LOSS NEAR BURGAU 24 APRIL 1945

[Chris Goss]

This was asked by Roger Gaemperle 8 years ago with no response so I am asking it again as something might have emerged since then. Oblt Heinrich Schedel (ex-Erprobungskommando 36) and Oblt Willi Meier (ex-III./KG 100) were apparently killed when shot down by a nightfighter. Matti has nothing, VDK has nothing, I have nothing so can anyone enlighten us all?

[Adriano Baumgartner]

Chris would you have time, probable place and kind of airplane flown by those airmen?

[Adriano Baumgartner]

You may already have this, for the 24th April 45:
219 Squadron claimed a Ju 88 E of Stendal at 02:05hs AM
409 Squadron claimed a Ju 52 at Wittemberg-Karow area at 03:25hs AM
From 2nTAF (Shores, Thomas), volume 3, pages 510-511.

[Chris Goss]

I have all the claims trouble is Burgau is between Augsburg and Ulm (see title). Type they were flying and time is part of the mystery

[Trendle]

Hello Chris,

perhaps this candidate: (the only one who will match)

I./KG 51 / Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a / Attack on the Danube bridge near Dillingen / Shot down by P-47 Thunderbolt - Lieutenant Ackerman - 27th Fighter Group - 1st Tactical Air Force (Prov.) / Crash near Burgau, south-east Günzburg (Bavaria) - Germany / Oberleutnant Stephan - parachute jump - back unhurt ( After this operation, I./KG 51 was transferred from Memmingen to Munich-Riem because of the advancing French ground troops

All the best

Fred

[Leendert]

Oblt Heinrich Schedel has a private grave at Neuses, Stadt Kronach, N. Bavaria. Born 30 Nov 1912, died 24 April 1945 (from denkmalprojekt.org).

Somehow I have the feeling that Schedel and Meier were flying in a (commandeered?) light plane trying to make their way to the American sector... Area of shoot down just taken by US Army, I gathered.

Leendert

[Trendle]

The two may have belonged to the "Kommando Bienenstock". They had the task of blowing up the Danube bridges in the Günzburg-Dillingen area and flew the Fieseler Fi 156. It was a 2 man team and some of these men are still missing or were buried somewhere at the end of the war as unknown soldiers. Here the crash site Burgau would definitely come into question. “Bienenstock” was the last mad operation of the Luftwaffe Oberst Hajo Herrmann

[Chris Goss]

Bit of a waste of two very experienced aircrew if they were being used for Bienenstock but that late in the war, nothing should come as a surprise

[Leendert]

Among more threads dealing with "Bienenstock", this one from 2005 puts a Storch operation on 27 April 1945: http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=950

Also see this thread with a Me-109 loss in the Burgau area, late April 1945: http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=40778

Leendert

[Chris Goss]

Pers 6 file states that in Jan 45, he was with 6./KG 51