Unternehmen Bodenplatte 60th Year Anniversary!

[Dennis Peschier]

Hello John,
I might have an indication as to where one of the missin luftwaffe flyers ended up.
In your book on page 35 there is a photograph of a crashed Fw190. It shows the right side of the aft fuselage with a single colour unit band and a second gruppe bar.
The only second grupe with a single colour unit band was II./JG.1, this unit lost the following Fw190s that day
171513
173813
173932
352518
733978
739230
739235
739429
960473
960547
960659
960677
960679
Note that the fuselage balkenkreutz on page 35 has a black centre whith white edges.
On page 22 you can see that 730000 series Fw190s can be excluden because it they have different balkenkreutzes. On page 24 we can see that the same goes for 960000 series Fw190s. I have never seen photographes of 352000 series Fw190s so I cant exclude those.
On page 8, a 170000 series Fw190 is displaying the right kind of balkenkreutz. This leaves:
171513, black 4
173813, yellow 16
173932, yellow 14
352518, white 8.
The second gruppe bar is neither black nor white, leaving yellow as the only remaining colour.
Since yellow 16 crashed near Almelo, hundreds of kilometers north of St. Denis-Westrem, it must be yellow 14.
Acording to the loss list this Fw190A-8 with its pilot, OFW Kurt Niedereicholz, is still unacounted for.
Doe you know if any unknown germans were buried near St. Denis-Westrem early 1945 ?

Hope this helps,

Dennis