World War crash site found in Germany Call for descendants of Wimbledon airman who was killed in crash

Corporal Frederick William Sargeant was one of two British airmen with twenty-two others who were killed with soldiers and passengers when the C-47 world war two plane crashed on September 24, 1944.

The World War Two crash site was recently found in Germany.

The plane was en route to India and lost its way and due to bad weather and navigational problems flew into Germany in broad daylight and was shot down.

Erik Wieman from Germany, originally from the Netherlands was researching the Canadian crew of another crash site in a village where he lived and decided to research in English and Canadian databases (Neuleiningen) the crash of C-47 Dakota KG653.

Erik said: “I saw 23 soldiers died there, 20 Canadians, one Australian and two British airmen and I wanted to know more about exactly where this happened and what lead to the crash, with the final goal to plan a memorial stone at the site after we find it and excavate it.”

Erik visited some eyewitnesses of the crash, where a witness showed him a piece of the aircraft he had picked up in 1944 at the site as a little boy.

He was also shown the piece of a wing which broke of before the plane crashed, described by the pilot of the German Me109, Julius Meimberg came down 500 metres away from the main crash site.

Erik and his team found pieces of plastic window, tyre-fragments and small pieces of aluminium still at the site and has now applied for a permit this year to search the whole area with metal detecting equipment to find out what’s been left of the crash in the ground.

Sixteen graves have been dug at the Neuleiningen cemetery with airmen buried in the same grave.

Erik said: “They gave their lives for their country and we should remember them, that is our goal. Our goal is to find sites, recover what is left and remember the killed aircrew. We also want to show the German people that walk by these former crash site what happened here."