ME-109 wreckage & pilot remaind discovered while metal detecting.

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Interesting story.

Boy finds WWII plane and pilots remains

Information

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[CINDERS]

A bit more on the story;
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&r...eZzMlGcMjooMPg

[browningautorifle]

Well, maybe the pilot can finally go home.

[Peter Laidler]

Apparently the new Germany don't seem to revere the return of their lost war dead like we seem to here and elsewhere. They only bring home those identified by name with living relatives otherwise they go into mass/communal graves locally. Mind you, the OLD Germany knew quite a bit about mass graves. (sorry if that glib remark was offensive to anyone)

[Surpmil]

Apparently the new Germany don't seem to revere the return of their lost war dead like we seem to here and elsewhere. They only bring home those identified by name with living relatives otherwise they go into mass/communal graves locally. Mind you, the OLD Germany knew quite a bit about mass graves. (sorry if that glib remark was offensive to anyone)

Not in the slightest, though where Jews and other non-combatants were concerned, there was a concerted campaign from 1943 on to dig up their mass graves and burn the remains before the Soviets captured the areas. And of course the Soviets were no strangers to mass graves either.

[Ovidio]

Well, a fallen soldier should always get respect.

[CINDERS]

Look at how tenacious the aussie was to uncover the mass graves from Fromelles, if you get to read that book by Patrick Lindsay the whole effort was a wasted stunt and a tragedy personified with over 5,300+ diggers gunned down in one 24hour period our greatest loss in a single battle ill conceived as the German OP's had a good view of our back line so knew we were coming.
With grazing fire they cut their legs off and then the torso fell through the bullets. But they have found peace at last interned in the soil they fought over and will never be forgotten, the search still goes on for relatives of those identified also the identification of the diggers themselves.

I agree with Ovidio every soldier that died deserves to be brought home or at least given some dignity the Pacific engagements may prove a daunting task and would probably not interest the Japanese govt, bit like our New Guinea the diggers are out there waiting for some one to come along and find them, every country has lost souls I wonder how many are still laying in VN waiting..........?

I should have clarified the US missing soldiers sorry Clarky as I should imagine they would have a few the Australian armed forces are as stated tenacious at finding our fallen how long did they look for the Sydney wreck and finally finding her though we may never know the truth of her demise.

[mrclark303]

Look at how tenacious the aussie was to uncover the mass graves from Fromelles, if you get to read that book by Patrick Lindsay the whole effort was a wasted stunt and a tragedy personified with over 5,300+ diggers gunned down in one 24hour period our greatest loss in a single battle ill conceived as the Germanicon OP's had a good view of our back line so knew we were coming.
With grazing fire they cut their legs off and then the torso fell through the bullets. But they have found peace at last interned in the soil they fought over and will never be forgotten, the search still goes on for relatives of those identified also the identification of the diggers themselves.

I agree with Ovidio every soldier that died deserves to be brought home or at least given some dignity the Pacific engagements may prove a daunting task and would probably not interest the Japanese govt, bit like our New Guinea the diggers are out there waiting for some one to come along and find them, every country has lost souls I wonder how many are still laying in VN waiting..........?

I might be wrong here Cinders, but hasn't Australia now accounted for all its Vietnam fallen? I seem to recall the last few were an SASR soldier and a Canberra Bomber crew, all located and remains recovered in the last 5 years.

I personally think Germany's attitude to its fallen is disgusting, as a Government, they really don't seem to give a s***! Its a general "Nothing to do with us chief" attitude that came sharply to light following the Cold War thaw in the 1990's when bodies were recovered from the old eastern front.

I wonder what the German general public think??

People who gave their young lives for their Country deserve the right to treated with respect and have their remains repatriated and properly interned with dignity, if this isn't carried out it would strongly suggest to me that certain members of German society haven't truly learned the lessons of their own very recent past!

[Paul S.]

. . . People who gave their young lives for their Country deserve the right to treated with respect and have their remains repatriated and properly interned with dignity, if this isn't carried out it would strongly suggest to me that certain members of German society haven't truly learned the lessons of their own very recent past!

Too right. Soldiers don't really get to pick sides. A lot of soldiers, conscripts in particular, are unwilling participants. Certainly, there are the 'true believers', but a lot are just doing what they see as duty and honourable.

I've met a few former Wehrmacht soldaten over the years. One, a former gebirgsjaeger spent most of his time on the Eastern Front, but admitted being shifted to the Western Front late on in the war saying it was probably the only reason he didn't end up dying in a Soviet Gulag. Once, I also met a bloke (an engineer for Northrup at the time in the 1980s) who was shot down near Paris and badly burnt. Quite by coincidence, he had been at an engineering conference a few years earlier and actually met the FW190 pilot who shot him down when the 'old lads' were talking about the war in the bar after one of the conference session. They became fast friends.

[Gil Boyd]

On a similar vain and a very similar story, is about "Mick" Mannock VC, DSO & Two Bars, MC & Bar, who was a British flying ace in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War.

It is believed his grave has been found, but there appears a reluctance to exhume the body of an "Unknown Airman of the First World war" marked on the GWGC gravestone, and use DNA to rightfully correct his final resting place as one of our national heroes of that war.

Lets hope the powers at be, one day see some sense, as this current unmarked grave of a pilot is the only one near, where the German infantry recovered the body of Mannock from his burnt out plane after it developed engine failure, and buried him nearby. After the war they informed the British Government, but due to him crashing near the front months before the end of the war, exact locations of his burial were probably lost in time!