How report dead aircrew in occupied Europe

[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.