were hard hit, so another possibility would be that the killing was done by Belgians.

All cases of "beheading by black troops" that I have seen studied in details were in fact bodies mutilated (usually not beheaded) by "usual war damage" (shrapnel and so on) and were sometimes justifications to shoot black POWs (Germans shot down between 1000 and 2000 POWs during the campain, more than hald of them being Black and North African troops).

Where did Halahan force-land, if it is known ? That will help to reduce the search area...

[Bernard]

Good morning Laurent,

Thanks for your reply.

The best I know about Halahan' s landing location is west of Maastricht in
Belgian territory.

Another version of this incident refers to Morocon troops.

Best regards.

Bernard.

[Skyraider3D]

Originally Posted by Sergio Luis dos Santos

I remember to have read this on an old book. Maybe Angrifshöne 4000 (I know I wrote the name competly wrong since I have the edition published in Portugal...)

You mean 40000 Kilometer Feindflug? I have an original copy of that at home. Very hard to read, due to the font used.

[Larry Hickey]

Note: someone with info on this who cannot post here has some meaningful information on this issue. I am quoting some of his remarks on the subject for the sake of furthering this discussion--Larry Hickey:

"It seems that this incident really took place. Many years ago I read a fairly precise account of it in one of the many issues of "Icare" (French aviation review published by the pilots' trade union SNPL) devoted to the fighting in the 1940 French Campaign. I can't remember in which issue this article was (the article was much longer than that and the "Senegalese incident" was only a short part of it), perhaps one of the "Bombardement" issues. The author witnessed this beheading himself but was not able to do anything. Approximate quotation : "A few Senegalese troops walked towards the German aircraft and suddenly, before anybody could do anything, they calmly beheaded all German airmen with their coupe-coupes" (African kind of machete).

I think these soldiers were convinced that they were doing the right thing: they were standing in front of enemy soldiers wearing enemy uniforms (and still armed with pistols!) so they killed them, in their eyes this certainly was all right. Most probably their French officers had never bothered to teach them a few rules, like not killing enemy prisoners or such soldiers who obviously were unable to fight. Senegal has traditions very different from those of France or Germany and this was even more true 1940. Clearly the responsible men were the French officers."

Hope this is useful.