The Eagles Over Europe Project

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

http://ihra.smugmug.com/photos/i-kdw...-kdwnz9N-L.jpg

In the EoE LW Loss DB, there are about 10 photos of this a/c. Putting them together, this is revealed to be Hs123 of 6.(S)/LG2 with the code L2+DP

This is the only one photo that has a location, but we can't decipher it.

"Merlin" says: "this caption is hard to decipher. The first capital letter is a mixture of Sytterlin and normal writing, for the next ones there are some possibilities and the location ends with '...nditier'. I could not find anything similar in the loss reports for II./LG 2."

Although this says "Juni 1940" this has to be the date of the photo, not the date of the crash. There are only three possible 6 Staffel reports that might be this a/c in the EoE LW loss DB during the entire Western Campaign of May-June, 1940, all in mid-May:

"May 13, 1940:
6.(S)/LG2 Henschel Hs123A-1. Believed shot down by Sgt Wilkinson of No. 3 Squadron between Jauche and Pitrain, south of Tienen (Belgium), during ground-attack sortie 1.00 p.m. FF Fw Hans Knerr killed. Aircraft 100% write-off.

6.(S)/LG2 Henschel Hs123A-1. Believed shot down by Sgt Allen of No. 3 Squadron over Orp-Jauche, south of Tienen (Belgium), during ground-attack mission 1.00 p.m. FF Lt Hans-Joachim Fritz badly wounded, admitted to hospital in Jülich. Aircraft 100% write-off.
May 15, 1940:
6.(S)/LG2 Henschel Hs123A-1. Shot down by flak near Altiaux, 15 km south of Wavre (Belgium). FF Gefr Walter Krug killed. Aircraft 100% write-off."
Can anyone put this information together with the partial place name and come up with a solution to this mystery? Based upon the condition of the wreck, unless the pilot baled out this crash would have resulted in a fatality to the pilot. This makes the first and third the most likely candidates. However, there is no visible field grave in the photos. This plane crashed near a major road and was repeatedly photographed by German soldiers over a considerable period of time as the wreck was much disturbed. The swastika was not removed from the tail, so this crash likely did not happen behind Allied lines or at least happened very close to the front lines at the time of the incident.

Who can solve this one?

[Hans Nauta]

Hi Larry,

Just a wild guess: could it be Montdidier (with some misspelling) in northern France? That would tie up with the time frame June 1940, but is none of your loss possibilities...

Regards,
Hans

[Dénes Bernád]

I have several photos of this wreck. I will check them out, hopefully the location is marked on the verso of some of them.

[Larry Hickey]

Hello to both of you and thanks for trying to help.

Hans,

I had originally thought of that as a possible resolution several days ago. It is the only town I know of with that possible similar ending.

Peter C. now thinks that this is the 15 May incident 15 kms S of Wavre, Belgium, although he can't find the source attribution for this information in his records. Unfortunately, Montdidier, France, is around 200 kms from Wavre, so it certainly doesn't fit that location.

Dénes, please do check and see if you can turn up anything. The photo I posted was the only one that I could find with any location info. There have been around a dozen images of this crash posted on eBay, and I only won one of them, which alas had no location information. This is the only one that had a any possible location info posted with it on eBay that I know of. We want to profile this a/c for the EoE project if we can firmly identify it.

Regards,

[ClinA-78]

Hello Larry,

I would like to be your hero .

I was told many years ago about a German crash occured at the East end of Saint-Géry village. 'Altiau' or Rue Altiau is a street located in this same village, which is situated roughly 6 km West of Gembloux.
I don't know if this case can be linked to your crash on the picture. You know, this scarce testimony dates many years ago (no more witnesses now) but perhaps if there is a landmark appearing on your pictures, I would be able to make a matching?

Best regards

ClinA-78

[Nick Beale]

It may be relevant that because the country has two official languages, places in Belgium often have both a Flemish and a French form of their names: Tienen is also known as Tirlemont for example.

[ClinA-78]

'Altiau' is situated well inside the French-speaking part of Belgium.

ClinA-78

[Jochen Prien]

Larry,

to me this looks definitely like a mis-spelt form of Montdidier, spelt here like Monditier. Looking at the captions on many German photos from that period you'll find much worse deformations of French names than this one.

Hope this helps

Jochen

[Merlin]

Larry,

the were two fatal losses of this unit near "Montdidier" on 5.Jun.40:
- near Roye (15km east of Montdidier) Lt. Siegfried Panten from 4./LG 2, aircraft identified as L2+BM
- near Ham (40km east of Montdidier) Uffz. Karl Heinz from 4./LG 2 - may be in an aircraft of 6./LG 2?

[robert]

My original photo has something like "b.Villero" on the back.

Regards

Robert