Ju-88 werknumber 710575

[Alain57]

Hello ,
F/L Leboutte Lucien ( Belgian ) and F/O Mallet Ron S "Joe" 141 squadron shot down Ju-88 G-1 werknumber 710575 from 6./NJG 2 on may 12 1944 near Mechelen in Belgium. It seems that the crew bailed out :
Simonsohn Wilhelm – Franz ? – Günther ?
Is there someone who has additional info on the on the german crew ?

[RT]

Hello Alain,

Where hv you find the data ??

Remi

[Alain57]

Remi ,

I found it in a database i got from a friend some years ago.

Alain

[brommer66]

Originally Posted by Alain57

Hello ,
F/L Leboutte Lucien ( Belgian ) and F/O Mallet Ron S "Joe" 141 squadron shot down Ju-88 G-1 werknumber 710575 from 6./NJG 2 on may 12 1944 near Mechelen in Belgium. It seems that the crew bailed out :
Simonsohn Wilhelm – Franz ? – Günther ?
Is there someone who has additional info on the on the german crew ?

Hi Alain
I signed up with this forum today, and found this post from a little over 2 years ago to the date. I don't know if you still need the info on Willi Simonsohn's crew, but I could get you some more information. I know Willi Simonsohn personally and we have had many a discussion about what happened on that night of 11-12 May 1944 over Belgium. I must look it up though and will get back with you this weekend. Out of memory the first names of the other crewmembers appear to be correct, but I can add the last names as well.
Greets
Jos

[Alain57]

Hello ,

Thank you every info is still very welcome.

Regards
Alain57

[RT]

Hello Jos,

Could you share with us what said about this event Willi Simonssohn ???

Seems the plane landed a bit rudely at Rothwesten , the BM Uffz Franz Holzer was wounded

Rémi

[brommer66]

Ok Alain

A bit later than promised but here we go:

As already mentioned by Rémi (see above post) the full name of the boardmechanic (Bord Mechaniker) was Franz Holzer.

The radiooperator/reargunner (Bordfunker/Schuetze) was Guenter Gottwick.

They all got out of the Ju-88 after the aircraft was hit in the left engine by a Mosquito of 141 squadron, who approached the Ju-88 on the left and slightly below to reduce being hit by debris from the disintegrating A/C (standard procedure)

All got out of the stricken aircraft, Franz Holzer first, as Willi Simonsohn told him to open the hatch in the bottom of the A/C being closest to it. Guenter Gottwick followed almost immediately, but Willi himself had a lot more problems as the A/C started to go in a spin and centrifugal forces prevented him to reach the open hatch or even to grab the stick in an attempt to pull the A/C out of its dive. Willi lost sight of his crewmembers and landed, as he believes, near Mechelen, some 25 Km NNE of Bruxelles.

Originally Posted by RT

Hello Jos,
Could you share with us what said about this event Willi Simonssohn ???
Seems the plane landed a bit rudely at Rothwesten , the BM Uffz Franz Holzer was wounded
Rémi

Hello Rémi

See above, a short version of the most hazardous part of Willi's flying career. I have more information, also about several of his 'rough' landings but this will have to wait till the weekend as I am on the road during the week.
In addition Willi just recently told me that he finished writing his memoirs (at 91!), and the book will be published later this year. I will notify you and the others on this forum about the publish date as soon as I know it.
Greets to all
Jos

[ClinA-78]

Nice testimony

ClinA-78

[brommer66]

Hello Rémi

I have read my notes again that I have received from Willi Simonsohn a while ago and found information about the crash in Rothwesten. This crash has nothing to do with the incident of 11/12 May 1944 where he was shot down over Mechelen in Belgium (see earlier posts). This crashlanding was at Kassel-Rothwesten in the summer of 1944 where he had to land on 1 engine after his Ju-88 (G1?) was damaged by enemy fire. Willi and his crew were hospitalized for a while.

In addition to this, another crash, or better a belly landing, is interesting to mention as it happened during a training flight from Augsburg-Lechfeld airbase in a Do 217 nightfighter in cooperation with Flak searchlights. Everything went well on this clear night in the early fall of 1943, untill the searchlights went out, no other lights were visible on the ground (black-out) and Willi had forgotten to keep track of his course and position, totally trusting the searchlights and his own radio navigation equipment. However when the lights went out he was unable to reach a groundstation to get a radio fix and their own radionavigation equipment went u/s. Willi turned on a course of 90 degrees to fly in the direction of the rising sun to be able to see something at first light. Unfortunately ground fog set in but after a while, through holes in the fog, he spotted an airfield near a larger town but with a fairly short runway. As he was slowly running out of gas he decided to make a belly-landing on the airfield. This was a rough landing but worked out OK, no injuries and even the Do 217 survived the landing fairly well. The bigger shock came later when they found out that they had in fact landed near Budweis (Budvar, and famous for the Budweiser beer) in what is now the Czech republic!

On this training mission Willi flew with the same crew, i.e. Franz Holzer and Günther Gottwick, as on the night when he got shot down. Franz Holzer was shot down and was KIA later in the war when he flew with another pilot; Günther Gottwick survived but Willi lost contact with him after the war.

Btw if anybody has information about Günther Gottwick (came from the Suhl/Thüringen region in the former DDR) or Franz Holzer, please let me know.

I hope this is of some interest to you and the other forum members as well.

Greets
Jos

[RT]

Hello Jos,

Many thks but it seems that when we try to compare hard data / on documents/ with remembrance , we sometimes goes to some dead-ends , is it mossible for each event to hv accurate dates ??? Is some log-book existing .?

Rémi