Evelyn Payne visits the place where brother was killed

Evelyn Payne visits the place where brother was killed

Account of Evelyn Payne who lost her brother over Stuttgart but made new friends in Allgau. Relates brother lost as member of Lancaster crew on 28 January 1945. States that only many years later did family learn of the circumstances under which he was killed. Also mention that her other brother's Halifax was shot down near Allgau.

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Evelyn Payne. 78. from Richmondorth [sic], lost her brother over Stuttgart, but through that made new friends in Allgau. Recently, after 60 years, the sprightly English lady and her husband visited the place where her brother, 23 year old Flight Sergeant Peter Raeburn Jenkinson, was killed whilst a member of a seven man Lancaster bomber crew. During a heavy air attack by the Royal Air Force over
Stuttgart on 28 January 1945 the four- engined machine was shot down by a German fighter and broke up in the forest near the parish of Michelbach in Neckar Odenwald district, The dead airmen were interred in the Michelbach cemetery. A memorial to the occurrence has been erected in the area.
Only many years later did the family learn where and under what circumstances the young Flight Sergeant had been killed. In 1983 they got in contact with the Augsburg air historian Hans Grimminger, and the Payne family travelled to Germany. At the centre of interest is also the fate of another of Evelyn Payne's brothers, that of Philip Jenkinson. His Halifax was shot down over the estate of the Waldhor family in Allgau. He and his crew were able to get out and set off on a nine day Odyssey.
Since then a deep friendship has developed between the two families. "The one good thing that came from the war was that we have found friends in Germany", says Evelyn Payne.