Excavating Heroism: 

Warplanes dug up in Germany are yielding new clues about the last moments of Canadian airmen

By Steven Edwards   

The heroism of Canadian and other Second World War airmen is being rediscovered through excavations of Allied and German warplanes shot down over Germany.

Spearheading the drive is a father of four whose newest project targets a Lancaster bomber near Darmstadt that carried two Royal Canadian Air Force members from Toronto.

The extraordinary work of Uwe Benkel, 43, began in 1989 with the excavation of an RCAF Wellington bomber of 431 Squadron -- today the number of Canada's Snowbirds.

While 1940s "scrap hunters" removed bigger surface wreckage, huge quantities remain buried and Mr. Benkel's excavations are yielding new clues to the airmen's last terrifying moments.

"It's so emotional to imagine what our airmen went through, but the more you can find out the better," said Ron Costen, a Grimsby, Ont., resident and relative of one of five Canadians aboard an RAF Halifax heavy bomber Mr. Benkel also plans to unearth.

A shortage of RCAF squadrons meant hundreds of Canadians flew with the Royal Air Force.

They included Pilot Officer Stephen Simm, a navigator, and Pilot Officer Edward Kisilowsky, a rear gunner, aboard the Lancaster -- the most successful bomber used by both air forces during the war -- that Mr. Benkel seeks for his 83rd recovery.

Digging was set to start last September, but the landowner suddenly denied access to Mr. Benkel and a partner for this project, U.S. army Sgt. Danny Keay.

"The farmer said it has been buried for 60 years so it can stay there," Mr. Benkel said from his home in Heltersberg, Germany, near the French border.

Benkel

"He's also asked us for 5,000 euros ($6,800), saying they're poor."

A German Messerschmitt night fighter probably brought down the massive bomber on Aug. 26, 1944, about 15 kilometres from its target, Darmstadt. Some accounts say it tried to crash land.

RAF records say the airmen's remains were exhumed after the war from a "communal grave without coffins" near the wreckage, and are now in Bad Tolz British Military Cemetery in Durnbach, Germany.

But Mr. Benkel says a different scenario emerged after fellow plane hunter Kurat Langer rediscovered the wreck three years ago.

"He heard from a wartime witness the farmers and police retrieved only parts of bodies from around the plane and nothing from inside," Mr. Benkel said.

"He also visited the field when the farmer was planting, and found aluminum pieces, fragments of the bomb load, and bone he thinks are from the crewmen.

Remains of three crewmen could still be in the field. Records show Pilot Officer Kisilowsky's identity tag enabled identification of his body, but there had been no identification of Pilot Officer Simm's remains by 1948, when officials told his next-of-kin that graves for unidentified crew members would be "registered collectively."

Lancaster bomber

"We just want to give these guys a proper burial," said Mr. Benkel, who has recovered the remains of 28 airmen.

He responded to the farmer's threats of legal action by telling German authorities a "cookie" -- an 1,800 kilogram "blockbuster" bomb used to blow apart roofs for incendiary bomb penetration -- may still be among the buried wreckage.

"When Kurat first came to me, we went to the field with metal detectors and located the explosive," Mr. Benkel said. German authorities order removal of unexploded devices, and Mr. Benkel is hoping for a decision by the summer.

Relatives of the British crew are tracking Mr. Benkel's efforts, but he's been unable to locate family of the Canadians.

Navigator Simm, 29, who was married and had a son, David, born in 1942, was a mining engineering student at the University of Toronto, RCAF records show.

The widow of the plane's pilot, 27-year-old RAF Flight Lieut. Maurice Harding, said her husband befriended the Canadian after spending two years in Saskatchewan and Alberta training pilots.

"He was a very nice young man, I do remember that," said Audrey Ewing, 84, who met him when he accompanied her then-fiance on a short leave.

Flight Officer Simm says on a health form he smoked "15 cigs per day" and was an "occasional" drinker, but only on "pay night."

Flight Officer Kisilowsky, a baker's assistant before joining up, died single at age 20.

The families of both men received a standard RAF letter saying each was "exceedingly popular with all the boys on the squadron."

Flight Officer Kisilowsky's Russian immigrant father, Onufry, would later bitterly wrangle with Canadian authorities to prevent the airman's Polish-born mother, Frances, from laying claim to his son's $271.18 war gratuity, $109.88 service estate and $1,000 in defence bonds, Archives Canada records show.

What's left of the Lancaster is far below the surface, where wreckage and even human remains are often surprisingly well preserved. Spilled fuel sometimes gives added protection.

An example of what could emerge is provided by Mr. Benkel's 1999 excavation of a Messerschmitt fighter.

He and helpers extracted the battered but near-intact body of its pilot, Georg Frohlich, along with his unused silk parachute, cigarettes and blood-stained wallet containing Reichsmark bills.

That project turned out to be one of the most emotional for Mr. Benkel, but also one of the most ominous because a group of apparent neo-Nazis turned up.

"We'd contacted the pilot's family who were there amid other onlookers," he said.

"We placed the body in a coffin, and when we brought it up, two skinheads in military boots came out of the crowd. They asked me to open the lid, saying they wanted to take a picture of the dead pilot."

Mr. Benkel refused, turned to Mr. Frohlich's daughter Astrid, and handed over her father's identity tag.

"She hugged me and cried. She had been one year old at her father's death, and this was the first thing she'd ever had that belonged to him personally."

Mr. Benkel said he was so touched he and his wife, Martina, 36 -- a journalist he met as she covered an earlier excavation -- named their next child after the pilot. Georgina is now five.

From Ontario, Mr. Costen has kept track of Mr. Benkel's preliminary metal-detector search where the Halifax went down in February 1945, killing his cousin, Pilot Officer Wilfred Phillips, 27, of Hamilton. It produced an oxygen bottle and cockpit parts, but Mr. Benkel says much more remains at the Hohen-Sulzen site in southwestern Germany, which Mr. Costen, 76, visited in 2004.

Mr. Benkel's passion for Second World War planes evolved from a childhood fascination watching American planes over his village from nearby Ramstein Air Base and attending its annual air show.

He was sickened by a 1988 disaster, when a midair collision of three Italian air force jets exploded into a fireball, killing 70 and injuring hundreds more. But it got him thinking about what wartime pilots must have gone through.

During a 1989 trip to the RAF museum in Hendon, England, he noted farmers and road workers had dug up many of the display items.

Neighbours of wartime age told him of the RCAF Wellington that became his first recovery project. One of 600 planes targeting Mannheim in April 1943, it had been shot down over nearby Hochspeyer.

The bomber, nicknamed the "Wimpy," was slow and carried a small bomb load, which quickly made it obsolete during the war. However, its tough design meant it often survived battle damage intact.

"I found almost three tons of material -- ammunition, parts of the cockpit, instruments, even the escape hatch," Mr. Benkel said.

He used recovered serial numbers to research the crew, four of whom survived, including the two Canadians aboard.

A year later, Flight Officer (later Flight Lieut.) Bill Paton of Toronto told him what happened that night, thanks to a contact arranged by the RCAF Prisoner of War Association. RCAF Sgt. Ralph Rudd, the plane's bomb aimer, later promoted to warrant officer, helped him fill in the blanks after the war because he suffered memory loss, Mr. Paton explained.

"In the excitement of bailing out, Ralph pulled his rip-cord in the aircraft, and his parachute opened," Mr. Paton, then age 73, wrote to Mr. Benkel. "He said he looked at me when it happened. The look on my face made him roll up his chute in his arms and jump out. It worked and I followed."

Mr. Benkel has located 1,300 of the 15,000 to 20,000 Allied and German planes shot down over the country, marking locations in red on a map.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton has sent him a letter of support, and he's an honorary member of British Bomber Command Association. But it's a race against time as witnesses and next of kin grow older.

"At first when we reach family, there is clear shock that -- after so many years -- we're telling them we've found something that tells them more about their loved one," Mr. Benkel said.

"Then you see relief on their faces -- it's like a chapter is being closed. They all deserve that before they pass on."

Mr. Benkel can be reached by e-mail at mu.benkel@t-online.de.

© 2006 Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved.

Illustration:
• Photo: The Associated Press / Uwe Benkel's first recovery project was a RCAF Wellington long-range bomber similar to these. Photo: Uwe Benkel recovers the remains of Georg Frohlich, a German pilot whose wife and daughter were on-hand to receive the body.

Sun Mar 19 2006
Page: A5

Section: News
Source: The Ottawa Citizen

Edition: Final
Story Type: News
Length: 1468 words