We found it …

What you see here all started with a German pilot strafing Lockered ‘Bud’ Gahs’ company - then crashing into them - in Bavaria in 1945.

After multiple (and I mean multiple) efforts to solve the mystery of exactly where this crash occurred via the internet’s copious resources (and minus the division reports which were locked up in the National Archives for two years due to the pandemic), it was time to attack this mystery head-on.

On the ground in Bavaria in the dead of winter, and armed to the hilt with clues galore, it was time to knock on the door of a farm that seemed to be in the general vicinity of the crash site.

The owner of the farm opened his door, and opened the next 24 hours of his life, to my quest.

One phone call led to another until we had a group of five men (and me!) driving through the area playing a very dedicated game of ‘find the WW2 crash site’ based on images taken in 1945.

It took an afternoon and evening and half of the next day, plus a whopping dose of knocking on doors unannounced, my own bungled mish-mosh of German words and my collection of accounts and photos from 78 years ago …

… And the kindness of strangers who in 1945 would have been considered the enemy …

And we found the crash site.

Months later in the heat of summer we were able to take Bud to the place that had been locked in his thoughts for seven decades!

After escaping the strafing bullets of an ME109 targeting his company, Bud helped the fellas who had been hit. This incident stayed with Bud - and the rest of the company - as did their photographs, letters home, and stories told to their children.

But there would not be a story without the amazing men who lived it in 1945, the dogged pursuit of the location, and the men on the ground in Bavaria who gave hours and hours to uncovering the location in 2022.

(Bud Gahs served in the Anti-Tank Company, 222 Infantry Regiment, 42nd ‘Rainbow’ Division).