New Year’s Eve 1944 - 2nd TACTICAL AIR FORCE
Long-range armed reconnaissance over the Hannover area, Germany
247 Squadron, RAF (B78 [Eindhoven], Netherlands - 124 Wing, 83 Group)
Typhoon IB MN399/M - took off at 1120 with eight others, being one of two which failed to return. After an uneventful outward journey two of the formation headed back directly towards base, one accompanying the other who was unable to jettison his long range tanks.
The rest encountered a small locomotive and a lorry, but while attacking these NM399 and another became separated and were later bounced by three fighters. NM399 was shot down and crashed in a wooded area, where it exploded on impact. His victor survived only momentarily, being shot down in turn by the other Typhoon. Confusion exists as to MN399’s crash site, records variously recording it as near Diepenau, or on Ladbergen or Kattenvenne Moors. Postwar the pilot’s body was exhumed from a German cemetery at Ladbergen by an American graves registration unit and temporarily transferred to one of their Belgian cemeteries, near Liège at Neuville-en-Condroz. His final place of interment is further south, at Hotton.