hello everybody
I am looking for information about two P-39 Q that were lost in Switzerland short after WWII has ended. These two Airacobras were flying along the river Rhein on a low level flight on 16. July 1945 (cloudy, bad weather) from (probably) Basel towards the lake of Constance. Near Eglisau they crashed into the hill (Irchel). There has been a story https://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/zuerich/re ... y/18560925 about this accident in the Swiss Newspaper "Tagesanzeiger" in December 2017.
Can anybody give more information about these two aircrafts (escadrilles, colors, armament). The names of the pilots are known as Sgt Francois de Laurens and Francois Delvolvé they were both killed in the accident. Getting in contact with a Swiss hisotrian I know that one P-39 did have the number 43914 and it had a four blade propeller. Therefor I assume that they were P-39Q versions.
I would like to know as much as possible about these two aircrafts, maybe I will then build them in scale 1:72 as models. It would also be very interesting to know where these Airacobras were come from and what their mission was.
Maybe they were on a routine flight from France to the french occupation zone in southern Germany. According to the sparse information I currently have they could belong to the GC I/9 "Limousin" or the GC II/9 "Auvergne".
Any information is greatly welcome
Ueli
French P-39 Airacobras losses in July 1945
Re: French P-39 Airacobras losses in July 1945
According to this response, the pilots were S/Lt Louis Delvolve and Sgt François de Laurens-Castelet from GC II/9.
Regretfully, the parent thread is no longer archived in the original forum(too old).
However, if you can read french this is the parent forum, you could try posting your question there.
http://www.aerostories.org/~aeroforums/ ... /index.php
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... irefox-b-1est celui du S/Lt Louis DELVOLVE et du Sgt François de LAURENS-CASTELET du GC II/9 qui se sont effectivement tués dans la région de Zurich le 16 du même mois. Cet accident avait été également signalé par M. Roumy. Et, dans ce cas, il s'était bien agit d'Airacobra.
Merci en tout cas M. Schreiber pour cette information "neutre"...
Regretfully, the parent thread is no longer archived in the original forum(too old).
However, if you can read french this is the parent forum, you could try posting your question there.
http://www.aerostories.org/~aeroforums/ ... /index.php
Re: French P-39 Airacobras losses in July 1945
@Takao: it's not about the language it's about how that forum is working, I've filled out a question (should be treated as a new topic) but I couldn't see it after two days or so. No ideas if this is a moderated forum or similar.