Looking for crash site of Lancaster ND988 QR-E in Wechte Germany

Mike,

I had a lengthy telephone conversation with Wolfgang, the chap which runs the Archives in Lengerich. Very friendly guy and very helpful too. He is also a member of a WW2 forum interested for example also at any crash in the area. He seems to be the perfect contact in your case. Wolfgang said he knows the crash at Wechte but needs to check further and is willing to directly communicate with you in English. He seem to know a lot of locals and can search around for you. Please send me a PM so that I can pass on his Email address to you.
Whatever you find out it would be great to inform the members of WW2 talk as appropriate.

Stefan.

 

Hi to all

I have not been able to make progress for the last few months on the research of ND988 but it is still an ongoing project.
A lot of information has been gained through members such as yourselves on different forums.

I wish to thank again all who have helped in this quest so far.

Regards

Mike

 

Hello to all who have helped and those others interested.
After a long wait and a few failed attempts to make my way from Australia to Germany we are finally arriving in Germany on the 11th of October.

After a visit to Rheinland Pfalz we will catch a train to Lengerich and be staying in Wechte.

At this stage the actual crash site has not been located but ill attempt to locate it once there if need be.

Thanks to all who have got me this far.

Regards

Mike

 

Screen Shot 2018-12-04 At 3.10.56 Pm by nd988 posted May 21, 2019 at 1:05 PM

Upon visiting the town of Wechte the following day after we arrived we visited the evangelical cemetery or the "old" friedhof as we discovered.
The was a memorial there but with no names or notion of nationality of those that are and were buried there in the war years.
There was a corner of the cemetery that looked to have had graves but there were no headstones remaining .
I had contacted a local journalist hoping to discover more from local sources but there was no local information received unfortunately, however we did meet the journalist at the crash site where he took down our story and that of the crew of ND988.
The field where the last of the wreckage ended up is situated between two farm houses, we were unable to speak to the neighbours on that occasion but will endeavour to make contact on the next visit.
After visiting the crash site we drove a short distance to the target at Ladbergen which still operates today as a loading area for barges on the river, carrying grain, gravel and much more.

 

Photo of the target area and excerpt from pilots log book

 

Goggle earth view of the crash site and alt friedhof memorial in Lengerich.