Even 79 years after the end of the Second World War, new details still come to light from time to time. As in the case of a British bomber that crashed in Timmenrode in 1944.
by Jens Müller- Published in Harzer Volksstimme
Timmenrode. “Early on Monday, January 3, in the dark between 3 and 4 o'clock, a burning four-engine enemy bomber flew over the Teufelsmauer towards our village. Below the station to the left of the Jordan, one engine was thrown onto the field. The rest of the wreckage made a turn to the right of the Jordan River and then also crashed,” Pastor Müller once wrote in the Timmenröder village chronicle. However, his entries provide many more details about this event.
All seven crew members died in the crash. Five of them were badly charred. They were initially buried in the Blankenburg cemetery and later reburied in the British war cemetery in Berlin.
The fact that the fate of these seven young Englishmen came back into focus 78 years later is thanks to an old weather vane that Helen Theron and her husband John found in a scrapyard in England. The rusty piece was a replica of an aircraft with the initially enigmatic lettering JB 453. As it turned out, JB 453 was the registration number of an Avro Lancaster Mk III of the British Royal Air Force - the bomber that had been shot down over Timmenrode.
Author Tony Aston came across this story and found more details about the plane and its tragic history. The Royal Air Force 83 Squadron plane had entered service in 1941 and took off from Wyton Airport (Cambridgeshire) for Berlin at 0.05am on that fateful day. On board: Flying Officer Ian Godfrey Allan (22), Sergeant Joseph Bank (22), Sergeant John MacIntyre Dunlop (21), Flying Officer William Horace Dyke (22), Pilot Officer Denis Charles James McKendry (22) and Flight Sergeant Patrick Traynor (24) as well as Flying Officer Ernest Blair Stiles of the Royal Canadian Air Force (22). It is very likely that their plane was hit so hard by a German Luftwaffe night fighter pilot in a JU 88 C-6 - stationed at Gilze-Rijen airfield in the Netherlands - that it crashed in the field between Timmenrode and Warnstedt.
Tony Aston published this story as a book under the title “The Bomber and the Weather Vane” and made contact with Timmenrode almost a year ago.
Originally, he only wanted to find out the exact location of the crash, as local chronicler Lothar Wiegmann reported.This was followed by further research and a close exchange with the retired police officer from Redditch and Helen Theron from Westhope.She had also meticulously researched the crew killed in Timmenrode and their fate and had even tracked down descendants.“One Sunday, Tony turned up on my doorstep,” says Lothar Wiegmann.At this meeting, the idea was born to set a common example in the town for peace and international understanding - as quickly and unbureaucratically as possible.On Saturday, September 14, a lime tree will be planted on the Thie and a memorial stone will be ceremoniously unveiled at the site of the Avro Lancaster crash.Commemorative plaques will be attached to both the lime tree and the stone - donated by dedicated members of the Timmenröder village club.Eighteen guests from England are expected to attend the ceremony, having already visited the Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery the day before to commemorate the war dead.
