Crash B26 on 11.April 1945 near Cologne

[RSwank]

Manni,

Did you ever try to contact the Margraten Foundation to see if they would be willing to pass on any of the information we have on Dwyer and the crash to the adopters of his grave?

I have added a map on the Google Drive showing my best guesses on Hopkins’ Final Flight path near Cologne. It is in a section called Maps. The green arrow shows the flightpath of the 5 returning planes as they traveled through the flak zone (shown in yellow). The path in red shows Hopkins getting hit in the flak zone. He then goes south to pass over Uckendorf (which was hit when the bombs were salvoed armed). Then he turns north west for a flight to Lulsdorf. There he crash-lands the plane. The path in black is an alternate path which shows Hopkins flying a loop which passes over Uckendorf, then flying on to Lulsdorf. The black path would allow for an actual approach to Lulsdorf from the north which would agree with your statement that some in Lulsdorf thought the plane came from that direction. (Of course, it is also possible that people saw the flight of the four planes to the north and assumed that Hopkins had approached Lulsdorf from there, even if he actually flew something like the “red” path.)

Google Drive Link, see Maps: https://drive.google.com/drive/folde...1QKeLKMxgLXWpu

I have had no further replies on the contact letters I sent. None of the letters were returned, so I assume all five were delivered. Of the five families I tried to contact I have had responses from three. Two of them could not contribute much but the son of Koker was able to help.