Battle for the Teutoburger Ridge, April 1945.

Hey Jon..thank you and yes, i think its time for a new meeting. My email adress is holten64@web.de . I hope we can see us in the early months of the next year. Tell me when you have time.

 

Pte. Raymond Griffiths, 1. Bn. Herefords.

Dear Jonathan,

Yesterday I received the sad news that Raymond Griffiths passed away in his sleep in hospital, he was 95.
He has not been well for some time and contact has been only by telephone due to restrictions placed on patients in hospitals and care homes. He has had infections and other internal problems which have resulted in his being transferred between these establishments as required.
His son John, called me with the news and will bring me up to date as soon as he has been to the hospital. He was away from home when he received the call. I have many happy memories of times we spent together in and around the Teutoburgerwald and in later years at The Monument of Tolerance in The Netherlands..
The last time you were with us was in was in July 2016 when you joined us together with Veronica and Mike on our visit to Bocketal and Ibbenburen,
It's not the news I like to have to pass on but as his son said to me, " He had touched the lives of many".
Regards,
Brian.

I salute him. Gone, but not to be forgotten.

 

Hi Jon, I see that I am two years late here, but I want to say thank you very much for the war diary pages. I am finally, after all this time, writing a very brief account of the friendly fire incident. I don't think I will use the phrase "stabbed in the back". I totally agree that it was unintentional. It was just a horrible tragedy apparently rooted in poor communication about where the KOSB troops were.

 

Greetings,

I have been reading through the numerous posts on the Battle of the Teutoburger Ridge and find it very all very interesting. I have been doing research on the Teutoburger Forest during WW2 as my grandfather was a Nachjagdge Pilot for NGJ4 from I believe the Vechta base and it is reported his JU88 went missing in the Teutoburger Forest on March 28, 1945. However I have been unable to find any records of his flight, the crash, or even any ULTRA intercepts. His death certificate states MIA 3/28/1945, Teutoburger Wald (U83SS) (which I am unsure what that means, map coordinates?)

Has anyone come across any information about a downed JU88 in that area within days of the battle? I am very knew to all this but I promised my mother I would try and find out what happened to her father. Does anyone know if there are any cementaries in that area for the unknown German lives lost? Thank you in advance. Appreciate any and all help.

 

Hello Ireland

It will be very, very difficult to find out more, to say the least. Aircraft losses from this phase of the war are among the most challenging to trace. I say this with the experience of several decades that I have been involved in missing aircrew searches

The reference to ‘in the Teutoburg Forest area’ alone covers an enormous search area. Unfortunately, this does not mean that the crash took place there, but that this was the last known position. Which means that the aircraft came down somewhere else entirely

The fact that no official documents have been preserved from the German side does not make things any easier. If he was recovered at all, he will most likely have been buried anonymously in one of the many military cemeteries in the region.
There is a further problem here, as the Volksbund/VDK's central card index burnt down in 1955, which meant that a lot of information on burials was lost.

If I summarise the information from the other forums** correctly, there are no RAF/USAAF reports of his aircraft being shot down. There is still the possibility that his Junkers was shot down by flak, as there was heavy fighting in the area at the time. Perhaps someone from the forum has the relevant documents to hand

** For a better overview, here are the requests in other forums:
Any Luftwaffe Pilot Experts out there??
3./ Nachtjagd Geschwader 4, Verlust 27./28.03.1945, OFW Hans Karl Heinrich Henjes, *07.12.1917 - Forum der Wehrmacht

I am very busy at the moment and have little time myself, but I will mail my contacts in the scene to see if they can contribute something useful here.

 

In all of the research has anyone ever come across a map reference of U8355 or U83SS in the Teutoburger area?