Luftwaffe fighter crashing into a church in Arnhem in September 1944

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Hello,

On 20 September 1944 Lt Hans Ransmayer of 15./JG 54 was killed in Arnhem area. Both Gunter Rosipal and the official crash list of the Netherlands Defence Minister indicated he hit a church tower, the St. Walburgiskerk, in Arnhem.

I thought that such a crash in middle of a well-covered battle should have ground witnesses too, and I found a webpage describing this crash from the ground... except that the date is then 19 September and the aricraft is a Bf 109 of I./JG 76 flown by an Unteroffizier Schmidt.

So we have two different pilots and two different dates given for probably the same event (to have the two pilots crash into the same tower seems unlikely to me). From my past experiences the official crash list of the Netherlands Defence Minister is rather accurate, so I will rather go with it and guess the ground testimony is wrong by one day... that is not so bad given the fact that the paratroops there had something else to do that writing diaries at the time.

Any comment, correction or addition will be welcome.

Best regards

Laurent