The unknown canadian pilot

Hi everybody,

I am working complimentary for the "Landesamt Rheinland",
an institute for preservation of the fixed earth architectural heritages in Germany.

My actual project is an aircraftcrash from March 1945 at Isenbügel, a part of Heiligenhaus (a small town near Essen, in the south of the river Ruhr). I found two pictures of this plane, made in 1948, in our public record office. On the pictures you can see the warbird which was exploit by the local population after the war, fit only for a knacker's yard. A time ago I asked a contemporary witness, an old man who had seen the crash live when he was a younger boy. The interesting part of his background story is, that the pilot went in prison of war (POW) after he chrashed and arrested by german army. The contemporary witness also told me, that the pilot was a canadian! Another aspect is, that the pilot could escape from POW.

For two weeks I found a small aircraft part at this place. It is a aluminum clip with a stamped serial number 39A2098-22 and a smal stamp with the number 486.



I need help to identify a) the warbird and b) the pilot.

Thanks a lot!

Looks to be a P-47 based upon the wing shape. Do you have a date for this?

My good friend Uwe Benkel is the man you want to get ahold of. He will most likely know of this aircraft as he is Internationally reknown for his excavations/research of both Axis and Allied Aircraft that crashed in Germany. He put names to many unknown pilot remains. He can be reached here: Flugzeugabstrze Saarland und Umgebung Flugzeugarchologie

It is indeed a P-47 Thunderbolt, most likely US squadron and most likely flown by an American. Most Canadians flew in RAF squadrons.

Augur66 said:

For two weeks I found a small aircraft part at this place. It is a aluminum clip with a stamped serial number 39A2098-22 and a smal stamp with the number 486.

Click to expand...

Actually Augur, that is the part number and the stamp is the inspection acceptance stamp from when the part was manufactured. The Part number is not consistent with Republic part numbers however it does not mean that part could not be from a P-47. There were a number of "standard parts" (clips, clamps etc.) that carried their own part numbers and were used on many different aircraft. Hope this helps

What a cool picture.