Gotha crash 11 November 1917

Regulus · 25 April 2005, 10:43 AM

Hi,

Gotha IV 991/16 crashed into a farmhouse somewhere in Belgium on the 11th November 1917, with the crew Lt. Mons, Lt. Roland and Unteroff. Tasche, who later became a POW. This time the crew had more luck as they all survived the crash.

However ! Does anyone known anything on the circumstances ? Place ?

Thanks and best from Johan

karrart · 26 April 2005, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Regulus

Hi,

Gotha IV 991/16 crashed into a farmhouse somewhere in Belgium on the 11th November 1917, with the crew Lt. Mons, Lt. Roland and Unteroff. Tasche, who later became a POW. This time the crew had more luck as they all survived the crash.

However ! Does anyone known anything on the circumstances ? Place ?

Thanks and best from Johan

There are at least a couple of photos of the aftermath of this crash and they've been published. A view of the left side of the fuselage where it came to rest appeared in Fredette's The Sky On Fire- The First Battle of Britain and the caption only gives the date with the added bit that it "fell on a farm house while making a night landing approach. A Belgian farmer and his wife were killed in bed". No raid over Great Britain is listed for this date.
This same photo was also in the Datafile Special, where it was also illustrated in the color profile section with the inscription "MoRoTA" across the rear side. Working from much better versions of this and another photo from da Gotha Man Tom Genth, I re-did my 1/32 G.IV in corrected markings as "MoRoTAS".If anyone's interested, the corrected model appears at:

http://www.wwi-models.org/Images/Karr/CP/index.html

Robert Karr
karrart.com

Regulus · 26 April 2005, 02:51 PM

Robert,

That is already a lot more than expected ! This means the photo was taken in the Gent area. MoRoTas it was indeed, as was confirmed by Thomas Genth to you. Loved the model very much BTW !
New for me is the killing of the farmer and his wife also !

So every peace of information such as this is really valuable ! Thank you very much !

Best from Johan

Soderbaum · 27 April 2005, 01:10 PM

Hi Johan

The incident is not mentioned in the weekly Kofl 4. I have that they were members of Kasta 17. Lt dR Paul Mongs (O). Uffz Hermann Tasche (G).
No good information on Lt Roland who probably was the pilot...

If it is true that some civilian Belgians were killed in the crash, it might be mentioned in local newspapers from the time of the incident...!?

Gunnar

Regulus · 27 April 2005, 01:28 PM

Gunnar,

As good as no chance that they will be in a local newspaper, due to the fact that the crashed plane was German, in German held territory.

If it was known where the crash happened we could find out more in the registers of the village or town. The two civilian casualties would be in the dead register.

They were indeed Kasta 17 personnel. Roland was the pilot indeed.

Best from Johan