REASON FOR LOSS:

Aircraft dropped a bomb and machine gunned town from low altitude, when it was engaged by Canadian manned light AA unit. With the pilot apparently hit, the aircraft pulled up and dived into a ditch upside down. Markings: the rudder and lower part of engine cowling yellow, rest of aircraft grey upper surfaces and duck-egg blue lower surfaces. The skin of the aircraft is not polished. A small bomb was painted horizontally just after the chevron. Engine: BMW 801. Metal VDM propeller fitted. Armament: two MG151/20 mm and two MG 17. ETC 501/XIIB new type of bomb carrier recovered. Believed a 250 kg bomb was dropped. Equipment: Wireless FuG 7.

Extract from the book “Blitz 3” published by After the Battle;

“As Oberfeldwebel Kassa swooped low over Caffyns workshops, the machine gun post on the roof opened up on the leading Fw 190. Private E. G. “Soapy” Johnstone was credited with the kill, another gunner, Private F. L. Wood, claiming to have shot down the second Fw 190 into the sea – a fact disproved as Kassa’s wingman, Obergefreiter Wittmann returned safely to Abbeville, France.

Crash site location of Fw 190A-2 of Ofw. Kassa (Burgess Collection)


Part of the wing pictured in the dyke (Burgess Collection)

Part of the aircrafts armament scattered around the site (Burgess Collection)

“Black 13” fuselage lies inverted in the dyke (Burgess Collection)

Note: Various items unearthed during construction work and
propeller blade now on display at Eastbourne Redoubt Museum.

Burial detail: Deutsche Soldatenfriedhof Cannock Chase, Staffs, England.

Block 4, Grave 74.

Researched and compiled by Melvin Brownless. With special thanks to the late Pat Burgess collection and Nigel Parker, not forgetting “After the Battle” publications and Iain Ochiltree. March 2015

The British Library is preserving this site for the future in the UK Web Archive at www.webarchive.org.uk All Aircrew Remembered on our Remembrance pages, are therefor not just remembered here, but also subsequently remembered and recorded as part of our nation’s history
and heritage at The British Library.