Letter to Ian Wynn's wife

Letter to Ian Wynn's wife

From Air Ministry casualty branch reporting that the Royal Air Force Missing Research and Inquiry Service in Holland had located husband's grave in Venlo. Goes on to describe graves of aircrew recovered from same crash. Mentions some facts about crash.

1946-04-13

One page typewritten letter and envelope mounted on an album page

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SWynnIA146838v10001

AIR MINISTRY,
[deleted] ADASTRAL HOUSE [/deleted],
[deleted] KINGSWAY W.C. 2 [/deleted]
(Casualty Branch)
73-77 Oxford St,
London, W.1.

13th April, 1946.

TEL No
[deleted] [indecipherable word] [/deleted] EXT.
GERrard 9234

P.404570/43/P.4.1.R.2.

Dear Mrs.Wynn,

I have to refer to previous correspondence from this Department concerning your husband, [deleted] Sergeant [/deleted] [inserted] Pilot Officer [/inserted] I.A.Wynn, and to inform you that the Royal Air Force Missing Research and Enquiry Service in Holland has now located his place of burial.

The Officer conducting the investigation into the fate of your husband and his crew, visited Venlo and found the graves of Flying Officer Pitts and Pilot Officer Russell, the navigator and air-bomber in the crew exactly as they had been reported by the International Red Cross Committee. In addition were two graves, 280 and 281 in Row 25, marked with the same date, that is 26th May, 1943, but with no names inscribed. The Secretary of the Burgomaster of Venlo stated, however, that the two graves contained further remains recovered from the same crash.

According to his records the aircraft had crashed in the middle of a fir tree forest near Vlodrop, 17 miles south-south-east of Venlo, and from statements later obtained from various eye-witnesses, it is is unhappily concluded that the circumstances made the survival of the crew impossible. The Germans arrived at the scene within a few minutes and refused to allow any Dutch civilian access, these, however, were informed later that the whole new had perished.

/The

Mrs.I.A.Wynn,
“Sunny Braw”,
Morley Frodsham,
Warrington,
Lancashire.

[page break]

[deleted] [several indecipherable sentences] [/deleted]

[underlined] ECONOMY. [/underlined]

OPEN by slitting top edge RE-USE with Economy Label

[postmark]

ADDRESS:-

Mrs. I. A. Wynn,
“Sunny Brae”,
Norley Frodsham,
Warrington,
Lancs.