How report dead aircrew in occupied Europe

[gkopchuk]

Does anyone know what the procedure was to report dead aircrew found in occupied Holland from 1940-45? I have some records indicating for example, 3 dead british flyers. Did they attempt to do more to id the bodies if dogtags were not found, eg. noting what kind of wings were on the tunic or take photos of the dead aircrew. Any help on this would be appreciated.

[paul kroon]

The procedure was quite different.
In many cases Dutch officials (police, ARP) were not allowed to examine the bodies, even not to enter the crash site. But there are also comprehensive official reports with specification of the dead, such as name, on left side of jacket a wing with letters AG, three chevrons on sleeves a.s.o.
Some times the Germans took care of the dead, in other cases Dutch authorities were charged to bury them.
paul

[gkopchuk]

Paul,

How can I find out how much detail was done with the crew from HZ519 on Jun 22, 1943?

[Hans Nauta]

Hi Greg,

There might be some more details in the records of the Red Cross. Unfortunatley most of the records were destroyed during a bombardment in March 1945 on The Hague and after the war the files were as much as possible completed with the grave records of the municipals where Allied airmen were buried.

Perhaps the Red Cross records of Vlissingen merely list a date of finding and burials of the body, but sometimes the records show details such as found items e.g. Mea West or parachute.
These records are now at the Red Cross in The Hague.

Apart from this the Germans compiled there own records with so called Namentliche Verlusstmeldungen (individual lossrecords), not only with regard to own losses, but also for found bodies of Allied airmen.
I do have copies of surving NVM's of Den Helder, I'm not sure where the originals are held. Perhaps just as the NVM's of German casulaties at the WASt archives in Germany, perhaps these NVM's were lost in the before mentioned bombardment.

Another option might be records of the Grenz Aufsicht Stelle (GASt), a kind of militairy customs, which had as task to patrol and guard the border lines of the German held territory, so also the coast line of Holland. Most of the time they were the first ones to be contacted/involved when a body had washed ashore. I've pretty detailed reports of the GASt with regard to found bodies in 1940, but I'm not sure whether this unit still existed in 1943, nor where the records (if survived the war) would be held nowadays.

Finally, after the war the Missing Research and Enquiry Service (MRES) investigated the allied graves. The records are held by the British Ministry of Defence and are to released to public 100 years after the ordeal, so 2043 in this case.
The indexes of The National Archives show that a document class (AIR 81) has been reserved for future transfers of documents of the MRES, however this only maybe declassified documents regarding the circumstances of the loss of an aircraft, not the grave records.

And yes, there must have been German atopsy reports to, however I've never seen such reports, nor do I know whether these survived the war and if so, where these are held nowadays...

Best wishes,
Hans Nauta

[paul kroon]

You might try to contact the local archives of Vlissingen. The address is gemeentearchief@vlissingen.nl Maybe they are willing to help, but cross your fingers.
Perhaps they know of a researcher of the Northern Cemetery (Noorderbegraafplaats).
Wish you luck,
paul

[rob van den nieuwendijk]

Hello Greg,

You may want to see: http://www.wingstovictory.nl/database/pdf/277-story.pdf

Know from my own research that sometimes local police reports (proces verbaal) give identification details of allied aircrew and later after the war the MRES checked every grave and made detailed notes. Sometimes little details can be found in the archive of the cemetery where the airmen were/are buried.

Best regards,
Rob

[grvreijn]

Investications were preformed in many different ways depending on the place and person or organisation finding the body. If the ID-tag was missing bodies were id-ed by personal items like letters, engraved pens or lighters and in some cases by Id-numbers being sewed in their underwear. I found several cases like that. Rang and other uniform details were also described and indeed the wings as well (indicating the person´s role).

Indeed the Redcross archive in Den Haag was largely destroyed at the end of the war but not completely. It still does hold several (incomplete) logs with bodies being washed ashore and the personal artifacts found on them. After the war the archive tried to rebuild it self as much as possible by collecting information from local archives. In general the archive is incomplete. A new detailed catalog is being made at the moment but will take time to complete. The archive can be visited on appointment only.

If you are lucky the Local archive hold information as in many cases local police got involved or local doctors had to give a death declaration. Also the cost of the burial were in many cases charged to the germans. With some luck you can still find such info as well. The level of detail again depends per archive. Many such archives suffered from destruction at the end of the war and in the South-West of Holland those archives also suffered a lot from the 1953 floods.