The Exbury Junkers: A World War II Mystery - Part VIII
By: John Stanley
On reading "The Exbury Junkers", if I may be so bold as to presume you may wish to buy a copy, you will find that it is possible to reach a conclusion about this curious wartime episode. I have examined several theories about what caused the Ju 188 to fly right into the heart of the Allied invasion preparations in broad daylight in the run-up to D-Day and with seven men on board. And I have identified the most likely reason for this. However, you will also see that there are a number of intriguing loose ends, things that still don't add up, which in my view will serve to keep the mystery alive forever.
I was rather disappointed, initially, to think that I may not be able to completely solve this mystery once and for all. But the more I have thought about it, the less it seems to matter. In fact, to a large extent I believe that the appeal of the Exbury Junkers incident lies in the fact that, sixty years on, it is still a mystery.
Although I have analysed all the available information and drawn my own conclusions about what it was that brought this German bomber to the Hampshire coast, readers will doubtless form their own opinions.
But this has become much more than a puzzle-solving exercise to me. The more I have delved into the events of April 18th 1944, the more I have become absorbed by the human aspects of this story. What do I mean by that ?
Firstly, it has been fascinating to hear all the different eyewitness accounts, to know a little bit about the lives of you the eyewitnesses, and what you were doing at that stage in the war, whether you were in the services or civilians, adults or children. In effect your collective accounts have created a snapshot of a moment in time, and obviously a crucial moment in wartime.
Then there is the human aspect of the incident itself, the fact that seven young men lost their lives in the Junkers crash. As I have learned more about the men, I have come to feel some sympathy for them and for their families to whom they never returned. Reading the last letters that two of them wrote to their relatives, in one case just five days before the crash, was quite a moving experience.
Yes of course, this was wartime, these men were the enemy, they were fighting on the other side. Also, back in April 1944, with D-Day preparations in their final stages, secrecy was obviously of paramount importance to the Allies, and no risk whatsoever could have been taken with a German bomber flying low over such sensitive military locations. No-one could dispute that. However, these men were also human beings, with the same sorts of hopes and dreams that any young men of their age may have had, irrespective of their origins and circumstances.
I have received a lot of help from a German man called Helmut Thomale. Helmut was in the Luftwaffe during the last war. He was a radio operator on Ju 188s, and he served in the same squadron as the Exbury Junkers and its crew.
