Far Flung Gliders

Hi All,

There is a pair of surprising common photographs adrift on the web showing German soldiers, very much at ease, with a wrecked Waco glider. I am not sure who owns the copyright to the second photograph below, but the first is from the German Federal Archives:

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Far less common is this third photograph which I found on the CEGES-SOMA Archive shown below which I suspect is of the same crash site - note the small tree marked 'B' which might be the same as that seen in the second photograph above from a different angle-of-view:

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This site must be very far away from any of the designated LZs and well behind German lines when these photographs were taken. I doubt if German troops in the American airborne sector would have their rifles slung like these guys.

IIRC, Philippe Esvelin has a map in one of his books which shows the location of eight Waco crash sites on the western side of the Cotentin Peninsula. They were cast off early from the pre-dawn missions on D-Day. I'll dig out the map tomorrow night.

Less likely in my view, but the glider could also be the stray that T/Sgt Shimko and his men from 2/325th GIR arrived in Normandy on, somewhat off course by sixty odd miles, when they landed a few miles north of Caen. I suspect this site would have been too active for the Germans to have shouldered rifles.

Another possibility could be a stray in the region south of Carentan.

Regards,

Pat

 

RE: Germans With Crashed Waco

Hi Niels,

I would presume that any glider landing behind the German lines would require a patrol to be sent out with the task of investigating the landing, even if it was well to the west. In any event, here is the map on page 37 of Philippe Esvelin's "Forgotten Wings":

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...and the GE finder chart:

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Note Sainte Germain le Gaillard at top left and Le Vretot at bottom right.

There are several pages in the book detailing each glider landing, the pilots and what happened to them and their passengers. Here is a brief rundown:

Location 1 - Glider #30 (Mission Detroit) - F/O Cyrus S. Carson Jr. + F/0 John H. Winkler - 1x 57mm AT Gun - 3x passengers (Battery A/80th AA Bn.)

Location 2 - Glider #29 (Mission Detroit) - 1st Lt Richard V. Bolan + F/O Thomas E. Stewart - 1x Jeep; 1x SCR 620 radio equipment; 57mm AT Ammo - 2x passengers (Battery A/80th AA Bn.)

Location 3 - Glider #33 (Mission Detroit) - 1st Lt Howard C. Brewster (KIA) + F/O Leslie A. Reynolds - 1x jeep; 57mm AT Ammo - 2x passengers (Battery A/80th AA Bn.)

Location 4 - Glider #52 (Mission Detroit) - F/O James L. Larkin + F/O William Kostiak - 1x 57mm AT Gun; 57mm AT Ammo; 3x passengers (Battery A/80th AA Bn.)

Location 5 - Glider #27 (Mission Detroit) - F/O James M. Lauri + F/O William Kenneth May - 1x 57mm AT Gun; 1x Jeep(?); 3x passengers (Unit not stated but it must be either Battery A or B/80th AA Bn.)

Location 6 - This glider transports a 57mm AT gun and is found balancing over a hedgerow; there is no sign of the crew.

Location 7 - This glider transports a 57mm AT gun. It lands about 100 yards from the previous glider, further down the hill. The fuselage is stuck in a hedgerow with the wings between two trees.

At the time of publication, Philippe Esvelin is certain that the two crews listed hereunder are those who were aboard the gliders at locations 6 and 7 on the above map:

• Glider #31 (Mission Detroit) - F/O Robert J. Powers + F/O Joseph Meleky (KIA) - 1x 57mm AT Gun; 57mm AT Ammo; 4x passengers (Battery B/80th AA Bn.)

• Glider #23 (Mission Detroit) - 1st Lt Wilbert C. Laird + F/O Floyd K. Kuller - 1x 57mm AT Gun; 57mm AT Ammo; 3x passengers (Battery B/80th AA Bn.)

Location 8 - Glider #26 (Mission Detroit) - F/O Elmer J. Kiel (KIA) + F/O Adrian R. Loving (KIA) - 1x 57mm AT Gun; 1x Dinghy; 1x Camouflage Net; Water Containers & Engineering Tools. The tow pilots of this glider reported erratic tow swinging from side to side when they entered the cloudbank after crossing the west coast of the Cotentin. When they exited the cloudbank the glider was gone. The crash site was only discovered in February 1945 by a group of hunters. When General Gavin heard of the discovery, he wrote a hand written note which is filed with the MACR.

OK, so we have chalk numbers 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33 and 52; who wants to have a go at finding them below

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I note with interest in the 'Distance' column these entries which appear to read "3MI FR WEST" (line 32 -#43-81832 - destroyed - 3x personnel - gun servicable) and "6MI FR WEST" (line 42 - #43-1047 - damaged - 3x personnel - gun servicable) - if this implies distance from the west coast of the Cotentin, then there is a high probability that we have two of the eight tagged from the manifest to within Philippe's map window.

We need to be aware of Patrick's warning regarding the numbers on the gliders and attempting to tag them to the load manifests here guys, so it’s not as simple as it might look at first glance

Regards,

Pat

 

RE: Germans With Crashed Waco

Hi Niels,

Yes, I agree these eight are only a possibility. Patrick has the location of T/Sgt Shimko's Waco near Caen, so perhaps that might be easier to check first if there is aerial coverage.

There is another glider map in the 82nd documents somewhere showing the locations of all 82nd glider landing sites - I'll dig that out tonight but I know it's nowhere near as detailed as Philippe's map above, more like a swarm of multi-coloured bees and therefore only giving a very vague idea of actual landing sites.

Regards,

Pat

 

Thanks Sean,

Do you know what type of unit might be sent to investigate a stray glider landing behind the lines?

Brian has asked about how he might submit an unrelated aerial coverage search to NCAP, so the Shimko Waco is an ideal candidate for another 'How to' demo in the Online Archives section.

The Waco in the German photographs above has distinctive damage with the tail section torn off and appears to rest along the starboard side of the fuselage. The missing tail should be easy to spot on aerial reconnaissance photos.

I changed the title of this thread to deal with the broader issue of these 'lonesome doves'.

Regards,

Pat

 

Hi All,

OK, here is the 82nd map I referred to above:

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As you can see, the scale does not lend itself to very accurate plotting but it is none-the-less a very interesting document. Below is a zoomed extract showing the legend:

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I am hard pressed to distinguish the brown from the red dots, but apart from that it is pretty good quality. Below is another zoomed extract with all the landing sites at or near the two 82nd LZs:

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And finally, a zoomed extract which appears to show four strays from Mission Detroit which I have marked with blue arrows:

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The two together might match Philippe Esvelin's pair at his locations 6 and 7 but apart from that I would not put a huge emphasis on the accuracy of the 'Far Flung' landing sites. As with all these sketch maps, I prefer to use them as guides to possibilities rather than rely too heavily on their ability to show actual landing sites.

Comments and corrections welcomed and appreciated.

Regards,

Pat

 

Hi List,

The far flung Waco at position 8 on Philippe’s map is a very heartbreaking story when you consider that bodies of the five crew and passengers were not recovered until eight months after the crash. Again, thanks to Philippe’s work in “Forgotten Wings”, I have been able to track down a copy of the Missing Air Crew Report (MACR). A copy can be downloaded from my Adrive account here. Missing from the report is General Gavin’s hand written comment on the crash. Below is a scan from page 49 of “Forgotten Wings” showing this document:

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As far as I can tell, General Gavin's note reads:

The MACR identifies this Waco as #43-40197, the first one listed above in the load manifest as missing.

I had a look at the 1947 IGN coverage of the Bois du Pommeret wood and found nothing of note but the leaf canopy seems to be present, so that is not surprising. Philippe's description of the work done by French researchers in 1998 at the site suggests that the crash site is only 50 yards into the woods from the D66 road. Below is an extract from the 1947 IGN coverage:

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The yellow rectangle is our Area of Interest. Below is the same view as it appears today on GE. Note the field marked 'A' appears to have been part of the woods in 1944, so the northern end is within our AoI:

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For those readers not sure of where we are, the above GE screenshot is within the red rectangle below:

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I tried Googleing the family names of the two crew, F/O Adrian R. Loving and F/O Elmer J. Kiel and came up with this post on Ancestry.com:

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As you can see, I left a reply to the 2004 message and hopefully we will make contact with the family. In the meantime, I propose to proceed with another NCAP search covering the eight months from June '44 to February '45 but working backwards to make best use of the search time during the winter months when the leaf canopy is absent.

Regards,

Pat

 

Thanks Patrick,

You make my life so easy

Using your page, I have marked the Wacos below with a blue number corresponding to Philippe Esvelin's location numbers:

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The only problem I came across was location No. 6 or 7 (bottom) where there appears to be a digit '4' missing from #43-_1047. Is this the only error in the 8 I have marked?

Thanks,

Pat

 

Thanks Patrick,

I'll track down the MACRs tonight.

Regards,

Pat

 

Hi All,

Readers will recall that we have a pending search at the National Collection of Aerial Photography (NCAP) for T/Sgt Shimko's 'far flung' Waco north of Caen. Below is the search area extracted from Google Earth and uploaded with the search request to the guys in NCAP:

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The results of the search have come down from Edinburgh during the week and it looks like we have cover for the field in seven of the eight frames found. Viewers may download the Search Report IMSL-IR-34097 and accompanying Google Earth Finder Chart from my ADrive account thus:

• Search Report IMSL-IR-34097 (664KBs)
  
• Google Earth Finder Chart for IMSL-IR-34097 (3.59MBs)

Note that there are two sorties showing cover; the first flown by an aircraft of No. 542 Squadron, RAF on the 12th June and the second by an unknown reconnaissance unit aircraft of the 2nd Tactical Air Force (TAF), RAF two days later on the 14th June.

Our Area of Interest (AOI) as indicated by coordinates 49° 13' 50 " N / 0° 20' 02" W seems to be the smaller and more southern of the two orchards indicated by the yellow dashed line below:

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Image Credit: RCAHMS/www.aerial.rcahms.gov.uk​

Note the western hedgerow of the orchard still remains in the enlarged field at the 11 o'clock position on the red crosshairs above.

I have failed to find T/Sgt's Waco in the orchard or in the immediate vicinity. Can anyone do better?

Thanks,

Pat

 

Hi All,

While we consider the results of the Shimko search, I have tonight lodged another search with NCAP to see if there is any cover over the Pommeret Woods in an effort to find the F/O Elmer J. Kiel and F/O Adrian R. Loving Waco.

I requested that they limit the search to one hour as usual, but to work backwards from February 1945 to the 6th June 1944, thereby making best use of the time available while the trees are devoid of leaf canopy.

Regards,

Pat

 

Hi Patrick,

Is there local knowledge of where the Shimko glider landed or is the location dependent solely on the coordinates in the MACR?

Thanks,

Pat