Handley Page Hampden ?

[andy bird]

Wolfgang,

I have their story too via papers from 144 Squadron for some reason:

A German radio broadcast was picked up on 26 August 1940 and translated. It revealed a slight error in the navigation on the part of Sgt J Scholfield in P2070.

The broadcast described how the inhabitants of Osthofen and Worms heard the drone of an aircraft flying at a low height, with anti-aircraft batteries firing.

Shortly afterwards the twin-engine Hampden landed at Lautersheim. To the astonishment of the local people who surrounded the aircraft, the aircrew calmly alighted and the pilot P/O Wawn addressed the crowd in Oxbridge English. Several German officers immediately arrived on the scene, Wawn announced that he thought they'd landed in Scotland and the people were speaking a Celtic dialect !

When asked if they were not surprised at being shot at by AA guns, he replied, 'Oh, no. We're used to that sort of thing in England.'

The Hampden's carrier pigeons, were still in there baskets: 'Well if we'd released them they'd have had a long flight home!' replied Scholfield.

Crew: PO R D Wawn, Sgt J Schofield, Sgt R. H. L. Smith, Sgt H J Bushell

Mark: Hampden I

Take-Off: 2158 Lindholme

Target: Berlin

Heard on w/t by Heston at 0412 asking for a bearing.

Believed forced landed 0634 near Lautersheim, Germany.

Hope this helps ?

Andy Bird

PS I'll have to ask my mother-in-law as she lived in Osthofen in WW2.