Oblt ??? of ZG26 Battle of Britain

[Larry Hickey]

Brian,

Here is what we have in the EOE DB on the Sept. 25, 1940 incident:

"III./ZG26 Messerschmitt Bf110C-4 (3263). Crashed in the Channel during combat with RAF fighters south of Weymouth during escort sortie for KG55 attack on Filton 12.00 p.m. Crew rescued unhurt by Seenotdienst. Aircraft 100% write-off."

It's not impossible that this incident could be the van Ishoven account. Note however, that the narrative said both crewmen were injured, and this says that they were not. I've read the Heinrich Weiss narrative about this mission, which is quite detailed, but there simply isn't enough information on this ZG26 loss to associate it with the account. As I said above, I find the areas of close agreement throughout the 17 photos and the narrative by the u/i ZG26 pilot extremely compelling and I believe that they relate to the same incident. The photos obviously cannot be of the Sept. 25, 1940 loss. According to Weiss, the search and rescue operations for the crew of this a/c were handled by SNFlKdo 2, flying out of Cherbourg. I've not yet received the KTB pages for Sept 25, 1940, for that unit from the translator and I'll update this post if they provide any support for that account being the incident on the 25th. However, I'm not expecting that to be the case.

Regards,