Dornier 17 crash in Widehurst Woods, Kent

So in summary - evidence points towards Cooper-Slipper was the pilot that hit the Dornier, the crew abandoned then the aircraft exploded in mid air.

The Wilden Dornier was burning on the ground with the suggestion by fire brigade that two crew were inside.

This suggests Cooper-Slipper/Rilling and not associated with the Wilden Wood Dornier.

On balance Wilden/Becker-Ross as per Parker/Vizard and Skinners Farm/Rilling after collision with Cooper-Slipper.

Currant set a DO-17 smoking, Howes shot down a DO-17 but at midday - needs a bit more work on AIR50 to see who else claimed - tomorrow as I have reached my daily limit for free download.

Ross

 

Thank you for all that, Ross. Appreciate the detail. Will go through.

- Phillip

 

Only Currant and McKellar combat reports have been preserved for the afternoon action but as they were flying Red1 and Blue1 it gives quite a bit of information.

I have reduced the original pdfs to only their reports for the 15th to allow upload here. The originals cover other dates.

Currant original is AIR50/169/35
McKellar original is AIR50/169/92

Your earlier comment about DO-17 raining down is quite apt when you look at the action.

This was 15th Sept - what was to become honoured as Battle of Britain Day - the day the Luftwaffe launched it's most concentrated attack on London and the south to draw the remains of the RAF up to battle.

The noon wave of approx 120 Bf.109 and 25 Do.17 was met by No.605 among 245 Spitfires and Hurricanes. Harried by Park's squadrons as they made their way to London depleting the Bf.109 fuel reserves they then met the Duxford Wing over London as they commenced bomb runs.

The noon combat reports for both men are in the pdfs.

As the noon wave was landing the afternoon wave of 475 aircraft was taking off. Park countered this with 3 waves comprising 276 Spitfires and Hurricanes.

Again the afternoon combat reports are in the pdfs.

McKellar's report is a snapshot of the nature of the battle over Kent. Met up with another squadron - Angels 15 and attacked bomber stream (your action over Wilden Wood) head on attack destroying a Do.17. After pass jumped by 109s, dodged by climbing into sun then saw another bomber formation of He.111 without escort heading for London. Another head on attack pass shooting down He.111 . Broke off and joined up with another Hurricane squadron he could not identify. Went off on his own to do another head on attack on the leader of a different He.111 formation but with no visible results - saw 109s coming for him so broke off spinning to cloud and landed.

So likely that this was repeated over Wilden Wood with not only No.605 aircraft but those from other squadrons all having combat at unidentified bomber groups and unknown locations.

The final item of interest is that having done two sorties on the 15th McKellar at 23:10hrs was airborne in the night fighter role in a day fighter Hurricane tasked with attacking He.111 illuminated by searchlights. Another He.111 claimed and landing at Croydon "without any lighting aid whatever" at 00:30hrs.

Ross

 

Many thanks for that information.

 

For the film, I'm going to go with 5/KG3 Wn3458 Becker-Ross as a possible for the Wilden Wood bomber - possibly shot down by Archie McKellar. Not sure we can get any closer than that? Am working with Staplehurst Church to ascertain whether an unidentified German aircrew was buried there post 15th.

I've obtained the National Archives Combat Report for 605 on this day from a colleague, who's happy for me to pass them on to you. The files are 2.5 Mb each (x2) so I cannot post them here without shrinking them, which will destroy resolution. If you email me at dayp777@gmail.com, I'll send them over to you for your records.

Phillip

 

Found the Squadron McKellar met up with over Kenley before the interception - No.501 Squadron. ORB summary of events attached.

ORB for this unit says 8 aircraft and also claim destroyed enemy. As they were in company with McKellar I would not go with "possibly shot down by McKellar" there are too many individual combats that could have either cummulative or singly been the event that resulted in the crash of Becker-Ross.

In my works here and elsewhere I have only stated where I have clear evidence - where my assumption is based on either supposition or balance of evidence I try to make this clear. Errors of taking secondary source as gospel was what started this thread in the first place.

Here I would go with trying to convey the adhoc and confused nature of the battle overhead. Reactive events by defenders after first contact and highly fluid formations not adhering to Squadron flights - making and breaking after each pass by both attackers and defenders.

Thanks for the Combat report offer but if it is AIR50 (or AIR27) source I have been using these already to post here. Uploading edited and full sections where appropriate.

Ross

 

Good idea. I'll go with "It's not possible at this stage to verify who shot down..."
Thanks for the 501 Record. Attached is a snapshot of what a colleague passed to me.

Phillip

 

Morning Ross,

Can I pick your brains with a quick question regarding the above Felkin flimsy?

Which member of Rilling's crew would be the 'top gunner' firing at Cooper-Slipper? In other words, who does what in Rilling's bomber?

Cooper-Slipper records that the top gunner seemed fixated on him. be a nice detail to have for the film.

Phillip

 

In the extremely cramped cockpit area three of the four crew doubled as gunners and swapped from front or rear guns to adjacent side mounted guns as needed to face the attack.

Bo Howind - Beobachter was usually aircraft commander Observer/nav/bomb-aimer/foward gunner.
Bf Zimmermann - Bordfunker was Wireless Op/Gunner
Bm Hobel - Bordmechaniker was flight engineer/jack of all trades/gunner

In this picture of the rear gunner position you can see that the position is very narrow and with the radio equipment on the port wall it would suggest that Zimmermann if in the WOp position would be the likely man.

https://www.worldwarphotos.info/wp-...rafts/dornier_do17/Dornier_Do17_Z_cockpit.jpg

His lack of operational experience may explain the observed fixation.

Ross

 

Ausgezeichnet! Many thanks.

We're still working with the good Reverend at Staplehurst with regard to the fate of the Becher-Ross crew. I've also got a request into Cannock.

Will revert.

 

Hi Ross

Regarding Dornier Do17z (Wn 3458) 5/KG3, I've got the crew as: Oblt. Becher-Roß, Oberfw. Brückner, Fw. Hansen and Fw Brinkmann.
Here's a list I've found of KG 3 personnel: Namensliste
Rilling and his crew are all listed and their first names check out.
Re the Helmut Becher-Roß crew: Brückner, Hansen and Brinkmann all come up with two first name alternatives each.
Does a separate crew list survive so I can get the correct first names for these three for my investigations with the church and a German contact?
Cannock doesn't list any of them.

Phillip

 

The only crew list I've seen is in Parker.

Obltn H Becker-Ross NKG
Ofw G Brückner NKG
Fw W Brinkmann NKG
Fw A Hansen NKG

He states (No Known Grave) crew presumed buried in All Saint's Churchyard.

Felkin spoke German and had lived/worked in Vienna pre war this led to him being fastidious in his reports to use the full correct names with all the correct accents.

The lack of immediate K report for this crew shows that there were no survivors for him to record - however usually a few days later a supplemental report of any intel from the crash site would be created and signed off. At his point he would give names from document fragments.

If body parts were recovered for burial as suggested by Parker and the initial posts in this thread then there should be a Felkin report. The lack of first names and detail are of slight concern but they do appear in the KG3 roll and apart from Brückner can be narrowed down to a man .

Ross

 

Thank you, Ross. Looks like that is as close as we'll get.

If anything went into the cemetery at Staplehurst, there should be a record of it, so we'll see what the good vicar has to say.

BTW, the vicar's grandfather flew bombers for the Luftwaffe in WW2. He was shot down by P-51s operating out of the ALG at RAF Staplehurst in 1944.

Now she is vicar of Staplehurst and chaplain to the old RAF site. She's keen on this type of research and hopefully will turn something up.

I did a quick fly-by clip of the RAF Staplehurst site: https://youtu.be/fjNKEcXc6aQ

Phillip

 

OK, SUCCESS!

The Staplehurst vicar has reverted and so has Staplehurst's chief historian. The latter's email is as follows:

"Yes, I copied the burial register to 1943 before that volume was sent to the Archives. I have the grave number 7F 29 for 3 unidentified enemy airmen, plane crash
15 September 1940 Widhurst Wood . Sent to Cannock (?) Chase in 1959. Burial date here was 24 September 1940.

I believe that they were buried in the large plot behind Church Cottages, first utilised for the 10 victims of the 1865 Railway Crash, but 7F 29 may pinpoint another plot.
These were certainly 3 persons, not 4.

Best wishes, Anita."

 

Good evening Ross

Thought the following would be of interest for your records.

A further eye-witness account has surfaced in the writings of Miriam Honess, a farmer's daughter who lived at Loves Farm where von Werra came down on 5th September. I covered her testimony on that incident in my von Werra film. The following account of Miriam's seems to shed light on the order of events of 15th September with regard to the three Dorniers that came down in the general Marden area, viz:

The Mike Cooper-Slipper Dornier (Wn 4200 Rilling)
The Becher-Ross Wilden Wood Dornier (Wn 3458)
and Do17 Wn 3230 Krummheuer that came down at Kilndown.

Here's what Miriam wrote with my comments in square brackets:

TESTIMONY OF L MIRIAM HONESS, Loves Farm, Marden, Kent

September 15th

Soon after 1:30 pm, the air became full of snarls, zooms and bursts of machine-gun fire, so I stationed myself at the top landing window. The first thing I saw was a large portion of a bomber’s wing sailing through the air all by itself [Rilling?]. Then through the clouds in the north appeared three airmen, all close together drifting earthwards in their parachutes. [Rilling's crew?]

Then I could see black smoke rising from the west, so I guessed those three airmen were some of the crew of that bomber. [West from Miriam's house is out towards Beltring]

Then I went to look through my window and heard the horrible whine of a bomber out of control. Through the clouds nose-diving to earth came a Dornier 17 [Wn 3458 Becher-Ross?]. At first I thought it would land on Mr Russell’s bungalow but it finished its career in Widehurst Wood [Wilden Wood beyond].

Blood-red flames in the shape of a huge inverted pear shot up to the sky, then died down, to be followed by dense clouds of black smoke.

Then over Winchet Hill I saw three more parachutes, but they were the crew of a Dornier brought down at Kilndown [Wn 3230 Krummheuer?]. Several men of that village lost their lives when the bombs exploded.

At 4:15 pm, the bombs exploded in the Dornier in Widehurst Wood. The noise was terrific and a huge yellowish brown ball of smoke rose from the spot.

The charred bodies of the crew were blown into fragments and hurled up into the fir trees over a wide radius. Gypsies climbed the trees and fetched the pieces down, but many scattered bones were left in the wood.

A fortnight later I spied the charred fragments of an ordnance map, picked them up and to my horror they were adhering to two human ribs.

Phillip

 

Cheers for that - all adding to record the footsteps in time of Becker-Ross and his crew - they go from an unremarked collective grave at Cannock to a possible identity.

Honess account also refines and answers events regarding which aircraft explosion killed the civilians and why it was stated that only 3 were buried when bodies were seen in the wreck.

The unpicking of events over a small bit of sky on 15th Sept 1940 is progressing well.

Ross

 

Ross

Were those time-delay bombs going off at Wilden Wood and Kilndown? Do we have any technical specs? Or did the ordnance just go up in the fire?

Phillip

 

Without access to Luftwaffe records on bomb loads for that day a generalisation is all that can be said.

ARP records for loads from this raid dropped on target suggests a mix of HE with both instantaneous and long delay fuzing.

Cracked casings due to the impact would allow contents to quickly go up with post crash fires so possible for the delayed explosion on both wrecks but time delay initiated by the crash is more likely given the two similar events.

German Ordinance

Ross

 

Brilliant, Ross. I'll investigate.

Many thanks
Phillip

 

Using my goto source of Felkin

Bourne Farm He-111 - 4 250kg bombs
Tripcock Pier He-111 - released 12 bombs
Asplins Head He-111 - racks set for 1 off 500kg, 2 off 250kg, 4 off 50kg and 4 off incendiary containers
Allhallows Do-17 - 12 off 50kg bombs
Perry Street Do-17 - blew up 3/4hr after crash 3 off 50kg amongst wreckage.
Gladstone Road Do-17 20 off 50kg
Herne Bay Do-17 20 off 50kg
The Chase Do-17 24 off 50kg
Eighteen Pounder Farm Do-17 10 off 50kg

So looks like 50kg bomb load on Do-17 typically 20 off but down to 10 off if extra guns and ammo carried.

Ross