Do-17 F1+FH.. Oblt Robert Zelbe

[namroob]

Thanks for that; I have often wondered what really happened to Robert Zehbe as different accounts imply he was attacked by a mob.

Years ago I spoke with an aviation archaeologist who had been on many excavations of Battle of Britain wrecks in the seventies and eighties. In the course of making local enquiries etc for digs he spoke to many elderly locals in Kent and Sussex, and a common theme was the anger farm workers would feel if their animals had been injured or killed by bombs or a crashing aircraft. He heard enough descriptions of incidents where German airman were beaten up by enraged farm workers to suggest that it may have happened more often than the history books indicate. Understandably, anyone who was present at such incidents would probably not admit to it after the event, and hence there is a significant lack of substantiated incidents. On at least one occasion an elderly witness strongly suggested that German airmen had been murdered. A dig for the wreck of a German bomber (I think in East Sussex) produced claims by locals that the bodies of the crew, killed in the crash, had been beheaded by farm workers who had had animals killed.

Richard Collier's "Eagle Day" describes incidents such as a German's head being paraded on a pitchfork by soldiers at Tandridge, amongst other unsavoury incidents.