LOST

Missing persons at sea

In the 2nd World War, many planes crashed into the North Sea.

Alfred William Doel was born on April 14, 1918 in Auckland, New Zealand.

In March 1939 he joined the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

In June 1940 he left for England and followed further training as a pilot.

In 1940 he flew as a co-pilot to targets in Germany and was stationed in the Middle East in early 1941.

Halfway through 1941, Doel returned to England and volunteered for a second ‘Tour op Operations’. He flew Wellingtons and Mosquitos with a special squadron. After retraining to heavy bombers, Flight Lieutenant Doel joined No. 12 Squadron.

In the night of 11 to 12 June 1943, he flew his 38th mission to Düsseldorf as a veteran. Above the target, the four-engined British Avro Lancaster heavy bomber was damaged by German anti-aircraft fire and on the way back they were again caught in anti-aircraft fire near Amsterdam.

He ordered the crew to bail out, but only the radio operator succeeded before the Lancaster and the other six crew members crashed into the sea between the piers of IJmuiden. Over the course of the weeks, three of them washed ashore. The flight engineer Sergeant Biggs washed ashore at Bergen aan Zee and was buried in the war cemetery of Bergen. In the 1980s, a piece of the tail of the Lancaster would even wash ashore. Alfred Doel is still listed as missing.

Bewick Johnston Dowse was born on November 4, 1922, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.

He volunteered for the Royal Air Force and was trained as a bomb aimer.

On the night of 21 to 22 June 1943, the British four-engined Handley Page Halifax heavy bomber flew with the seven-man crew, including Sergeant Bewick Dowse, to the Krefeld target. Of No. 35 Squadron, six of the nineteen Halifaxes dispatched were lost that night, the heaviest loss of that unit in 1943.

At 3:22 a.m., a radio sounding by the Halifax was requested. At that time, the aircraft could be plotted over the North Sea in England, 30 kilometers west of Camperduin.

It turned out that the Halifax had been intercepted by a German night fighter from Bergen Airport. The Halifax took off at full throttle towards England, but changed course after the first attack.

After the second attack, the Halifax plunged into the North Sea, burning. At 03.28 another poll was taken from England, but there was no response…

At the beginning of July 1943, three crew members washed ashore, including radio operator Sergeant Fink at Bergen aan Zee and flight engineer Sgt Harcombe at Schoorl. They were buried in the war cemetery in Bergen.

The other four crew members, including Bewick Dowse, are still missing.

Martin Randolph Hehir was born in New South Wales, Australia on April 21, 1916.

He enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force in July 1940. Since he had no specialist knowledge, Hehir was assigned to training as an air gunner.

In March 1942 he left for England for further training. Three weeks before his last sortie, Sergeant Hehir was assigned to No. 142 Squadron, where he was to fly as a tail turret gunner in a British Vickers Wellington medium bomber.

In the night of 7 to 8 November 1942, the five-man crew in a Wellington was sent on their first operational mission to lay sea mines in the sea area south of Texel. These sea mines were dropped by parachute into the German convoy routes, about 5 kilometers off the coast.

At Bergen aan Zee, however, the Germans noticed the low-flying Wellington and the aircraft was caught in the searchlights. The pilot made escape manoeuvres but crashed into the sea, blinded by the searchlights.

The navigator Sergeant Atkinson and radio operator Flight Sergeant Woodhouse washed ashore at Bergen aan Zee the same day and were buried in the war cemetery of Bergen.

The other three crew members, including Martin Hehir, have no known grave and are still missing.

Wendell Oliver Palmer was born on October 30, 1917, in Anaconda, Montana, United States. On August 22, 1941, he enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. He was trained as a bomb aimer and flew a four-engined B-17 Flying Fort heavy bomber as part of a ten-man crew. Before he was sent to Europe, he married Ruth A. Glase in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on October 10, 1942.
On July 17, 1943, the 379th Bomb Group was dispatched to the rubber factories of Hanover. However, it turned out to be cloudy over the target and the bomber performance reversed. The crew of Second Lieutenant Palmer’s B-17 was on their first combat mission. They had to contend with a faulty right outer motor that had to be switched off. A second engine was hit by German anti-aircraft fire and the B-17 sank out of formation due to the loss of power. They were immediately attacked by German fighters and ducked into a low cloud bank with their tails shot to pieces. Because it was not certain whether England could still be reached, the pilot ordered the other crew members to be ready for a possible parachute jump.
However, Wendell Palmer and the navigator misunderstood and immediately jumped out of the plane. Unfortunately, the B-17 flew just above the coast near Wijk aan Zee. Both crew members landed in the surf 100 meters from the beach, but drowned.
The B-17 with the remaining eight crew members managed to return to England badly damaged. The body of navigator Second Lieutenant Mattan washed ashore near Egmond aan Zee a few weeks later and was buried at the war cemetery in Bergen and after the war transferred to the American war cemetery in Margraten. Wendell’s body has never been found and he is still missing in action.

Josef Tomanek was born on March 12, 1918 in Prerov, Czech Republic. He learned to glide at the local flying club. After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1938, he fled to England via France. There he trained as a pilot with the Royal Air Force and was assigned to No. 311 Squadron.

During a mission to Wilhelmshaven in the night of 28 to 29 December 1941, he flew in the rank of Sergeant and as co-pilot in a British Vickers Wellington medium bomber. The Wellington was damaged by anti-aircraft fire, causing one of the two engines to fail. They could no longer reach England and had to make an emergency landing on the North Sea on the way back.

Five of the six crew members managed to get into the dinghy. The tail gunner drowned when the wreckage sank. After two days, they were spotted 90 kilometers west of Den Helder by British planes. They threw off an aid package, but it floated away. In vain did the crew members wait for help.

On the morning of New Year’s Day, Josef Tomanek succumbed to the winter hardships. His body was thrown overboard by his comrades. It was not until 3 January that the dinghy and the other four crew members washed ashore at Petten.

In the meantime, one of the crew members had died. Josef Mohr was buried in the war cemetery of Bergen,

Josef Tomanek is still missing. His family in the Czech Republic did not know that Josef had been killed until after the war.

Stefan Tomicki was born on July 1, 1915 in Folwark Raducki, Poland. During the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he was a pilot in the Polish Air Force. After the capitulation, he fled to England via Romania and France. There he was assigned to a squadron with Polish volunteers.

In August 1941, Tomicki was shot down with his plane over Belgium. He managed to escape with the help of the Belgian and French Resistance and belonged to the first group of crew members to cross the Pyrenees during the war to return to England via Spain and Gibraltar. After his return, he was awarded the Polish Virtuti Militari, the highest award for bravery in wartime.

In the night of 8 to 9 April 1943 he was in the rank of Pilot Officer with his other five crew members in a British Vickers Wellington medium bomber of No. 300 Squadron en route to Duisburg. Even before reaching the coast, the Wellington was shot down by the heavy German anti-aircraft fire of IJmuiden and plunged into the North Sea 20 kilometers off the coast.

In the weeks and months following the crash, three of the six crew members washed ashore. The second pilot Sergeant Slusarski, navigator Pilot Office Rudek and tail gunner Sergeant Stepien were buried in the war cemetery of Bergen.

However, Stefan Tomicki is still missing.

Charles Clinton Topping was born on January 10, 1919, in Marysville, Ontario, Canada.

In July 1939 he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force. His application form stated that he had always had a keen interest in aviation. Early 1941 he left for England and on 26 July 1941 was assigned to No. 226 Squadron as a radio operator/air gunner.

On 26 August 1941, six British Bristol Blenheim light bombers were dispatched during the day to attack German convoys near the Dutch coast. In one of the Blenheims, Sergeant Topping sat behind his machine guns in the rear turret, on the lookout for German fighters. A convoy of seven cargo ships and seven anti-aircraft escort ships sailed at the IJmuiden control barrel. The Blenheims went on the attack and managed to hit one of the ships. Topping’s Blenheim was probably unable to drop the bombs and tried to attack a boat of the Hafenschutzflottille a little further away. From the boat, the Blenheim was hit in the nose with machine gun fire.

The other aircrews saw how the Blenheim tried to make an emergency landing at sea with a burning engine and landing flaps lowered. The Blenheim slammed into the sea, four nautical miles north of the control barrel and sank. A separate boat departed from IJmuiden to the crash site, but found no wreckage or survivors.
In October 1941, the body of the observer Sergeant Burdon washed ashore near Egmond aan Zee and was buried in the war cemetery of Bergen.

The pilot and Charles Topping are still missing.

Franz Xaver von Werra was born on July 13, 1914 in Leuk, Switzerland. In 1917 he became a German citizen.

He wanted to become a pilot, so he joined the Luftwaffe in 1936.

On September 5, 1940, Von Werra was shot down over England in a Messerschmitt Bf 109 during the Battle of Britain.

He was captured, but tried to escape with a British fighter plane by pretending to be a Dutch airman serving in the RAF.
He was deported to prisoner of war camps in Canada. After arriving in Canada, he escaped from the train. By crossing the Saint Lawrence River, he ended up in the then neutral United States.

The German embassy helped him with the return trip to Germany. In April 1941, Von Werra arrived in Berlin and was awarded the Knight’s Cross.

Von Werra returned to the Lufwaffe in the rank of Hauptmann and served another six months on the Eastern Front. In August 1941 his unit was transferred to the Netherlands.

On 25 October 1941 he carried out a test flight from Valkenburg airfield near Katwijk. At 25 kilometers off the coast, he had technical problems and crashed into the North Sea. Since then, Franz vor Werra has been considered missing.