my
Name is Bernd. I`m 51 years old and live in Germany near Stuttgart. I
am mechanical engineer and reserve officer.
My
friend Rolf grew up in a small village in the south of Stuttgart. A
few years ago he told me about a crashsite of a bomber in the
SCHOENBUCH forest northern TUEBINGEN. At the place in the
forest I sew no parts of a plane.
Rolf
told me, that when he was a boy, big parts of a plane lay there. In
the late sixties the last parts were scrapped. Body and wings were
scrapped in war. His grandfather found a type plate on a motorpart.
BRISTOL Hercules. a radial motor. At the moment the plate is
lost in Rolfs cellar -
We
searched surface of the place and found small alluminum parts
of a crashed british plane: I found a .303 case with headstamp
dated 1943. Rest of a 4 lbs incendiary bomb. Then I
found the most important artifact: a part of a fuel tank gauge. 1-114
GALLONS with a Serial number. I started a investigation and the
result: this Instrument was only used in LANCASTER Bombers in the
flight engineer`s panel.
LANCASTER
with BRISTOL Hercules radial motors? I never heard or read
before.
The
LANCASTER BII Version used by RCAF was right.
I
searched for all planes of this version, lost on raids to
STUTTGART in 1943 or later, with unkown crashsites. I found only 3
airplanes. One crashed in France on it`s way back, the second was
downed by a nightfighter near the STUTTGART Airport.
Only
your father`s LANCASTER DS829 remained.
At 15/16th
March 1944 863!" bombers started to STUTTGART. From
England they fley to the LAKE CONSTANCE then turned left to the north
direction STUTTGART. The crashsite is about 25 miles south of
the target. Do you know where your father bailed out?
I replied that Dad remembered bailing out into the Black Forest.
hanks
for the Information. In my opinion your Dad remembered
right, because the Black Forest is near to the crashsite. No problem
for a falling plane.
