German Records on shot down allied aircraft

[esc201faem]

Good Evening to all

I would like to find out if the Luftwaffe keep records of allied aircraft that were shot down over occupied Europe. I am trying to find information on a Douglas Boston MK.III of No.418 RCAF intruder squadron that was shot down by German flack on 17/18 May 1942 and I am trying to pin down the complete aircraft individual squadron letter example TH-? W8318 three of the crew were killed and the pilot survived wounded and spent the rest of the war as a POW.

there are photos of the crash site but none the shows the individual aircraft letter. Also a Memorial was placed years ago at the crash site.

any help or suggestions welcomed.

[edwest2]

Most Luftwaffe records were ordered destroyed. Try the Canadian Archives.

https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discov...roduction.aspx

Best,
Ed

[Larry deZeng]

These are often referred to as the "Luftgau Downed Enemy Aircraft Records". They were preserved and handed over to the Allies in the weeks immediately following the end of the war. They were then divided up according to nationality, the Americans getting the ones for USAAF aircraft, the Canadians for RCAF aircraft, and so on. The American records were eventually sent to NARA WashDC were they received the archive collection number T-1033. These are now available online on Fold 3. Unfortunately, I don't know what the Canadians did with theirs, but a phone call to the Canadian Aviation Museum in Ottawa should produce some answers.

L.

[Horst Weber]

Good evening Larry !

Does Fold 3 provide the full paged-records or only the "catalogue" with short-form events, compiled by date, time, Location, Aircraft-type e.g plus the KU- or J-number ?

If full-paged records are available in Fold 3, are they the original German ones or are they the English translations ?.

If then taken, are sometimes photographs added in this Fold 3 collection ?

Thank you !

Horst Weber

[kaki3152]

I think Fold3 only has the catalogue

[Larry deZeng]

Originally Posted by Horst Weber

Good evening Larry !

Does Fold 3 provide the full paged-records or only the "catalogue" with short-form events, compiled by date, time, Location, Aircraft-type e.g plus the KU- or J-number ?

If full-paged records are available in Fold 3, are they the original German ones or are they the English translations ?.

If then taken, are sometimes photographs added in this Fold 3 collection ?

Thank you !

Horst Weber

Hi Horst,

I am going to let someone else tackle your questions because I have never used Fold 3 myself. My experience was 100% with the actual documents in NARA T-1033, which are voluminous as they cover some 40,000 aircraft, IIRC, stored in thousands of archive boxes. Most of them included the German language originals, English language abstract translations and summaries, reports (all in German) written by the Fliegerhorstkommandantur closest to the crash site, eyewitness statements, the names of all crew members, many artifacts found on the deceased crew members such as contents of wallets, photos of family and girlfriends, letters from home, contents of their pockets such as coins, cinema stubs, bus and Underground tokens, and even their dog tags. Many also contained statements from Luftwaffe pilots and Flak batteries who claimed the aircraft (all in German). I spent several weeks going through this large collection in the mid-1980's when it was stored at the Suitland (Maryland) Federal Records Center. In 1995-96, it was moved to the new NARA complex in College Park, Maryland.

Hope that helps, even if only a little!

L.

[Luc Vervoort]

Hi,
Some of these documents for USAAF crew and aircraft (AV, J, KU and KSU files) can be found online at Nara :
https://catalog.archives.gov/search?...lication%2Fpdf

Best regards


Luc

[Carsten Petersen]

Maybe you should look at the files in the Bundesarchiv in Freiburg. They have tons of information about allied planes shot down by flak.

[Mihai Pica]

Does anyone know if this file : Chronological Index to Downed Allied Aircraft Reports which is not digitized at NARA is available at fold3 or somewhere else ?

[Luc Vervoort]

Hi,


The files are available on Fold3.


best regards


Luc