THE FINAL FLIGHT

OF

HALIFAX LV881 ZA-V

HALIFAX LV881-ZA-V: Research Project Update

Plt Off W. T. A. Regan RAFVR Pilot

WO2 W. W. Norris RCAF Navigator

Flt Sgt N. Wilmot RAFVR Bomb Aimer

Flt Sgt A. D. Lawes RAFVR Flt Engineer

Sgt D. L. Smith RAFVR WOP/Gunner

Flt Sgt E. H. Birch RAAF Mid Upper Gunner

Sgt R. W. Tindal RAFVR Tail Gunner

approach with project participants from Germany, Netherlands and the UK might allow a

collaboration of both expertise and national interest to tackle a potentially sensitive subject.

During the process, partnerships that formed might help to build a fuller understanding of the

challenges involved with exploring and subsequently managing WWII archaeological

remains, whilst alerting a wider audience to the importance of such sites as cultural heritage

and places of memorialisation. Of particular importance was the opportunity to provide a full

account of the fate of the lost aircraft and her crew for relatives and create a commemorative

record of events to ensure their story would not be forgotten.

A local military aviation expert and staff from nearby hessenARCHÄOLOGIE had been

Project progress

The international team began their work by interviewing local people and discovered that the

crash had been witnessed by villagers from Steinheim back in 1944. Indeed a variety of

local people recalled helping the German authorities to clear the wreckage away

immediately after the crash during the day of the 31st of March. They also knew that three of

the seven crew survived the crash and were taken prisoner. Survivors from the crash had

been taken to Bürgermeister house in Trais-Horloff where they stayed for the following day

and night, before they were transferred by train to Dulag Luft just outside Frankfurt. They

with by staff from hessenARCHÄOLOGIE, contact was made with 10 Squadron Association

who formed a small group to research the crew. Work by Ann Bihan soon provided contact

with relatives of almost all the families of the LV881 crew and helped to piece together the

surviving crew member’s experiences in the years following the crash.

Once information started to filter in from the official records and from surviving crew

accounts, a clear picture of what had happened began to emerge. Most instructive were the

diary entries of flight engineer Alan Lawes who had survived the crash and recorded his time

as a POW. His information, cross referenced with the other available evidence, including a

detailed account by Bill Norris the Navigator (who also survived the crash), created a

order to bail out and four of the crew (Ronald Tindal, Bill Norris, Norman Wilmot and Alan

Lawes) managed to escape the burning aircraft. However, sadly in the chaos, one of those,

the tail gunner Ronald Tindal, fell through his harness to his death.

The other crew remained in the aircraft until it exploded just over the hill outside the village of

Hungen-Steinheim. From the accounts so far collected it seems that the mid upper gunner

Hugh Birch was probably killed during the night fighter attack and perhaps wireless operator

Donald Smith too. The pilot, Walter Regan remained at the controls of the stricken aircraft

until the end to give his comrades the best possible chance of survival. He probably died as

the aircraft exploded. The survivors were left to stumble their way through the dark

View of the wooded hill onto which Halifax LV881-ZA-V crashed on the night of March 30th 1944. This

photograph is taken in the direction of the final flight path of the aircraft, with the village of Hungen

behind us and the village of Hungen-Steinheim just to the right of the hill. The village of Rodheim is just

to the left of the hill.

Whilst the bomber stream made its way back to England, the surviving crew members of

LV881 were beginning to adjust to their new surroundings in the cold morning air of wartime

Germany. Flight Engineer Alan Lawes’ diary records that after a few days (presumably at

the local Bürgermeister’s house) they were interrogated before they were transferred by train

to Dulag Luft Oberursel just outside Frankfurt. Alan Lawes was later transferred to a POW

Walter Regan, Donald Smith and Hugh Birch were buried in Steinheim cemetery where their

graves were cared for by local people, before being moved to Hannover war cemetery in

1948. Tail gunner Ronald Tindal was buried in nearby Hungen cemetery but was later

transferred to Hannover with the others.

An examination of the official records available also showed that our project team were not

the first to visit the crash site. Immediately after the war, Squadron Leader J. H. Sanderson,

of MRES Section no 14 of No 3 Missing Research Enquires Unit investigated the crash site

in January 1947. He interviewed the local Bürgermeister and talked to local people, locating

and identifying the bodies of the 4 airmen killed. He did not at that time, realise that the

compartment of the aircraft had lain. The hilltop where the wreckage had fallen is now

largely covered by trees (more so than it had during 1944) and whilst this has helped to

preserve the original resting place of objects, it has made the work of actually locating them

challenging. Metal detectors were used to identify scatters of material across the hill top in

the hope of better understanding the aircrafts final moments. The cockpit area was

investigated by creating a gridded excavation area where it had lain and then numbering and

examining each square individually. This would provide a way to recover very small objects

and provide a distribution plot of material. The majority of artefacts recovered during this

work are now being cleaned and processed at the University of Winchester. Objects include

plastic cable duct, Perspex from the windows, the remains of instrument dials, various leaver

Excavation underway at Hungen-Steinheim, August 2014

This was the final resting place of the forward section of the fuselage. Items found were primarily from

the forward compartment that housed the navigation and communication equipment, together with the

bomb sight.

Postscript