Wreckage of a 1st World War historical German Zeppelin-Staaken giant p

[JVB]

In 1981 in Poelkapelle, near Ypres, a farmer discovered scrap, which was believed at first instance the wreckage of the plane of the French Captain Georges Guynemer who was shot down above Poelkapelle at 11 September 1917. After examination of the remainders and the fact that some repairing tools also were found, it has been concluded that it couldn’t be the Spad hunter piloted by Guynemer but perhaps a German bomber plane.

No further attention has been paid to the pile of the stack of old iron wire, plate and other debris and the whole has been sold to Mr. Piet Steen.

Mr. Piet Steen, a member of the local “Georges Guynemer Commemoration Committee” and an aviation fanatic and a former leisure pilot himself , submitted the parts to the advise of the “Memorial Flights Engineers” of the “Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace” at Le Bourget near Paris.

At first glance it was believed that it could be the remainders of a German Gotha bomber and Mr. Steen was given the advise to compare the parts with the engine of a Gotha bomber plane, which is owned by the Army Museum in Brussels. Some parts matched, some did not. A few days later Mr. Steen was suggested to contact the Aviation Museum in Krakow (Poland) , where a nacelle of a four engine Zeppelin-Staaken bomber is exposed. This time ,with the help of the Polish aviation historians of the Krakow museum, it showed up a perfect mach: all parts have been identified as belonging to the Zeppelin-Staaken RVI R34/16 plane which crashed on 21 April 1918 after a bombing mission against the British HQ and mean supply base of the Royal Flight Corps at St. Omer in France.

It is believed that the plane has been shot down above the sector of the 2nd British Army of Field Marshal Plumer when trying to cross the front line. Till now it hasn’t been made clear if the giant plane has been hit by ground fire or has been shot down by a hunter plane.

Mr. Steen hopes that his discovery could contribute to a better understanding of what had happened after the bombing raid against the St.-Omer in the night of 20/21 April 1918.

13 Zeppelin Staaken RVI planes have been commissioned for war duty and only 3 of them were shot down in action.

They had a wing span of 138 ft 5.5 in and were the biggest plane at that time in the world.

They were very well known for their participation in frightening bombing raids against London and Southern England.

The discovered Zeppelin-Staaken RVI R34/16 crashed with a crew of 7 from whom one , private airman , Peter Antoni, born in Cologne, has no known grave till now. It is believed that the remainders of this crewman still rest by the plane.

Mr. Steen has communicated his findings to the competent authorities in order to declare the crash site as being of high historical value. Copy of the declaration has been sent to the German embassy in Brussels.

More info on : http://users.telenet.be/mariehelenepetit/z...a/press-doc.htm

[Dolphin]

JVB

Thank you very much for that very interesting information. It's fascinating to think that pieces of a Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI are still around.

The crew of R.34/16 from Riesenflugzeugabteilung 501 on 20/21 April 1918 were:

Flieger Peter Antoni

Leutnant der Reserve Martin Böhme

Feldwebel Hermann Böse

Flieger Gustav Kinzle

Oberleutnant Johannes Leistner

Oberleutnant Hans Sturm

Unteroffizier Wilhelm Weich

Regards

Gareth

[Marnik]

Any pictures of this type of aircraft??

Marnik

[Rick]

Any pictures of this type of aircraft??

Marnik

Not only pictures, lots of pictures, but an entire book has been written about the development and operational history of the German R planes. "The German Giants" by Haddow and Grosz. IIRC published by Putnam. R.

[JVB]

Not only pictures, lots of pictures, but an entire book has been written about the development and operational history of the German R planes. "The German Giants" by Haddow and Grosz. IIRC published by Putnam. R.

For those not having (direct) access on that book : on the already mentioned website : http://users.telenet.be/mariehelenepetit/z...a/press-doc.htm

you can find a picture of the plane itself scanned out of the book of Grosz !

Also photo's of some of the parts that were found and identified ...

Or use any seekingmachine with imageseekingcapabilities and type in Zeppelin-Staaken !

[Regulus 1]

http://www.forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/viewtopic.php?t=8058

Sorry, the text is in Dutch, but you can find quite some pics in it.

[Jarvis]

The discovered Zeppelin-Staaken RVI R34/16 crashed with a crew of 7 from whom one , private airman , Peter Antoni, born in Cologne, has no known grave till now. It is believed that the remainders of this crewman still rest by the plane.

[JVB]

in the meanwhile hard work done in Poelkapelle in silence ...

on http://users.telenet.be/mariehelenepetit/z...tzungsliste.htm

you can find more info on the last crewmember that was missing, but whom was at last located.

Strong piece of searching of our Piet Steen.

Perhaps interesting to mention that there will be on 15 september 2007 again a commemoration for the 90th anniversary of the death of Georges Guynemer around his monument in Poelkapelle.

For this occasion pieces of the Zeppelin-Staaken will be put on show along with other airrelated pieces.

More info on it later.

Vanbeselaere Johan

Poelcapelle 1917 Assocation vzw

* Guynemer Comité

[centurion]

Most interesting. The R planes proved difficult to shoot down in part because the sights on allied fighters sent after bombers had their sights adusted to the Gotha or Friedrichshafen twin engined bombers. When attacking from behind or below if the wing tips fitted exactly between the marks on the sight it was the optimum distance to open fire. The result with the much larger R planes was that fighters were opening fire much too soon at too long a range. Two Dh 4s were fitted with 40mm COW guns firing upwards at 45 degrees and sent off to France to deal with thse aircraft. There are no reports of how they fared. It would be intersting to know if this aircraft was one of their victems.