Not real sure where to put this on the forum headers, maybe Otto can move it where it is needed. have a couple English/French friends that will be sending me pics soon of their findings. One I have been working on that is located in Belgium, one of our French diggers could not find the Ju 88G-6 in the overgrown brush this summer, but just last week quite by mistake he took his heavy truck and backed it up over the found fuselage and tail. Also we found one NJG 1 Bf 110G-4 and another Ju 88G-6 of NJG 3. Will keep everyone posted, and if Santa blesses with a scanner, well..........

E

Erich, DO keep us posted... I find all aspects of aviation archaeology totally fascinating....

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is there a website for this excavation?

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Exciting Stuff Erich! Am looking forward to the updates !! This kinda stuff tickles my fancy....like modern day Indiana Joneses....

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Guys !

thanks for the input so far. i have to keep the whereabouts of these digs secret as there would be many relic hunters to disgrace the sites. The first one had many eye-witnesses to the crash back on 4/5 November 1944 over Belgium, a Ju 88G-6 and 3 man crew persiahed when shot down by a Mossie night fighter. The bodies have been removed as they were sverely burnt and my team found other personal objects 3 years ago and sent them back to the remaing family members. At the time one of the French team, and I was wrong in my posting last night......too tired to think.....
has two pics of the fuselage and tail which he backed his car over. The summer Brush which was overgrown last year and we could not find anything with metal detection has died down this fall, and wha-la ! presto we found remains of the a/c which we are hoping to remove in very small quantities for further inspection.
The next thing is my team has found 2 not 1 Bf 110's of NJG 1 and the Ju 88 of NJG 3, and details are coming to me soon which I will post.
Going back to the first Ju 88 again, with the eye witnesses and strange terrain, hilly and a creek runs through the area, it took my time and guess work to find the location, it also is joined closely by railroad tracks and this is where much of the a/c was scattered when it exploded and burned. The ammo was exploding when the folks tried to near the wreckage, and ran off scared until the wreck burned out.........more to come !
and Otto no there is no web-site and there will not be. All info will be sent to me and broadcasted here if you wish !

Man I must be really tired......the date I gave is for another a/c crash we are searching and doing research on. The correct date is January 1/2 1945, not Bodenplatte ! The 4 man crew were doing a ground attack mission over France/Belgium and were shot down. From III./NJG 2.

another cup of coffee please !

E

Mossie night fighter !
( This gets better all the time.. )

__________________
"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Yes Martin the November 4/5 1944 crash site by Hardet near Rengsdorf. The 3 man Ju 88G-6 was shot down by Mossie XIX of the 85th squadron, coded VY-Y, //// S/L B was the pilot ?
The Ju 88G-6 was piloted by Günther Wöhle (have pic), Uffz Oswald Wagner(have his death card) and Uffz. Heinz Schmagold.
Martin, can find anything on the RAF crew of this 85th squadron mossie ? I have 4 claims for Ju 88's this night and S/L B claimed 2 east of Bonn. there was only 1 Ju 88G-6 lost this night though.

E

Very frustrating as I can't find definite confirmation among my 'library'.

The 'busiest' 85 Squadron crew operating that night was Squadron Leader Branse Burbridge DSO* DFC* with navigator Flt Lt F S Skelton DSO* DFC*, but I don't have absolute confirmation that 'your' Ju was one of their kills.

__________________
"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Well Martin, you just confirmed it, because I have the same info penciled in on the lost Ju 88G-6 page for that crew....last year.

thanks for looking.......

E

Erich, great stuff. This is the sort of stuff I like to hear about. Makes me jealous I'm not living in Europe.... Think I'd be out most weekends looking under every bush.

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Received two scans of the a/c right after it burned out. Last night about midnight......
I can tell you the crew never had a chance, the wings are ripped off as well as the cockpit. What was left was a big section of the fuselage with the codes and the tail, part of it stuck in the ground. Top of the tail looked as though it hit some trees or a power pole as it is slightly damaged but the werke nummer can be read. Overall the a/c looks to be RLM 76 with no blothces of grey-violet over the top of the fuselage spine or tail surfaces. It landed evidently very hard into a bank and over a railroad crossing. The banke being some 40 feet or so high. When I get clearance to post these I will but we have asked the French to go for a walkabout for parts in the general area, the snow isn't so bad yet that they can do some excavating. The crew was posted missing for over 50 years until we came upon it 4-5 years ago.
My personal feelings is that there are quite a few MIA pilots/crews and a/c still lost somewhere in the thick forests of the Ardenne......rest in peace !

E

The three other crashes I mentioned are in Germany. One is a Bf 110G-4 of 9./NJG 1 and the other Bf 110G-4 from 12./NJG 1. The dates for crashes were 25 December 1944 and the other was March 3, 1945. We are investigating now. The Ju 88G from NJG 3 is being sought out as I write this somewhere in the Heimatland. The guys are even working in the middle of the night with their heavy equipment.......I'm thinking once I get complete reports and pics I'm going to have to have this archived......eh Otto ? !

E

Latest news !.......

we have found RK Hans-Heinz Augenstein's Bf 110G-4 of 12./NJG 1. Crewman Kurt Schmidt is helping us with the investigation. Kurt bailed out of the sticken bird as it was shot down by a Mossie night fighter on December 6/7, 1944. Augenstein and bordfünker Günther Steins were both killed in the engagement.

E

This last crash, # 4 was caused by the 20mm fire of a Mossie XXX night fighter, code VY-O of the 85th squadron and flown F/L E.R.

this for Martin's interest !

E

Archeology sight:

http://www.preservedaxisaircraft.com/

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What no preserved Ju 88G-6 !!!! nope sorry to say......
thanks Kai for the great preservation link !

another site which is very cool is Ron Putz/John Manhro's Yankee 44. Kai, help me out on the url ! these two have been working on the monster volume covering the air war in the Ardenne with special emphasis on Bodenplatte. These cool guys have been searching for wrecks in Holland and Belgium for years and have a huge data base of fallen a/c and crews. I hope they can all blow us away with their work very soon, because it will be something very special. To find their site via a search engine type in Bodenplatte and the site should come up.......enjoy !

E

No problemo, Erich!

I think this is it! Looks great from what I noticed during the first 15 seconds...

http://transfer.to/Bodenplatte

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YES ! Good job Kai !! sometimes the site has had a hard time loading and actually for me has stopped mid-way. Has some greta materials and great links.

E

Just goes to show that those 'buried treasure' WWII aircraft stories can come true....

This month's 'Aeroplane' contains the news that no less than three rare 'razorback' P-47D Thunderbolts have been found in Papua New Guinea.

Apparently, two years back a team of wreck explorers found a P-40 wing sticking out of the ground near the site of a long-abandoned airstrip. Digging revealed a near-intact P-40 and underneath that, the Thunderbolts, all of which had been bulldozed into a pit and covered over.

Just to put the icing on the cake, a goodly-sized cache of P-47 parts was there, too....

All are now at Rialto Airport in California whwere P-47 experts WestPac are due to commence restoration to airworthy condition.

Exciting news indeed ; most of the world's airworthy Thunderbolts are 'bubble-canopy' types.

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Good grief, Martin!

That's fairy tale stuff!

Regards,
Gordon

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Regards,

Gordon
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Martin,
I might well be preaching to the converted here, but the latest edition of British Archaeology , the magazine of the Council for British Archaeology, has a feature on aviation wreck recovery.
www.britarch.ac.uk/ba/ba.html

You can see the CBA website at:
www.britarch.ac.uk/

Regards,

Gordon

[ 01. April 2004, 10:48 AM: Message edited by: The_Historian ]

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Regards,

Gordon
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