Crash of Me 110, Wknr 3385

[Peter Cornwell]

Gentlemen,

Before we all vanish up our own orifices, may I attempt some clarity ?

Paul's original question was in relation to a crash of a Bf110D-3 on the 15 October 1940 at Sprang-Capelle but he quoted the wrong aircraft. John Vasco's response was in respect of the aircraft quoted by Paul correcting the date of loss to 17 October 1940 and naming the gunner as requested. So far so good.

Paul next indicated that the crew given by John were actually from a Ju88C-2 down at Dongen on 17 October 1940 at which stage, John invited my comments. In my haste to try & resolve what should have been a fairly simple matter I managed to confuse things even further in my previous post to this thread by keying in the wrong date & making it 27 October 1940 instead of 17 October 1940. I am usually more careful but am a trifle busy right now - so bite me.

Paul's latest post now correctly identifies the aircraft he is interested in, the second crewman of which was not named in any record that I am aware of, Paul. Sorry to disappoint you but sometimes the journey is more interesting than the destination. On the balance of evidence, I think it is safe to ignore the reference to Spang Dahlem - a location that exists in Germany but far from the events troubling us today.

As to the crash on 17 October 1940 it was clearly a ghastly affair and must have spread itself across a pretty wide area to be variously described as Dongen, Sprang-Capelle (two places), & Loon op Zand. Maybe Jan Jolie of Oosterhout can pinpoint the actual site for us ?

[rob van den nieuwendijk]

Hello all,

just some little info:

15 Oct 40 22.00 hours German aircraft crashed at Spang-Capelle (Noord Brabant) - crew rescued and aircraft burned.

17 Oct 40 20.15 hours German Jagdflugzeug crashed at Loon op Zand and burned - both crewmembers killed.

Best regards
Rob

[paul peters]

Peter,
Dongen, Loon op Zand and Sprang-Capelle are three municipalities which border on each other. With a few steps you can go from one to another municipality. This may cause the different names, which are used.
Paul

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, guys

It must then be this loss that Paul was initially looking for:

http://www.ahs.no/ref_db/lw_loss_pub...?lossid=115562

It seems that one of the crewmembers were initially reported as being wounded, but this was later corrected to unhurt.

Regards,
Andreas B

[John Beaman]

Gentlemen:

Are we still talking about Bf 110 WNr 3385? I ask because I what I stated in my earlier post: I have it listed as being lost in 1942. If true, I don't see how it could have been lost in 1940. Do I have a bad record or what?

Thanks

[Peter Cornwell]

John,

The GQM Returns dated 18 October 1940 clearly list 3385 lost by 4./NJG2 on the previous day. I don't know what Jim Perry's lists have to offer on the matter but I note that Mason agrees this (based on the same GQM source presumably) which puts me in fairly unfamiliar company. I have no knowledge of what was reported in 1942 so cannot comment further.

[RT]

Originally Posted by John Beaman

Gentlemen:

Are we still talking about Bf 110 WNr 3385? I ask because I what I stated in my earlier post: I have it listed as being lost in 1942. If true, I don't see how it could have been lost in 1940. Do I have a bad record or what?

Thanks

3812 is the wn of plane lost on 15. october

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, John

What are the exacts of your records so I can double check mine also.

Unit, location etc

Regards,
Andreas B

[Andreas Brekken]

OK.

Have now checked the particulars for this one, and it seems we have a kind of enigma.

The first report:

http://www.ahs.no/ref_db/lw_loss_pub...?lossid=115513

definitely would indicate that this airframe was a total loss, as it seems to have burnt after hitting the ground.

The second record:

http://www.ahs.no/ref_db/lw_loss_pub...?lossid=115593

seems to point to a far less critical degree of damage.

So in my opinion this is two different aircraft and one of the records is wrong with regards to aircraft Werknummer. Question is which one....

Regards,
Andreas B

[John Beaman]

Thanks for checking Andreas. Just on circumstantial evidence of the missing data in the second report, it is probably wrong.