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A British “Lancaster I” bomber, shown here loading bombs at Waddington Air Force Base, crashed into the Malfinger corridor.
© British Air Force website “Aircrew Remembered”, with kind permission.
80 years ago a British bomber crashed into the Malfinger Flur near Denklingen.
Denklingen's local chronicler Paul Jörg reports on new findings.
Denklingen - During a dogfight, a bomber was attacked by a German night fighter and set on fire by hitting the gasoline tanks of the right wing engines.
This fell about 500 meters southeast of the “Zum Gut” property on the B 17, into the forest belonging to farmer Andreas Schmid (house name: Bei Alten Metzger).
The starting point was a major air raid by the British on Augsburg, which was an important armaments location with the aircraft manufacturer Messerschmitt and the MAN factories.
The most violent air raids began in 1944, after the Allies had gained air supremacy over Germany.
The war came back home.
By April 27, 1945, when the Americans arrived, there were a total of 128 air alerts in Fuchstal during this period, sometimes several times a day.
While the American Air Force often attacked military targets during the day, the British Royal Air Force concentrated its efforts on area bombings of German cities at night with the aim of demoralizing the population and breaking the will to war.
Contemporary witnesses from the lower village describe the crash of the bomber as an apocalyptic phenomenon
The attack on Augsburg took place in two waves (10:30 p.m. and 12:55 a.m.) using a deception from different approach directions.
At first it appeared that the air raid was intended to target Munich again, which was subjected to 74 air raids during the course of the war.
However, at the height of the Reiterberg (there is a radio mast there today), one of the orientation points for the bomber squadrons coming from the southwest on the high eastern bank of the Lechu, they swung towards their target Augsburg, which was already in the snowy landscape and clear, ice-cold winter night due to the first fires could be seen from far away.
The “Reiterberg”, above Lech dam 11, which served as an orientation point for the bomber squadrons.
© Paul Jörg
Contemporary witnesses from the lower village describe the crash of the bomber as an apocalyptic phenomenon: Due to the late alarm, they had just moved into the cellars that served as air raid shelters when a single bomber suddenly appeared on the horizon behind the church, which was caught by the beam of an anti-aircraft searchlight and quickly flew descent was about to begin.
Its right wing was on fire and from the noise it was making it obviously had engine problems.
The fear arose that the plane would immediately drop its load of bombs, as happened on the night of September 6th to 7th, 1943 south of the village, where the Osteraufkirche was unfortunately hit by an emergency bomb drop from a British bomber that had also set itself on fire and was robbed of the flames.
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The force of the explosion shattered the plane into thousands of pieces
A large funnel marked the impact point.
The force of the explosion shattered the plane into thousands of pieces.
The heavy parts were thrown into the surrounding meadows.
In addition to its heavy bomb load, which consisted of a 1,800 kilo air mine and other incendiary bombs, the plane also had around 5,000 liters of high-octane fuel in the tank, which resulted in enormous explosive power when it detonated.
In the village, many windows were broken, barn doors were torn open and roofs were partially damaged.
At the Gut property, it appeared as if a tornado had ripped through the house.
The snow, which was more than half a meter high, had melted away.
The forest with its 15-year-old spruce trees was completely destroyed.
The pressure wave could be felt in a wide area.
In Schwabbruck, twelve kilometers away, the local chronicle notes: “An English bomber crashed near Denklingen on February 25, 1944 and detonated on the ground.
The windows rattle in Schwabbruck.”
Seven crew members did not survive the crash
The seven crew members did not survive the crash and, after being rescued, were buried in the Denklingen cemetery near the mortuary in a collective grave in paper sacks and without ceremony, as was required in such cases at the time.
The rescue team reported that the sight of the remains was very difficult to bear.
A simple wooden cross was later placed on the mound overnight by an unknown person.
In 1947, the victims were exhumed by a British military commission from the Royal Air Force's missing persons investigation and investigation center and transferred to the Allied military cemetery in Dürnbach am Tegernsee.
It was learned that the crew of the crashed bomber were five Australian soldiers.
To supplement the crew, two Englishmen were assigned to them as gunner and flight engineer.
As a member of the British Commonwealth, Australia entered the war on the Allied side on September 3, 1939, two days after Germany began World War II with its attack on Poland.
The Malfinger Flur near the Lech with the marked crash site.
© Bavaria Atlas
With its pilot Herbert RH Stuchbury, the Australians' new crew, which had arrived at Waddington air base in the county of Lincolnshire in January 1944, was a Lancaster I, with the registration number: LL 746 and the call sign PO-M, the 467th Squadron of the Royal Australian Air Force.
She had an average age of 22 years.
It was the crew's fourth mission.
That night the British dropped around 2,000 tons of bombs over Augsburg with their 493 aircraft and lost 21 aircraft that night.
102 crew members were killed and 43 were taken prisoner of war.
In Augsburg, 730 residents died and another 1,335 were injured.
85,000 residents were left homeless.
There were 246 large and medium-sized fires and 820 small fires.
The historic city center was partially completely destroyed.
Fighting the fire was made more difficult due to frozen water areas and fire hydrants;
the temperature was minus 18 degrees Celsius.
After the violent attacks, almost half of the population left the city.
A memorial and memorial site is to be created at the Peace Chapel
Since there was no evidence of the war event on site to date, the plan came to fruition in a conversation between the local chronicler Paul Jörg and the freelance pastor Ludwig Streicher, at the peace chapel on the “Zum Gut” property, which is not far from the site of the accident. to create a memorial and memorial site because it corresponds to our Christian faith and values.
In 2019, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the event, a bilingual memorial plaque (German and English) was attached to the Peace Chapel in a solemn devotion, which now commemorates the victims of these two days of war.
A flyer in the chapel provides additional information about what happened at the time.
By the way, the pilot of the German night fighter was Lieutenant Colonel Günther Radusch (1912-1988).
At the time he was commodore of Night Fighter Squadron 2 stationed in Deelen-Arnheim and by the end of the war he had scored a total of 64 kills in 140 enemy flights.
On September 1, 1958, Radusch joined the Bundeswehr with the rank of colonel.
Until the end of March 1964 he commanded the pilot school A in Landsberg am Lech, Penzing location.
Many of the German night fighter pilots hoped to hit the fuel tanks between engines three and four on the right wing (which were still full during the approach) with a short, well-aimed burst of fire from the night fighter, which was flying about 50 to 100 meters lower.
This would have given the bomber pilot on the left side of the plane the highest chance of survival for an emergency descent and thus given the crew a possible chance to jump out.
Nevertheless, over 90 percent of the bomber crews did not survive the crash in the dismantling planes.