ASN Wikibase Occurrence # 226796
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| Date: | Sunday 12 May 1940 |
| Time: | 10:00 LT |
| Type: |  Hawker Hurricane Mk 1 |
| Owner/operator: | 615 (County of Surrey) Sqn RAF |
| Registration: | P2564 |
| MSN: | KW-P |
| Fatalities: | Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 1 |
| Aircraft damage: | Destroyed |
| Location: | Wihogne, Juprelle, Liège -
 Belgium
|
| Phase: | Combat |
| Nature: | Military |
| Departure airport: | Vitry-en-Artois, France |
Hawker Hurricane Mk.I P2564 (KW-P) 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron, RAF: Written off (destroyed) when lost on combat operations 12 May 1940. According to the official Air Ministry file on the incident (File Air 81/322): "Hurricane P2564 crashed at Wihogne, Belgium, 12 May 1940. Flying Officer L Fredman: report of death".
Crew of Hurricane P2564:
Flying Officer (Pilot) Levin Fredman, RAF (AAF) 90405, age 21, killed in action 12/05/1940, buried at Wihogne (Nudorp) Churchyard, Juprelle, Liege, Belgium
According to a published source (see link #6) due to a mis-identification of the body, the body of F/O Fredman was not identified until 1946:
"Two days later on May 12 1940, he and other members of his squadron were sent to Vitry-en-Artois to reinforce No 607 Squadron (County of Durham) RAF. At around 09:30 he took off as part of a mixed section of Hurricanes with both No 615 Squadron and No 607 Squadrons. They encountered a number of Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters escorting Heinkel He 111 aircraft and he fails to return.
The National Archives has a file detailing the hunt to discover exactly what happened to him. Like all such files about missing personnel you have to take a moment before you open it as the sorrow, the false hopes and tireless efforts of the both the relatives and the RAF Casualty Branch to find out what happened can emotionally drain you.
In this file are copies of RAF reports, letters from his brother and a sister asking for information on behalf of his aged parents. It details searches by the Red Cross – including one to a mysterious Miss Day who is sending a telegram to ‘Direktor Maurer’ at the Töcher Institut in Switzerland, where she was apparently a former pupil – to see if he had been badly injured and become a prisoner of war, a report from a Frenchman in Merville in the Nord region of France that he was buried there (he wasn’t).
There was also a report that he had been buried secretly in a village in Belgium and his grave hidden from the German occupiers. Again this is not the whole truth. These are just a sprinkling of the sorts of correspondence in the folder. The first item is dated May 1940 and the last December 1949.
According to the file, enquiries with the Red Cross produced no lead nor had Miss Day’s enquiries. So his case had been handed to the Missing Research and Enquiry Unit in 1946 and after reviewing the case, interviewing possible witnesses they found a Gendarmerie report indicating that he was buried in Wihogne, a small village around 90 kilometres from Brussels – and around 500 kilometres from Merville.
The (very damaged) MREU report on the file is dated 26 June 1946 and written by Flight Lieutenant J A M Stuart from No 8 Section, No. 2 Missing Research and Enquiry Unit. He states that he interviewed witnesses (including the local mayor) and found that Levin Fredman had been recovered from his burning aircraft and he had been identified by his identity discs and a number of papers – a bank statement, an RAF message form and five letters. The report continues:
'...I paid a visit to this cemetery and there saw the grave of FREDMAN. It was marked with a wooden cross on which is written the number of this officer. On the Grave itself is a small white stone on which is marked in French: ‘To our Brave Ally’. This grave has been registered by 73 G.R.U. [a military Grave Registration Unit].
Ref. para 2 in your letter of 27th June 1946 stating that a M. Jean Carette had informed F/O Fredman’s brother that F/O Fredman was buried in Merville cemetery, France. I think that perhaps M. Carette must refer to some other airman.
He concludes the report with an appropriate understatement…
...In view of the fact that the burial place of F/O Fredman has been located, I thought it unnecessary to make the journey to Merville to interview M. Carette. May this case now be considered closed? please. (sic)
We will may never know the full details of how exactly Flying Officer Fredman met his death but two things are certain.
1. His burial was recorded and documented and today his grave (the only British military grave in the cemetery) is well tended.
2. Photographs show that although the wooden cross has been replaced by a Commonwealth War Graves headstone, there is still a separate plaque marked ‘A Notre Brave Allie’."
Wihogne (in Walloon Ouhogne, in Dutch Nudorp) is a section of the Belgian municipality of Juprelle located in the Walloon Region in the province of Liège at approximate co ordinates 50°43'36"N, 5°30'28" E.
Sources:
1. Royal Air Force Aircraft P1000-P9999 (James J. Halley, Air Britsain, 1978 p 15)
2. National Archives (PRO Kew) File AIR 81/322): https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C14502316
3. https://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2258833/fredman,-levin/
4. http://www.epibreren.com/ww2/raf/615_squadron.html#1205
5. http://www.belgians-remember-them.eu/crash-lie-wiho2.php
6. https://iwmvolunteerlondon.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/may-12-1940-the-death-of-flying-officer-levin-fredman-and-the-nine-year-search-to-find-out-what-happened/
7. http://ww2talk.com/index.php?threads/hello-east-africa-campaign-and-no-615-squadron.74442/
8. https://halifaxjd371kno.com/index.php/wihogne-hurricane-p2564-kw-615-squadron/
9, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wihogne
Revision history:
| Date/time | Contributor | Updates |
|---|---|---|
| 04-Jul-2019 23:32 | Dr. John Smith | Added |
| 04-Jul-2019 23:34 | Dr. John Smith | Updated [Narrative] |
| 08-Jul-2019 05:43 | stehlik49 | Updated [Operator] |
| 30-Jun-2022 03:01 | Ron Averes | Updated [Location] |
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