18th Feb 1941.

 

Heinkel He 111-3  (3349) from 4/KG 3 was completely lost and had already jettisoned its bombs, when it flew over RAF Watton at 100ft and was hit by LMG fire then in the wings by three PAC (parachute and cable rocket apparatus) from RAF Watton, two which partly tore through the wing spars. The Heinkel crash-landed and ended up across a drainage culvert at Waterend Farm Ovington a 7.55am. The two men who captured the crew and prevented them from firing the aircraft, were mentioned in the London Gazette. Aircraft A1+CM wrecked.

 

Crew taken prisoner  Fw H Busch, Oberlt E Langguth, Uffz W Schmoll and Geft K Kammermeier (slightly wounded)

 

Heinrich Busch had a lucky escape a bullet tore the shoulder of his flying suit before grazing Kummermeirs face and exiting through the top of the fuselage.

 

In Canada Busch was involved in the murder of a fellow German POW who had anti-Nazi convictions. He was tried by an Allied war crimes court and executed.

 

The RCMP investigated the murders. It took three years to complete the second murder investigation. There were also some important legal issues about whether the POWs could go to trial in a Canadian court. In the end, four men were convicted and hanged at Lethbridge Jail in 1946 for the 1944 murder of Dr. Karl Lehmann

 

From, Norfolk in the second  world  war by Neil R Storey.

 

Researched by Robert J Collis.