WW2 Airman's body found on Hatfield Moor in 1987

Robert, I specialise in 304 Squadron but I have investigated the disappearance of Z8406 SM-G and I am sure I know the identity of the body found near RAF Lindholme and buried near RAF Finningley. Please message me with your email address and I will send you all my findings. Perhaps we can work on this together. SM-G Had completed its bombing and was on the return journey when it was attacked. I believe it did not crash into the sea but made it back to England and crashed into the bog and sunk. It is all explained in my research paperwork.
Regards archivist (Neville Bougourd)

 

Thank You very Much Neville. my email kilodelta737max@gmail.com
I was thinking about SM-G and informations that You all post before. If the Body had't any military dog tag id so maybe I will find it in national deposit archives in Poland Warsaw. I know that family members of one crew from SM-G day received small box Sergent pilot Wiraszko( Wieraszko) i checked that deposit after Navigator Barzdo is waiting to collect. Have to check informations about rest of the crew and index number of deposits still waiting to collect. Maybe if in one of the box will be military dog tag so it will bring us to solve the mistery. Thank You very much and I waiting for more details. If You need some translations from polish let me know will help.
Welcome to the website of the Polish State Archives! – Archiwa Państwowe strona główna

 

Robert,
I have sent you all the material but I had great difficulty so please let me know if you have received it

 

Than You Neville I have everything

 

deposit list from archives in Poland

 

There are repeated mentions of missing dog-tags above, I think it needs to be remembered that the RAF in this era were using pressed fabric dog-tags which most usually were suspended from a piece of string. The tags very definitely could rot away to nothing if left in water.

 

A good point. Would the items rot or even just dissolve over time? There was evidence of flesh still on some of the bones as the peat had certain preservative qualities but would the effect be the same on pressed paper? On balance, I think ResearchingResearching is right.

 

Was the possibility ever excluded that the dead man was simply an agricultural worker (or similar) who happened to be wearing kit from an "Army Surplus" store, I remember these places in the 60's and you could get most all WW2 kit, I know that in the cash strapped late 1940's and 50's a lot of working men kitted themselves out in pretty good quality hard wearing ex-forces gear. Farm workers in this area have traditionally moved from job to job often paid cash in hand.

 

There was no mention of any missing persons from the local area at the time. I expect that would be the first thought of the Police. Also, that particular uniform went out of use in 1942/43 so I don't imagine there would be much of it about after the war - especially as the Poles were the last to use it.

 

I think the body was quite a way under the peat from what I was told by the manager from the cutting operation. Not somewhere you would find an agricultural worker unless you buried him, or threw him from a plane at height. I live a few hundred metres from the peat moors now, and I know the land here very well as I was part of the shoot syndicate for quite a few years on Lindholme Hall, which is right in the centre of the Hatfield moors. Not a great place to get lost in though, as it is covered in tall willows and silver Birch for the most part. There were some German and other nationality prisoners of war working and living in the area on the farms during the war though, but I am sure that these would have been well recorded and accounted for.