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Originally Posted by Les
Thanks for the story. Nice to know the locals are keeping their history intact.
I started reading it wondering why the Germans didn't set their plane on fire to keep it from being captured, then saw the bit about the explosive charge. Makes me wonder if they just started shooting at the British troops in order to have time to set the charge? I know it was war and all that, but it seems odd that the Germans would put up a fight like that and then just surrender anyway. Was it common for crash-landed aircrews to shoot at the people they were about to surrender to?
No details either on whether the commanding officer knew the importance of saving that particular kind of aircraft, or if he knew exactly where the explosive charge was and how much time he had before it was set to go off. Worthy of a medal even if he did, but if he did it just on the chance he might find the charge and disable it in time, because the captured aircraft might prove useful...wow, talk about self-sacrifice for the greater good.
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Hi Les
I think your dead right crews would not usually have a shoot out because it would have been futile but as you say this was almost certainly a stalling tactic untill the charges were set and had they landed in an unpopulated area then setting Fire to the plane might have been viable as it would have had time to burn but here they practically landed on a pub full of armed British soldiers and had very little time to act.
And based on this I think that Captain Cantopher realised what was happening and asumed there must have been something important that the Aircrew didnt want them to get.
So once the Aircrew had been captured and he heard them mention in German that the plane should 'go up' at any moment he knew he had to try and save the plane for future analasys.
It was a 50/50 call as to which wing the charge was under but
Captain Cantopher went looking anyway not knowing when the charge might
go off.
Fortunatly he found it in time and saved the Ju 88 Which was only two weeks old and was fitted with a secret and extremely accurate new bombsight.
Captain Cantopher was very Brave and well deserved his George Medal also
The Ju88 aircrew were also brave as they were prepared to Fight at close quarters and Die when they could have just surrendered in order to protect their County's Military secrets .