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RAF aircraft's crash sites in Province of Vlaams Brabant:
Neerwinden

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Last update: 25/06/23


Elegy to
the Heroes of Silence


* To the 59 Squadron *
* To the crew of N6173 *
* To the monument erected in remembrance *
* Cemetery where rest the crew *
* Memorial where the crew is commemorated *

Crash site of Blenheim N6173
13/05/1940

aircraft
cest raf squadron



Unit: 59 Squadron
Aircraft: Blenheim
Code: N6173
Base:
Mission: Recce
Crew officer: P/O CHAMBERLAIN, CROYDEN JELFS EDINBOROUGH
Incident: Shot down by German fighter

Location: (Prov. Vlaams Brabant)

crash

Facts

According to my notes taken from the No.59 Squadron ORB in NA(PRO) AIR27/554, P/O C.J.E. CHAMBERLAIN and crew failed to return from an evening reconnaissance sortie on 13 May 1940 their take-off being timed at 18.30 hours. I further noted that the Squadron Equipment Officer's Report filed in the ORB Appendices AIR27/558 dated the loss as 12 May 1940. So, given the degree of confusion apparent in the squadron records, and the time of the sortie on which they went missing, it is perhaps not surprising that this crew are officially commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial as missing on 14 May 1940.
The records of the CWGC confirm that three unidentified RAF airmen buried in collective grave VI.G.7 at Hotton War Cemetery had been re-interred from Neerwinden Churchyard where they were originally buried, their date of death being recorded as 13 May 1940. They remain 'Unknown'.
It is I that made the connection and first suggested the possibility that the missing CHAMBERLAIN crew was that buried at Neerwinden in The Battle of France Then & Now published in 2007.
Source: http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/archive/index.php?t-22817.html

https://www.luchtvaartgeschiedenis.be/content/blenheim-n6173-bij-neerwinden http://www.luchtvaarterfgoed.be/content/herdenkingsplaat-bemanning-blenheim-n6173
Sources:

The International Bomber Command Centre (IBCC)
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC)
Aircrew Remembered
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