The Eagles Over Europe Project

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

Can anyone identify SN, date, place and circumstances of the 85 SQ Hurricane, VYoB, captured damaged on a French AF, possibly Merville, during the WC/FC?

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Foto-abgescho...torefresh=true

[Larry]

Just a bit of info if it helps - I believe that this Hurricane had a L serial and was from the first batch of 600 Hurricanes; L1547 to L2146. The reason is that the radio mast on the fuselage is the early type which had a constant thickness, unlike the later version which was more streamlined with a thicker base and narrower tip that included the rear facing triangular fixing for the aerial wire.

[markjsheppard]

Or an N serial.

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/i...ound-apr-1940/

regards

Mark


Possibly L1779??

[Larry]

I recon that N series Hurricane is an anomaly and has had an old mast fitted from stores!

However N2319 was the second of the new batch so I'll concede that early N's had these masts but not many so L series is still more likely.

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

http://ihra.smugmug.com/photos/i-kdw...-kdwnz9N-L.jpg

In the EoE LW Loss DB, there are about 10 photos of this a/c. Putting them together, this is revealed to be Hs123 of 6.(S)/LG2 with the code L2+DP

This is the only one photo that has a location, but we can't decipher it.

"Merlin" says: "this caption is hard to decipher. The first capital letter is a mixture of Sytterlin and normal writing, for the next ones there are some possibilities and the location ends with '...nditier'. I could not find anything similar in the loss reports for II./LG 2."

Although this says "Juni 1940" this has to be the date of the photo, not the date of the crash. There are only three possible 6 Staffel reports that might be this a/c in the EoE LW loss DB during the entire Western Campaign of May-June, 1940, all in mid-May:

"May 13, 1940:
6.(S)/LG2 Henschel Hs123A-1. Believed shot down by Sgt Wilkinson of No. 3 Squadron between Jauche and Pitrain, south of Tienen (Belgium), during ground-attack sortie 1.00 p.m. FF Fw Hans Knerr killed. Aircraft 100% write-off.

6.(S)/LG2 Henschel Hs123A-1. Believed shot down by Sgt Allen of No. 3 Squadron over Orp-Jauche, south of Tienen (Belgium), during ground-attack mission 1.00 p.m. FF Lt Hans-Joachim Fritz badly wounded, admitted to hospital in Jülich. Aircraft 100% write-off.
May 15, 1940:
6.(S)/LG2 Henschel Hs123A-1. Shot down by flak near Altiaux, 15 km south of Wavre (Belgium). FF Gefr Walter Krug killed. Aircraft 100% write-off."
Can anyone put this information together with the partial place name and come up with a solution to this mystery? Based upon the condition of the wreck, unless the pilot baled out this crash would have resulted in a fatality to the pilot. This makes the first and third the most likely candidates. However, there is no visible field grave in the photos. This plane crashed near a major road and was repeatedly photographed by German soldiers over a considerable period of time as the wreck was much disturbed. The swastika was not removed from the tail, so this crash likely did not happen behind Allied lines or at least happened very close to the front lines at the time of the incident.

Who can solve this one?

[Hans Nauta]

Hi Larry,

Just a wild guess: could it be Montdidier (with some misspelling) in northern France? That would tie up with the time frame June 1940, but is none of your loss possibilities...

Regards,
Hans

[Dénes Bernád]

I have several photos of this wreck. I will check them out, hopefully the location is marked on the verso of some of them.

[Larry Hickey]

Hello to both of you and thanks for trying to help.

Hans,

I had originally thought of that as a possible resolution several days ago. It is the only town I know of with that possible similar ending.

Peter C. now thinks that this is the 15 May incident 15 kms S of Wavre, Belgium, although he can't find the source attribution for this information in his records. Unfortunately, Montdidier, France, is around 200 kms from Wavre, so it certainly doesn't fit that location.

Dénes, please do check and see if you can turn up anything. The photo I posted was the only one that I could find with any location info. There have been around a dozen images of this crash posted on eBay, and I only won one of them, which alas had no location information. This is the only one that had a any possible location info posted with it on eBay that I know of. We want to profile this a/c for the EoE project if we can firmly identify it.

Regards,

[ClinA-78]

Hello Larry,

I would like to be your hero .

I was told many years ago about a German crash occured at the East end of Saint-Géry village. 'Altiau' or Rue Altiau is a street located in this same village, which is situated roughly 6 km West of Gembloux.
I don't know if this case can be linked to your crash on the picture. You know, this scarce testimony dates many years ago (no more witnesses now) but perhaps if there is a landmark appearing on your pictures, I would be able to make a matching?

Best regards

ClinA-78

[Nick Beale]

It may be relevant that because the country has two official languages, places in Belgium often have both a Flemish and a French form of their names: Tienen is also known as Tirlemont for example.