RAF Hudson shot down by USAAF Black Widow

[Paul]

Erich,

The article mentions T9445 as coded NA-O. A third Hudson AE595 coded NA-L made a crashlanding at the ammodepot at Rheine airfield. The crew, Ragan, Thomas and Gray was killed.
Two other Hudsons NA-P and NA-J returned safely to Tempsford.

Paul

[Graham Boak]

This is only supposition, but it seems reasonable.

The SOE aircraft will have been briefed to fly specific routes (and times), to avoid night fighter action. In their turn, the nightfighters will have been allocated specific patrol areas. If the SOE aircraft strayed off course into one of these patrol areas, then it would become a target. Ideally the USAAF pilot would have had perfect aircraft recognition abilities at night, but life isn't ideal.

[phil]

i forgot to tell that Bomber command was not informed about SOE ops for that night coz it was a secret opperation.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Erich

according to the 422nd nfs logs there were 2 Do 217's claimed or were they both Hudsons?
E ~

I can't think what Do 217s would have been doing over Luxembourg in March 1945. AFAIK the only ones left in service were doing night photo-reconnaissance over the Eastern Front.

[mhuxt]

There was an article about this incident some years ago in an issue of "After The Battle". Drove the folks at one of the Yahoo P-61 groups nearly round the twist.

edit - to judge by the index here:

http://www.afterthebattle.com/atb.pdf

it was in issue 119.

[sit72300]

A few points. Helfer was not court martialed. He was, in fact, awarded a DFC. His aircraft was MA-N 161 Sqdn letters were MA not NA.

Much of the story of Helfer and his crew, and the lead up to the final flight, may be found in a book by Gibb McCall - Flight Most Secret (there's one for sale on ebay as I write)

[hanshauprich]

Also on board are 3 Belgian Officers who killed in the crash. The target would be Leipzig-Dresden to drop the agents.

[sit72300]

This was the 3rd attempt to drop the 3 agents coded Benedict/Express and Leader

[phil]

dear readers,
I was the person who did the reasearch and made the article about the hudson crash at (baraque fraiture) (la tracee de lamormenil from helfer
I can declare that that night 3 hudsons came down.
,luxembourg, baraque fr, dochamps(dochamps )is still under investigation
because they had all secret missions Bomber Command was not informed about their actions neither the Americans knew about their ops.
enjoy reading
phil mertens

[phil]

the one from Baraque fraiture had as mission to drop secret agents behind enemy lines at remagen to blow up railroad connections,
phil