Tony Paterson: Uwe Benkel's Team Has Recovered Thousands Of Bodies Of WWII Allied Airmen
A fist-sized block of glass sits on top of a stack of files in Uwe Benkel's sitting-room. It looks like an expensive crystal paper weight that might have been bought at Harrods. Yet the block has a more poignant history. A few weeks before Christmas it was retrieved from a 15ft pit hidden deep in a forest in Germany's Rhineland Palatinate district near the French border.
The block once formed part of the bulletproof windscreen of an American fighter bomber flown by 21-year-old Ronald Potter, whose P47 "Thunderbolt" plane was shot down 61 years ago during a Second World War dogfight with a German Messerschmitt.
Yesterday Uwe Benkel, a mild-mannered social security office manager in his forties, presented the chunk of windscreen and other bits of retrieved plane wreckage to Kerry Potter, the 62-year-old son of the pilot of the American plane. He travelled to Germany from Alaska for what was an emotional ceremony.
"Kerry Potter is deeply moved," Mr Benkel said. "He told me on the phone from Alaska that this will finally connect him with his father. He said he had given up hope of finding out much about him. Until now, nobody really knew how he died. He was simply listed as killed in action and his body was found in a mass grave."
The event will be another milestone in Uwe Benkel's remarkable part-time career. Since 1989, he and the 14 other voluntary and unpaid members of his Research Group for the Missing have recovered the remains of 80 British, American and German wartime aircraft shot down during the Second World War and recovered the bodies of 28 pilots listed as missing.
"It is more of a calling than a hobby," Mr Benkel said last week, "We just think its right to give these lads a decent burial and explain their fate to their relatives. We don't give a damn whose side they were on. Most of them were hardly out of their teens," he added.
The fate of US Air Force Lieu-tentant Ronald Potter is typical of the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 pilots shot down over Germany during the Second World War. Shortly after his plane crashed, his body was found by local German officials and simply dumped in a mass grave. After the Allied invasion of Germany, US officials found the body, identified it, and returned it to America for military burial. But Ronald Potter was just one of the thousands of US pilots killed in action.
However, Mr Benkel's team of crash-site excavators was able to discover the exact circumstances of his death. "We asked local people who remembered witnessing the dogfight. Then we actually found the pilot of the Messerschmitt who shot down Lt Potter's plane. He is still alive!" Mr Benkel said.
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Relatives of Second World War pilots stil registered as missing in Germany can contact Martina and Uwe Benkel in English at Am Zimmerkopf 9,67716 Heltersberg, Germany.
Email: mu.benkel@t-online.de
The block once formed part of the bulletproof windscreen of an American fighter bomber flown by 21-year-old Ronald Potter, whose P47 "Thunderbolt" plane was shot down 61 years ago during a Second World War dogfight with a German Messerschmitt.
Yesterday Uwe Benkel, a mild-mannered social security office manager in his forties, presented the chunk of windscreen and other bits of retrieved plane wreckage to Kerry Potter, the 62-year-old son of the pilot of the American plane. He travelled to Germany from Alaska for what was an emotional ceremony.
"Kerry Potter is deeply moved," Mr Benkel said. "He told me on the phone from Alaska that this will finally connect him with his father. He said he had given up hope of finding out much about him. Until now, nobody really knew how he died. He was simply listed as killed in action and his body was found in a mass grave."
The event will be another milestone in Uwe Benkel's remarkable part-time career. Since 1989, he and the 14 other voluntary and unpaid members of his Research Group for the Missing have recovered the remains of 80 British, American and German wartime aircraft shot down during the Second World War and recovered the bodies of 28 pilots listed as missing.
"It is more of a calling than a hobby," Mr Benkel said last week, "We just think its right to give these lads a decent burial and explain their fate to their relatives. We don't give a damn whose side they were on. Most of them were hardly out of their teens," he added.
The fate of US Air Force Lieu-tentant Ronald Potter is typical of the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 pilots shot down over Germany during the Second World War. Shortly after his plane crashed, his body was found by local German officials and simply dumped in a mass grave. After the Allied invasion of Germany, US officials found the body, identified it, and returned it to America for military burial. But Ronald Potter was just one of the thousands of US pilots killed in action.
However, Mr Benkel's team of crash-site excavators was able to discover the exact circumstances of his death. "We asked local people who remembered witnessing the dogfight. Then we actually found the pilot of the Messerschmitt who shot down Lt Potter's plane. He is still alive!" Mr Benkel said.
...
Relatives of Second World War pilots stil registered as missing in Germany can contact Martina and Uwe Benkel in English at Am Zimmerkopf 9,67716 Heltersberg, Germany.
Email: mu.benkel@t-online.de