Fietsroute Laarbeek punt 4

Plane crash De Heikant
On June 28, 1943, 608 RAF aircraft took off in England for a night raid on Cologne. From Melbourne airport in Yorkshire, 10 Squadron joined 4 Group Bomber Command with Halifax bombers. Of the aircraft taken off, 540 reached their target area; 25 lost to Flak anti-aircraft guns and German fighters. Cologne was so heavily bombed that a firestorm arose. Due to a lack of oxygen, many people were killed and injured, burned and suffocated.

The German night fighter pilot Major Radusch (I/NJG 1), which took off from Venlo, intercepted Stanley Peate's Halifax DT-783 that night. Radusch fired on this bomber from below and at 02.33 am the Halifax crashed near the Wolfsputten in Aarle-Rixtel. All crew members died.

Their remains were recovered by the German Wehrmacht on June 30. The pilots were given a temporary grave on 2 July and were reburied in October 1944 in Woensel. In England, the RAF erected a monument to the killed crews of 10 Squadron at Melbourne airport. Aarle-Rixtel received a road chapel on the splitting Bakelseweg / Asdonkseweg on 4 May 1995 in memory of the crew of the DT-783 who died.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar.nl
• Photos: Jeroen Koppes