Airmen meet

Kyt · Jul 6, 2008

WWII veteran meets German airman who shot him down | The Courier-Mail

WORLD War II veteran Bill Pearce had no hard feelings when he finally met the German airman who shot him down over Dusseldorf 63 years ago.
Mr Pearce and his one-time enemy Walter Telsnig phoned and wrote to each other for eight years, since a third party in Britain put them in touch.

And last week they met for the first time since their fateful encounter in February, 1945 over Dusseldorf.

The Brisbane-based veteran, who travelled to the Austrian town of Salzburg for the meeting, said it was an emotional time.

"I was excited and more or less felt that I'd achieved something to have at last got here," he said. "It was a great feeling."

The two men spent hours chatting in Salzburg, swapping stories about their wartime experiences.

Mr Pearce was the wireless operator on a bombing mission when his Lancaster bomber was hit by spurt of 20mm cannon fire, fired by Mr Telsnig's Messerschmitt, about 6km over Dusseldorf.

One of four survivors from the crew of seven, Mr Pearce spent five days sleeping by day and trying to find allied lines by night.

He was eventually captured by a civilian in a paddock near Cologne and handed over to the Luftwaffe, before one of the tanks of flamboyant US General George S. Patton crashed through his prison gates and liberated him a few months later.

But even though Mr Telsnig had tried to kill him, Mr Pearce said they were now "mates".

"At the time it was war and he was doing what he was supposed to be doing and was trained to do and so was I," he said.
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Kyt · Jul 6, 2008

156 Squadron 20/21 February 1945

Lancaster PB701

Mission to Dusseldorf

Tookoff 22.42 from Upwood to mark the Rhenania Ossag oil refinery in the Reisholz district. Shot down by a night-fighter

F/O Sinfield, an Exhibitioner at Bedford Modern school and at nineteen years of age one of the youngest decorated Navigators to be killed on bombing operations, and both Air Gunners are buried in Rheinberg War Cemetery. Sgt Routledge was the visual Air Bomber.

F/L A D Pelly Inj
F/Sgt R Morgan Inj
F/O D F Sinfield DFC +
F/O A J MacLeod RCAF Inj
Sgt J D Routledge Inj
W/O W G Pearce RAAF PoW
F/Sgt E C Bangs +
F/Sgt T S Carr +

Pelly, MacLeod, Morgan and Routledge were confined in h

Pearce was interned in Camps 13D/7A, PoW No.11454. This was his 42nd Operation

Nostalgair · Jul 6, 2008

Great story.

Thanks Kyt.

Cheers

Owen

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