NORBERT VOLLMANN

From Norbert Vollmann (Ludwig-Derleth-Straße 5, 97447 Gerolzhofen, Germany) for Mr. William Clarke, by using informations of Mr. Wolfgang Scholz, Schweinfurt, Germany, an investigator of the local aerial warfare:

75 Squadron RNZAF, Mepal Cambridgeshire

Stirling III Take off time 2130hrs. Date 27 Aug.1943

Target Nuremberg, No news received after take off. Shot down at 2.20 h by Hauptmann August Geiger (7./NJG 1).

Crashed Schwarzenau, 21 km E.N.E. of Wurzburg, 28 Aug. 1943.

All crew members killed in action and buried at first at the local Cemetery at Schwarzenau, after the war exhumed and reburied on the Commonwealth War Cemetery at Dürnbach-Gmund in the south of Germany.

Crew: F/S Frank Douglas Higham Pilot RNZAF +

Sgt. Robert Renfrew Flight Engineer +

Sgt. John Richard Culshaw Navigator +

F/S Martin Bailey Bomb Aimer RCAF +

F/S Cyril Jack Bridger Wireless Operator RNZAF +

Sgt. Harold Jennings Air Gunner +

Sgt. Albert Clarke Air Gunner +

Eyewitnesses are telling about the crash at Schwarzenau:

At that night there was much traffic in the air. Enemy Bombers were flying over the area around. The sky was cloudy, so we can't saw the aircrafts. But we could hear the sound of the engines and that they were flying, coming from Ebrach, in direction to Würzburg.
In this case you have better go into the cellar. Whilst the other inhabitants of our house were already downstairs, we were standing near the open frontdoor and intended just to go into the cellar, too.
Suddenly we could hear from above the firing of airguns not far away of our village. At this moment I could see a flare on the nightly sky, drawing very flat and quick over our house in north direction.

Directly after that it happend in the north of Schwarzenau a tremendous blow and there was immediately a big fire. We knew, that an aircraft must have been crashed.
I heard later that the falling Short Stirling has already lost wreckage over the village. The aircraft shall have flown so low, that it has nearly touched the churchtower.
Of course we were running at once to the crashplace. There I could see that the engines has bored until a depth of 1,50 Meter into the ground. The oil and gasoline was burning very strong and bright at this place. We could see all very clear in the shine.
The waist of the bomber, without cockpit, wings and empennage, was laying about 150 Meters away from the engines. It didn't burn and was in all not very heavy damaged. All the other pieces and parts were lying as wreckage around. Between these wreckages there were laying the dead airmen. None of them has worn his parachute. They were clothed in overalls. I couldn't realize any outer injuries. The people told us, that the killed airmen should have been from Newzealand (aboard there were in reality two members of the RNZAF, four members of the RAF and one member of the RCAF).
The phosphor-bombs or canisters were also lying scattered between the wreackage. The phospor inflamed immediately, when getting in contact with the air. The phosphor inflamed when the German soldiers, which had to guard the crashplace, began to fire with there rifles on the bombs or rather on the canisters. This happened at the following day, when we young-ones have visited the crashplace several times. I could find also at the crashplace a little piece of a map.
The dead bodies were given soon into caskets. There was one casket for each of the killed airmen. At first the caskets have been laid out in the unmanned station (house of the firefighters). Then the killed crewmembers were buried in a common grave at the Cemetery of Schwarzenau.
One or two days after the crash a German Fieseler Storch has landed on a field at Schwarzenau. Aboard was the Pilot of the German nightfighter (Hauptmann August Geiger, 7./Nightfighter squadron 1. It was his 43rd launching at night). He inspected the wreckage for getting attested the launching by the officials. Then he flew away again. The landing and visit of the pilot has lead to a big crowd.
After the war the corpses were exhumed an reburied on the Cemetery of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Dürnbach-Gmund at the Tegernsee near Bad Tölz in the South of Germany.
The wreckage was soon brought away by low-loading trucks of the German Luftwaffe (Air Force) to the airfield at Kitzingen, where was a dockyard for crashed and damaged aircrafts.

Gerolzhofen (Germany), in April 2006