Missing Ciné film from 6th Airborne landings

Yes that’s the Ringenburger Straße bridge already blown. Ringenburg itself aflame after being pounded by typhoons. Photo is almost definitely 25th March.

 

I've done a bit of processing and plotted out the positions of the gliders near the station as seen from the photographs. The positions differ slightly from the RAF plan, although the number shown are the same (with exceptions at the station building and in one field near where the oblique shot was taken, so explained by simply being out of shot). There is definitely plenty of space to the north where another Hamilcar could be located, it would be interesting if there are any photos out there of this area (I presume there must be for the RAF to have made their plot)?

I have also taken a look for the AA gun emplacement, is there a good example of one taken from the air that anyone can link so that I have a reference over what to look for?

Data used in image.
- Background Mapping: © OpenStreetMap contributors
- Height Data: Hengl, Tomislav, Leal Parente, Leandro, Krizan, Josip, and Bonannella, Carmelo. 2022. Continental Europe Digital Terrain Model. Distributed by OpenTopography. https://doi.org/10.5069/G99021ZF. Accessed: 2022-12. Note: unfiltered data shows trees as higher elevation.

 

There is this plot map which points out Hamilcars and is helpful, but not entirely exact. I cropped and enlarged the relevant area. Also added a stitch of zoom captures from a NCAP aerial which is poor quality. It doesn't extend south far enough.



Regards ...

 

Another zoom/capture/stitch from same aerial as above covering wider area but unedited for contrast or sharpness. Unfortunately the Forum software will probably downsize it. Sorry I am in bad shape due to stroke deterioration and can hardly type or manipulate mouse.



Regards ...

 

Thanks for the Aerial image, and maps / plans above, and sorry to hear you are in bad shape. Please feel no pressure to assist me further if you are feeling too unwell, your health comes first!

Edit: I have also had a quick look and the aerial (resolution being about 3m per pixel) and it reveals another possible Hamilcar glider (wingspan est 34.7m+~3m) on the eastern side of the railway. The wings are attached but it looks like it has crashed through the tracks. (The tail of this glider is just visible in the oblique photograph although is camouflaged in part by the adjacent road).

 

Hi,

I wondered about the glider on the tracks as well but wouldn't Maxted have mentioned that in his account? Sgt.Travis in an aircraft took the oblique aerial near the station as well as a number of others (BU 2423 - BU 2432).



Bert Hardy photographed the dressing station on the 25th but can find no evidence he went east of the village. I thought those were shot at Div HQ by him before moving onto Hamminkeln, but who knows?



Stuck a big stitch of the NCAP aerial in a zip which can be grabbed from here - quality is still poor.

Aerials.zip - Icedrive

Regards ...

 

2 Horsas which are directly East of the station. They came to rest on top of the AA position you can see.
Alex.

 

Glider 277 was towed by Sqn Leader Scott of 644 Sqn from what I can see.

 

Those photos were taken at Gut Vogelsang. Clearly identified by local historian Johann Nitrowski and confirmed by the daughter of the owners of the house in a conversation with me. She is my age and I know her socially. She identified and knows the interior decoration of the room. Her mother was a child and present there in March 1945.

There are other photos which were taken at the dressing station or casualty collection point at Köpenhof, the Div HQ.

 

This might answer the Embankment problem I CROSSED THE RHINE WITH THE GLIDER TROOPS | Maclean's | May 15, 1945 3 miles seems really far from the intended drop (presumably P) though!

 

Hardy took photos at both locations - Vogelsang and Köpenhof. Below is one taken at Köpenhof:

 

Really interesting material from all, leaving one with much to think about.

Regards ...

 

From Maxted’s description they definitely landed South of the Station and obviously close to 195 Amb station. I’ll have a look through the aerials and try and spot their glider. He said the wings came off and it was eventually burnt out, the Hamilcar just North of the train station was intact (as I’ve seen on pictures)

Alex

 

From Maxted's account:

" ...We had hit a railway embankment that took away the undercarriage, careened into an orchard that took the wings, and then just piled up. ..."

If that is a Hamilcar on the tracks north of Station the wings are still attached and I don't see an orchard near by. Maxted said they could see the Station from the RAP the Doctor took them to.



"The two glider pilots had the floor taken out from under them by the Bren carrier, but were unhurt—as were the two signallers that were brushed off when it plowed through the nose. Bullets kept crashing through the wreckage, but, heading for the daylight, I found myself lying face down in a ditch beside a hedge. Peter was lying ahead of me. We were both trying to burrow down into the ground with our noses, when a mild-voiced doctor, who seemed to bear a charmed life, bound us up and directed us to his aid post in a German farmhouse. From here we could see down the railway track to a station marked Hamminkeln. We had come down about three miles away from our dropping zone, and now the crashed glider was under fire and we couldn’t get to it. ..."

Maxted's account is similar to what reporter L. Marslander Gander wrote of his experience in the lead up to Op Varsity.

Regards ...

 

2 is 10000% Hamilcar. 1 looks big too.

 

Completely agree - Hamilcar to the north is too intact.

I came across Peters account elcewhere on this site which mentions "We crashed on to a railway line and then hit a tree in a field" then goes onto say "the glider was ripped to pieces", corroborating the glider breakup and tree impact.

There are some areas of trees both to the north and south of the station, I have digitised these along with the various glider positions (where visible), and included both on the attached plan. I will see if I can find a way to differentiate woodland from historic orchards too as this may help to further narrow things down.

Data
- Background Mapping: © OpenStreetMap contributors

 

Scaling off the wingspans from a geo-referenced version of the aerial comes back with widths of 34m which is spot on for a Hamilcar, whilst the method for scaling isn't perfect due to the fairly low resolution image meaning each pixel is about 3m wide I'm pretty confident both are too big (even with the inherent error due to resolution) to be Horsa's (~27m wingspan).

 

Agree, too.

 

I suppose that if their Hamilcar was in such bad shape it will not make much sense to look for it on those arial photographs on the NCAP website... sometimes a drawn out crash landing will leave a trail of pieces of wreckage, and this will show on the photographs. But in this case I have my doubts...

 

Another suggestion - but I doubt that it is a Hamilcar...