My Cousin

Well as I am in Germany if you would like me to help try and find it, I would love to help.

Really !

Hmmmmmmmmm sounds like something we can work out. Wish I knew the owners name

Adler if you look at the map and fields are between Wülfinghausen to the west and Wülfingen to the east. Holtensen a very small village is to the north. so the fields are dead center so to speak.

the area is south of Hannover/Misburg and a good detailed map is essential though when I had a German friend check out my cousins gravesite - the pic provided he had no probablem finding it.

I'll again look for particaulars on the year interned because I think the field owners son found Siegfried a year later after the war in the field. No-one in the area had taken the time to clean things up. Still odd as I would of thought the locasl would have watched everything as there was death and destruction from the air to the ground for miles...........the locals many were probably praying and hiding though I do know of first hand civilian accounts watching the air battle....

E

I will gladly see what I can do. It just suprises me that the crash site has not been plundered by tourists or just militaria collectors or just some kid who thinks its cool.

Adler here is my private mail as we can talk further about this. Again I want to find the two statements made to me from a German researcher about the crash site. also if you and the Mrs are taking a tour of the area, go check out my cousins gravesite. I think it is the only old oak wood cross in the cemetary......take some pics please !

njagd@charter.net

erich

I will deffinatly see what I can do and here is my email
coxch@hotmail.com

great and thanks !!

what I will do is get the original German text from the researcher and send it off as there then will not be a communication/translation problems in the text.

Erich ~

Okay I did not get a chance to look anything up on today because my family came to visit me and my wife and they stayed quite late, but I will start my research tomorrow and try and figure out where everything is at and see where I need to go to get there.

Erich!

An extremely interesting posting there.

I have read Willy Reschke´s accounts.

Noteworthy to mention is the date of those fierce air battles: November 1944. Certainly the end of that year; a period of the year by which allied mythology has it the Luftwaffe had been "wiped out".

It is amazing to realize how the allies miserably fail to prove their assertions.

JG 300 and JG 301 offered a bold combat. Yes, they took their high losses but they were badly outnumbered. The USAAF formations took a good deal of lead those days as well. They did not went through unscathed.

The Luftwaffe was launching more than one hundred fighters, Fw190s and Bf109s, and the USAAF also took important losses. More than one hundred fighters? Does not sound, at all, like a "wiped out" branch; surely a losing -or lost- battle was being engaged, but not due to "poor pilot quality" as the victors also put it; more simple due to overwhelming numerical superiority.

I will put it way more radical: in view of the frightening numerical superiority of the USAAF over the Luftwaffe those days, it would appear to me those performing in a mediocre fashion were the USAers, and not the Germans.

For each German fighter on some of those days, the USAAf had 5 or 6 of their own fighters. Had the Luftwaffe had such numerical superiority over a USAAF formation, I can guarantee you the Germans would virtually exterminate the entire allied formation!

Actually if you count the number of USAAF pilots and airmen lost in some of those battles in late 1944, their losses in men are higher than those of the Germans.

Do not forget: each heavy bomber destroyed meant 10 men that did not return.

40 heavies lost: 400 men lost.
40 German fighters lost: 40 men lost (worst case scenario), nearly half baled out successfully, many of then wounded.

However, by such date the Germans were attacking formations of more than 1,000 planes. So losses of aircraft for the USAers were moderate, while those of the Germans had a more significant impact within their ranks.

This clearly debunks the allied myths of a "massacred" or "wiped out" Luftwaffe by 1944.

Also the top cover units enganged the P-51s with success, debunking the other myth of the "infinite superiority" of the Mustand over the Bf109s.

I hope to be heading up to the crash site area pretty soon. One interesting thing I just recieved from my source that I am working with here is Willie Reschke's address. I do not know whether to actually right to him though, I do not wish to bother him.

Erich do you know anything about your other relatives in the Luftwaffe?

ah another day to be with you all. thank God. I'm a little irritible so forgive me due to the cancer treatments....how fun they are......
_____________________________________________________________

Ok go ahead and write Willi if you would like Adler, I am waiting for more questions from you guys anyway for the interview/reunion in May with 4-5 other vets. Adler he will respond so write him in your finest Deutsch. I need to send the guy a note anyway so go ahead.....

will was on the mission my cousin flew and he covers the mission fairly well although some gaps in his own book on the mission. other things have come to light which I included in my notes above on the pages.

my other cousin the night fighter ace I have about zilch on. no-one on the Baer side of the familie will talk of him nor let me know what really happened but he crashed to his death in his Bf 110G-4 due to one of the engines imploding, the crew got out and bailed safely but not sure if these men are still alive or passed on. I should get smart and write quickly to Herbert Thomas in charge of the nachtjager group of pilots association. Heinz had 12 vicotires but I can only account from official sources which again there are gaps some 9 of these kills. he flew of Do 217 for much of his career in NJG 3 and actually shot down 1 mosquito but not sure what a/c he flew for that. I would rather doubt he shot down a Mossie bomber in a slow big Dornier....

Adler he was born in Metz of all places, his father's name was Otto and the familie was living in Speyer at Heerstrasse 25. Heinz is still buried at Friedhof Speyer but I do not have a pics of his gravesite.......hint, hint
When Hienz was killed he was flying Bf 110G-4 werke nummer # 6270, coded C9+AC and on December 20, 1943 one of the engines exploded at 19.15 uhr, and the a/c wheeled over on one side but enough time for the other two crew-members, Lt. Joachim Kamprath and Uffz. Heinrich marx to bail out.

back earlier in Heinz carreer he shot down 3 Lancasters piloting a Do 217N-1 with Fw. Lingen and Ofw. Heise flying from Schleswig and in 4./NJG 3. flying in conjuction with radar station ROBBE at Rome (13./Ln Regiment 222). The date was 20 and 21st of April 1943 at midnight precisely on the 20th-21st. 02.42 hrs and 03.21 hrs.

His Moskito claim is for the 3rd of August 1943 still with 4./NJG 3 south of Westerland.

=====================

Udet without a doubt JG 300 and 301 gave good account of themselves knowing full well that the end was near and that they would be overwhelmed on a daily basis by the US fighter escorts. but duty called and they did what they could suffering in large numbers. Again the 12 to 1 ratio was constant in the late fall of 44 till january-February of 45. After that nothing mattered and it was s tate of keeping the Western Allies and the Soviets at bay, with a continual moving of airfields and then forming satellite field in which to operate from sometimes not even in overall Geschwader control but run by Staffelkapitäns and Staffelführers that knew full well that once they even got off the grass fields they could be shot down enroute to the bomber formations. there seemed to be no consistent control over anything anymore and it became a daily life of just trying to stay alive. a quick dash and then back to the field and hopefully not seen or followed where the ground crew could back the a/c into the trees and quickly camo them over .....

good, really good

Thanks for the info Erich. What is Heinz's first name? I will see about going to Speyer and getting you a photo of his grave. Anymore info you would like me to see if I can find out. My wife is actually looking foward to the trip to Baers crash site to help me see if I can find anything and she also said we will take some flowers to his grave site and take some pictures for you. Should be this weekend.

I will deffinatly write a letter to Reschke and ask him about some of his experiences in the most polite way that I can. I am also going to print a picture off of him and see if he will be kind eneogh to autograph it for me.

Friend this is most appreciated.......in fact it is fantastic !!

The Luftwaffe Night fighter aces full name is Heinz Baer and he died as a Hauptmann commanding II./NJG 5 in December 1943

vielen Dank

Erich

KEIN PROBLEM, ICH WERDE SEHEN WAS ICH MACHEN KANN! I can not promise anything though.

Adler my brain is a bit fryed this morn.............

the first name of my deceased night fighter ace cousin is Hans not Heinz which is another cousin.

So it is Hans Baer you are looking for....

E

No prob thanks.

GREAT STUFF!

I finally got some time this weekend and I will drive up there with my wife.

thumbs up Alder and hoping/praying the weather will be great. It sure sucks here with hail/snow and almost freezing wind-rain, and yet I must work in it............Yuk !

will be of course be very interested in your findings; HAVE FUN YOU 2 !

Tschüß

The weahter is looking like it is going to beautiful. Should be around 20 degrees celcius and sunny. Gonna have to make a picnic out of it with my wife.