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Residents of the KMC will soon have an opportunity to learn about WWII plane crashes in their neighborhood.
From Sunday until the end of September, the “Arbeitsgruppe Vermisstenforschung,” a group which recovers downed WWII aircraft and crews, will display their efforts at the Kaiserslautern
Garden Show. The exhibit will feature some of the 100 crash recoveries in the KMC area performed since 1989, plus offer more information about the Missing Aircraft
Investigation Group.
Leaders Uwe and Martina Benkel and Arbeitsgruppe Vermisstenforschung members have excavated almost 100 of the thousands of German, British and American crashes in Germany. In addition to recovery of personal effects and aircraft wreckage, the remains of 30 pilots and crewmembers have been identified and properly buried.
***image1***Hundreds of crash sites still await recovery by the Benkels and their volunteers. The local group from Heltersberg is part of a German organization devoted to recovering downed WWII aircraft and their crews.
A look at their Web site confirms that German, British and American military
personnel lost in air actions are treated equally and with all due respect. Over the past few years, the Missing Aircraft group has worked closely with the German War Graves Commission and also with the British and U.S. authorities in identifying and repatriating deceased pilots and crewmembers.
Every effort is made to locate surviving family members and the Benkels’ poignant collection of donated crew photos and personal items attests to the families’ appreciation for their efforts.
The group also provides educational lectures, youth seminars and exhibitions, and has been recognized for their role in dispensing with unexploded ordnance discovered at the crash sites. The Garden Show exhibit will include English translations and educational programs can be provided to interested parties in English.
One of the group’s most exciting projects is bringing together former combatants as friends. The group has returned many surviving U.S. pilots and crews to Germany to visit their crash scene and subsequent confinement, most notably a B17 crew held in the Kusel jail following their crash.
The exhibition this summer will feature a variety of displays. Photos of actual recoveries plus a crash site reconstruction with original airplane parts will show visitors the actual work of the group. Another display will feature the fate of downed fliers during the war, and yet another the Kaiserslautern link with “The Little Prince”
author, Antoine de Saint Exupery.
Of special interest to Americans will be current research regarding crashes and missing pilots over Kaiserslautern, including the shooting of an American POW in this area. A model airplane exhibition by Michael Burianski and WWII aviation paintings in oil by Marek Dziewa will round out the exhibit.
The Benkels actively seek information from eyewitnesses of WWII crashes in this area, as the time to collect first-person accounts is dwindling. One event currently being researched is the crash of an plane into the Vogelwoog lake near Kaiserslautern, and the unknown fate of both an American and German pilot lost in the Kaiserslautern-Vogelweh/Einsiedlerhof area.
The exhibition will take place inside the Kaiserslautern Garden Show exhibition hall, open daily from Sunday until the end of September. More information on the exhibit, programs or crash recoveries is available (in English) by contacting Uwe Benkel at 06333-602-570 or mu.benkel@t-online.de or visiting www.flugzeugabstuerze-saarland.de.
(Courtesy of Arbeitsgruppe Vermissten-forschung)
