# American aircraft shot down in Germany



## B-Siebzehn (Feb 9, 2015)

Hello,

I come from Germany and I am interested in the history of my town.
I know a place where an American plane is crashed. It was on the end of the World War II.
I could find many parts on this place. The pilots are probably all died and were buried in a small cemetery near me.
After the war, the soldiers were reburied by the americans.

we can now bring a bit of the soldiers in experience ? or exactly what it was for an aircraft?

sorry for my bad english....

mfg

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 9, 2015)

Zuerst Wilkommen!

Your english is fine. You already speak better than Lucky.

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## pbehn (Feb 9, 2015)

The name of the town dates names etc would help.

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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 9, 2015)

Hello,

sorry, here are the Place !
Deutschland , Sachsen Anhalt,


mfg

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## bobbysocks (Feb 9, 2015)

yes if you could tell us the name of your town and the date you believed it was shot down it may be able to be traced.

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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 9, 2015)

Hello,

Here is an interesting item that i have fount on the Place.

I think this is from the airplane. 

How can I upload more images?

mfg


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 9, 2015)

B-Siebzehn said:


> Hello,
> 
> Here is an interesting item that i have fount on the Place.
> 
> ...



That looks like part of am E6B Flight Computer.

E6B - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

They are still used today, mostly in training.

I have one in my flight bag right now and use it for all my flight planning.

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## Lucky13 (Feb 9, 2015)

I heard that!


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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 9, 2015)

hmm.... i have send 2 replays with Pictures and coordinates....


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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 9, 2015)

will not be displayed ....


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## Crimea_River (Feb 9, 2015)

You can just type in the co-ordinates. As for pictures, make sure they are no bigger than 800 pixels wide and have them available on your hard drive. In the Quick Reply toolbar, click on the picture icon just to the left of the one that looks like a movie film. You will see a "Insert Image" window. Click on "Select Files" then browse to where you have stored the pictures. Select as many as you wish to post, then click on "Open". You should be back in the "Insert Image" window now. Click on "Upload Files" and you should see them insert in your text.

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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 10, 2015)

Koordinaten : 52°51'17.58" N 11°37'00.17" O


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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 10, 2015)




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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 10, 2015)

Date was: March 18, 1945. between 11:30 - 12:30

mfg


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## stona (Feb 10, 2015)

The time and date fit with the claims made by various elements of JG 7 for B-17s and some P-51s.

This was a full strength attack on Berlin by 1,184 bombers of the 8th AF. All the units which engaged the Americans were flying Me 262s. All the B-17s were claimed in an area to the West of Berlin, which is in the correct area.
Someone with more data from the USAAF side might be able to narrow down your particular loss, any of the crew's names would be an enormous help. I can give you the names of the Luftwaffe pilots who made claims for bombers (all B-17s) at the right time and place.

Oblt. Gunther Wegmann of 9./JG 7 claimed two B-17s

Ofw. Walter Windisch of 9./JG 7 claimed two B-17s

Ofhr. Gunther Ullrich of 9./JG 7 claimed two B-17s

Fhr. Friedrich Ehrig of 9./JG 7 claimed two B-17s

Ltn. Karl Schnorrer of 9./JG 7 claimed two B-17s

Oblt. Karlheinz Seeler of 9./JG 7 claimed a B-17

Maj. Theodor Weissenberger of Stab/JG 7 claimed three B-17s.

Lt. Rudolph Rademacher of 11./JG 7 claimed a B-17

Ofw. August Lubking of III./JG 7 claimed a B-17

Ltn. Gustav Sturm of III./JG 7 claimed a B-17.

There are seventeen B-17s claimed and in fact thirteen were lost. Yours is one of those thirteen.

Most of the combats took place on a line extending from Berlin through Rathenow and to the West, so the B-17 that came down near you managed to fly on a short distance before crashing.

Cheers

Steve

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## gjs238 (Feb 10, 2015)

B-Siebzehn said:


> View attachment 284498



How do you adjust the gap on that spark plug?

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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 10, 2015)

@stona , Thank you for the Information. This helps me a lot.
Today I spoke with a man who saw the crash. He told me the 4 crew members were dead.
And 5 were captured by the Volkssturm in Losse. 
The plane is broken above the clouds in 2 parts.

The airplane parts were buried in the bomb funnels.







mfg


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## Crimea_River (Feb 10, 2015)

The dial looks like it's from a Dalton Dead Reckoning Computer. More info and instructions here: http://sliderulemuseum.com/Aerospace.htm

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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 10, 2015)

> The dial looks like it's from a Dalton Dead Reckoning Computer. More info and instructions here: http://sliderulemuseum.com/Aerospace.htm



Thank you.

mfg


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## pbehn (Feb 10, 2015)

gjs238 said:


> How do you adjust the gap on that spark plug?



The electrode in the centre has three "petals" which can be prized away to increase the gap.

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## fubar57 (Feb 10, 2015)

Nice Andy. From Wiki...

Some 37 Me 262s engaged some 1,330 U.S. heavy bombers and over 700 fighters of the USAAF 8th Air Force destined for Berlin, known as "Mission 894" by the Americans, with some bombing undertaken using H2X radar due to inclement weather over the target area.[1] The Me 262s were equipped for the first time with 24 of the new R4M air-to-air rockets. JG 7 claimed 12 bombers and one fighter though U.S. records indicate only eight heavy bombers lost. III./JG 7 lost three jet fighters in return. I./JG 7 was forced to takeoff in bad weather and lost Hans Waldmann in a mid-air collision with Hans-Dieter Weihs, and Günter Schrey following combat with U.S. fighters.

Geo

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## stona (Feb 10, 2015)

B-Siebzehn said:


> .
> Today I spoke with a man who saw the crash. He told me the 4 crew members were dead.
> And 5 were captured by the Volkssturm in Losse.



The bodies of the dead airmen would typically be buried locally, usually at a nearby church (this happened to a member of my own family, a Bomber Command navigator) and their names would be known to the local authorities who would have passed them up through official channels. Such records may well exist. If they were buried in a churchyard that church might have the names.

The surviving airmen would have been passed on by the Volkssturm to the Luftwaffe and then into the Luftwaffe system of interrogation and ultimately PoW camps (Durchgangslager der Luftwaffe (Dulag Luft) and then the 'Stalag Luft' familiar from those 1950s movies). These records may or may not have survived so late in the war.

Someone more familiar with the USAAF units involved in these actions might be able to identify which units suffered the losses and your aircraft might be identified through their records.

Cheers

Steve

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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 10, 2015)

The told me an old man now.

I can not translate well.
Here the German text



> Als wir am 18.März 1945 beim gegen 11:00 uhr beim Mittagessen waren gab es eine Laute Explosion.
> Schnell verbreitete sich im Ort das ein Amerikanischer Bomber bei Dewitz abgestürzt sei.
> Ich war 7 Jahre alt und fuhr mit meiner Mutter zusammen mit dem Fahrrad zur Absturzstelle.
> Ich saß auf dem Gepäckträger. Dort angekommen sah ich vier tote Amerikanische Soldaten am Wegrand
> ...


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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 10, 2015)

When we were at about 11:00 clock at lunch on March 18th, 1945, there was a loud explosion.
Spread rapidly in a place that American bombers in Dewitz had crashed.
I was 7 years old and took my mother along with the bike to the crash site.
I sat on the luggage rack. Once there, I saw four dead American soldiers on the roadside.
Parachutes were the soldiers deployed next to it. On a truck Volkssturm
5 were American soldiers who were captured. Whether they aircrew
were I can not say. The 4 dead were buried on the spot. It was terrible
Close beside the road, a huge crater was probably a bomb.
The airplane parts were all drawn into the crater and filled with soil. Larger parts are
have been in a forest. The strings attached to the parachutes were at
Population were highly sought after and after a short time away. When the Americans troops around the 14th Aprill
came to our area were the 4 buried on the field dead Americans rushed from the population
reburied in a cemetery. Probably out of fear.
The American troops embedded this also .....


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## stona (Feb 10, 2015)

_"Die 4 toten wurden an Ort und Stelle begraben"_

I understand that the four dead Americans were buried where (or near to where) they fell. Their identities should have been passed to the Luftwaffe and so on, but it makes it less likely that any local record exists.

_"Als die Amerikaniscen Truppen um den 14. Aprill in unsere Gegend kamen wurden die 4 auf dem Felde begrabenen Toten Amerikaner eiligst von der Bevölkerung
auf einen Friedhof umgebettet." _

The later re-burial by the local German population in the cemetery, as the US forces arrived, was entirely unofficial and as the elderly man says, due to fear of the American reaction. 

By the way, though the rigging lines (schnure/cords) may have been valuable the old chap has probably forgotten that it was the parachute silk that was really sought after. My own grandmother still had silk from a German parachute, not from an airman, but a parachute mine, when she died!

Cheers

Steve

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## stona (Feb 10, 2015)

"Auf einem LKW des Volkssturms standen 5 Amerikanische Soldaten die gefangen genommen wurden. Ob sie zu der Flugzeug Besatzung gehörten kann ich nicht sagen."

Though your witness wasn't sure whether the five prisoners on the lorry were US airmen I would strongly suspect that they were. A B-17 carried 10 crew usually and the four dead, plus five prisoners would account for 9 of them.
It is also difficult to imagine where else five Americans might have come from 

Cheers

Steve


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## bobbysocks (Feb 10, 2015)

now if you can figure out where that "crater" is that they put the airplane parts and covered with soil you may have a little treasure to dig for.

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## Tracker (Feb 11, 2015)

Your Dead Reckoning computer is a USAAF one as shown below.






Your picture





USAAF picture

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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 11, 2015)

Like I said, an E6B.

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## B-Siebzehn (Feb 15, 2015)

hello,


thanks to all.
I have found a part that has a serial number. 
I think that's not important. But I show you the pictures.
I can not read all


Point-Oxygen-Swivel
............SK2110
Serial No. 19653
BARKO MFG.CO
...RDER or 
....TRACT NO

mfg


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## stona (Feb 15, 2015)

Barco Manufacturing Company was based in Illinois and traded until 1962 when it was acquired by Aeroquip, a subsidiary of the Trinova Corporation. Aeroquip has expanded from its original speciality, producing hoses, joints and fittings for aircraft to become one of the world's largest producers of industrial hoses, fittings and clamps.
Cheers
Steve

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## B-Siebzehn (Mar 17, 2018)

Hello,
Can anyone help me? 
Meanwhile I found out which crew the b17 had.

I do not get along with the abbreviations, RAD, ENG , BAL,.... usw....

can someone assign the abbreviations to the soldiers?


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## fubar57 (Jan 12, 2020)

A pilot is usually rotated after a certain number of missions. This isn’t set in stone though. Some do go on to train


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