PB141
Crashes > of the R.A.F.
During the return flight from the attack on the railway installations in Cologne-Gremberg, the Lancaster II PB141 is shot at by anti-aircraft fire and catches fire. Allegedly, it was also shot at by German night fighters, but there is no reliable information on this.
Some of the crew parachuted out of the burning aircraft, only Fl/O Hugh Edmund Parratt and Fl/Sgt Roy Kenneth Shirley were trapped in the aircraft when it broke up in the air. The parts of the aircraft crashed into the Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk in Cologne-Nippes. Paratt and Sherley were seriously injured and taken to the reserve hospital in Cologne-Hohenlind.
Hugh Parratt had a shattered frontal sinus, a broken lower leg and a broken heel bone. He remained in Hohenlind until the end of February 1945 and only then was he transferred to the Stalag camp in Hoffnungsthal.
Roy Sherley had suffered a pelvic contusion and was transferred to Hoffnungsthal infirmary on New Year's Eve 1944.
The remaining five crew members reached solid ground again between Cologne-Nippes and Cologne-Ehrenfeld and were taken prisoner of war by the Germans. The pilot, Pilot Officer Kenneth William Hewitt, came down in Cologne-Nippes, about 300 metres from Heliosstrasse. What happened next prompted an intensive investigation after the war, which was carried out independently by both the American military authorities and the British military.
Kenneth Hewitt was shot three times in the stomach with a pistol by a still unknown "party functionary" in a brown uniform. Bystanders are said to have refused to help him. The German private Hubert Wester, who arrived later, shot Hewitt again. Other members of the Wehrmacht took Hewitt to St Francis Hospital in Schönsteinstrasse, but all help came too late. He died immediately after being admitted to hospital.
Who was ultimately responsible for Kenneth Hewitt's death could never be fully clarified. Despite intensive research at the time, the "party functionary" could not be identified. Private Hubert Wester could no longer be questioned as he had been killed in action on the Eastern Front in April 1945. His widow later testified that her husband had given Hewitt the "mercy shot" because he did not want Hewitt to continue to suffer after the three shots to the stomach. However, the investigating authorities at the time did not want to follow this interpretation. The investigation was concluded on 7 June 1948 without a final result.
The events of 23 December 1944 and the subsequent investigation are described in great detail in:
Sean Feast " HEROIC ENDEAVOUR"
In this context, I would like to thank Traugott Vitz for his help in researching the murder of Kenneth Hewitt.
left:
The police report on the attack of 23 December 1945 with a reference to the crashed plane at Cologne-Nippes station.
left:
KE report no. 10062
It was issued by the airbase commander responsible for the recovery unit.
In this report, all essential details about the crash, the aircraft, the dead and injured as well as technical details of the crashed aircraft were recorded.
Most of these KE or KU reports were destroyed shortly before the end of the war, but a few hundred can be viewed in the National Archives in Washington.