Crashed Plane, maybe french???

[Aeronaut]

Hello sirs,

i got a big problem with a picture, can someone say what type of (maybe) french plane that was???? All i can see ist the side rudder...



Best reguards,
Dirk

['14-'18aviationcollector]

Hi Dirk,

That photo would be an excellent one for the crash files! It looks to me as though it could be a DH 4, 9 or 9a, based on the shape of the fin, the fact that there appear to be a large control horn and possibly a smaller one underneath it, and what looks like PC 10 on the balance of the rudder. I am by no means certain, and the serial number does not appear to be complete to me. If it was, and if I had access to my book which tells which serial numbers belong to which aeroplane types I would be able to tell you for sure.

Cheers,

David.

[Aeronaut]

Originally Posted by '14-'18aviationcollector

Hi Dirk,

That photo would be an excellent one for the crash files!

Yes, sure, but how can i ask for it if i dont know what it is? So its a poor crash file game...

Cheers,

David.

Reguards,
Dirk

[Froggy]

Bonjour à tous

The serial numbers on the rudder seems to be

D ?273

May be (?) this aircraft was the DH4 D9273 of 55 squadron

World War I Aircraft Serial Numbers

Cordialement
Bruno

[Aeronaut]

Ah, ok. So this plane is not older than 1917 and british, not french. But the people standing arroud looking "older", more 1914-15. Or is the guy with the "pickelhaube" an policeman?? What do you think?

[Ransom E. Olds]

I would think there's a good chance they are policemen and that the photo was taken in Germany. Surely if the pic was made in a combat zone the officers wouldn't have cared for French or Belgian civilians sticking their noses in a German matter. Ransom

[Froggy]

Bonsoir

The DH4 N° 9273 was downed on 16/08/1918 with crew members
Lt EA Browhill & Lt WT Madge both KIA
possibly by Vfw Lemke or Vfw Bücher (source.Jasta war chronology)
they were downed in Germany near Dageburg
The Lt Madge is buried at NIEDERZWEHREN CEMETERY near Hessen in Germany
CWGC :: Casualty Details
That couldexplain the presence of german civilians near the wreckage
as said Ransom-

Cordialement
Bruno

[Thomas Trauner]

Thanks a lot, Bruno.
The date mid of August fits well to the Sunflowers. The man in the Pickelhaube is a policeman, I’m sure.
But I dare to add, that I cannot find a place named “Dageburg” in Germany.
“Niederzwehren” is part of Kassel in Northern Hessia.
Kassel is too far away from the western front (roughly 400 km, 250 miles) as to be attacked by the RAF in 1918 using D.H 4.
Another source, hidden in ; www.spink.com/auctions/pdf/7012_Afternoon.pdf

reveals that D.H.4 D.9273 was part of a morning raid on the railway at Darmstadt. The original target had been Cologne.
The “flying coffin” was brought down near Bensheim (a few km east of Worms).
This, I think, makes more sense.
Cologne/Darmstadt are in the reach of the RAF. Bensheim is 25 km south of Darmstadt.

So, I guess, the photo was taken in the near of Bensheim.
Maybe Lt Madge was fatally injured and died in an army-hospital in Kassel..

Sorry for the above link. Google just says, that these details are in this link, which contains 256 pages of pdf-files without a search machine….
I also don´t have any idea for “Dageburg”. There is no place sounding similar...

Aeronaut - don´t you have any information on this photo ? Nothing, nill, zero, garnix ?

Thomas

[Thomas Trauner]

Add on:

Another googling around brought the following:
Unter Lot 587 (page 195) in the above link the medals of Lt EA Brow(n)hill were sold. As far as I unterstood, they are from 1916.

Refering to “The Sky Their Battlefield”, T.Henshaw they tell the following:

Second Lieutenant Earnest Albert Brownhill. M.M.
born Sheffield, Yorkshire, 1893, joined Royal Army Medical Corps (T.F.)25.5.1910; Lance Corporal 5.8.1914, Corporal 26.9.1914; served during the Great War with the regiment in the French Theatre of War. 15.4.1915-19.3.1917; promoted Sergeant, in the field, 8.5.1915; when applying for a commission in 1917, Brownhill´s C.O. described his intelligence as “exceptionally brilliant” with “very good power of command and at his best when in charge of a party of bearers working under fire”; Brownhill qualified for his “Wings” in June 1918, and after an initial posting to 52 Squadron he was posted to 55 Squadron in France as a component of 41st Wing, Independent Force; on 16.8.1918 Brownhill, piloting D.H.4 D.9273, was part of a morning raid on the railway at Darmstadt. “The original target had been Koln, but low cloud made the leader chosse the alternative target of Mannheim instead and, as conditions improved, they pressed on a little further and hit Darmstadt. Throughout August, enemy opposition on these raids was increasingly daily, and on their way home, near Mannheim, they were attacked by twenty fighters who shot four D.H.4s and wounded other crew”. Brownhill and his Observer Second Lieutnant W.T. Madge occupied one of the four De Havillands,
“On 16th August 1918 a D.H.4 (reg. D. 9273 was shot south of Bensheim on the mountain road. Both occupants dead due to shot wounds through the head and breast.”

Brownhill and Madge were both buried in Niederzwehren Cemetery, Germany.

End of citation.

There also is a photo showing him and his bride at their wedding, eight month before he lost his life in Hessia.....

Further:
There is no “mountain road” in Bensheim. No mountains, no street or road called “Bergstr". (mountain road…)
But the surrounding county is called “Landkreis Bergstrasse” so a correct translation is

“was shot south of Bensheim in the county of Bergstrasse.”

I still wondered about the distance between Bensheim, the place of death of the both brave RAF members and their place to rest in Kassel.
But the story is:
The Niederzwehren Cemetery was build by Sir Robert Lorimer in 1923, as a cemetery for Commonwealth soldiers. You find further information unter “Commonwealth War Graves Commission" and "Niederzwehren Cemetery." Fotos are in the German wikipedia.

So both men had been brought to this CWGC Cemetery post war.

So far.

Thomas

I like this riddles....

[Ransom E. Olds]

This isn't a topic on which I have any real background, but my impression is that many war dead from both sides were reinterred after the war, so that there were smaller numbers of cemeteries containing larger numbers of burials in Germany, France, Belgium, and possibly elsewhere. Ransom