Where is family of Reginald Bertram Smith?
A German group is looking for family to invite to a memorial at site of a fatal Allied crash
Nearly 75 years after a RCAF Halifax bomber crashed into a steep hill near Leistadt, Germany, killing all on board in a horrific explosion, researchers are trying to find descendants of one of the crew in Hamilton.
The group — that calls itself Interessengemeinschaft (IG) Heimatforschung Rheinland-Pfalz / Historical Research Community Rhineland-Palatinate Germany — is working with German government archeologists to collect artifacts and better understand what happened in the Feb. 21, 1945 mission. Next year, they plan to unveil a memorial for the seven-man crew at the site of the crash.
But before they do that, they hope to contact family members to share information and invite them to the ceremony.
So far they’ve reached families for all except one — RCAF Flying Officer Reginald Bertram Smith, who was 33 at the time of the crash.
He was born in a district of Halifax called Fairview on Aug. 18, 1911 and grew up in Sydney N.S. His military records list his occupation as being an accountant.
It’s believed that no family members remain in Nova Scotia and at some point relatives moved to Hamilton. The researchers are hopeful someone from the family might still be living here.
“The families are always grateful when we contact them,” says Eric Wieman, 49, of the volunteer research group that so far has erected two monuments for Allied bombing crews in Germany, with a third scheduled for this summer.
“We are very happy to pass information onto the families. Sometimes they do not have any details about what happened, or exactly where the plane went down.
“Sometimes only a name of a town is known, but the exact location is hardly ever known. We can tell them this.
“Our wish is they can find closure.”
Wieman, a Dutch national living in Germany since 1992, says he developed an interest in Second World War history by hearing stories from his grandfather who lived in Germany-occupied Holland during the war.
“He often told me about the Allied aircraft passing over. Now I live in Germany where so many aircraft crashed, soldiers died, and people don’t know where these crash sites are anymore.”
He says he wants to create a “visual remembrance” to tell passersby about the men who died at the site.
“We want to bring these stories to the people. Otherwise this will be forgotten one day.”
The bomber with Smith aboard was one of hundreds involved in a mission to the city of Worms, about 25 kilometres northeast of the crash site.
Their goal was to go after the retreating German Army and blow out roads and bridges to make their journey more difficult. The overall mission was deemed a success.
Wieman has been in contact with witnesses to the crash who
recalled a massive explosion and a large fire afterwards, suggesting the plane’s bombs were still on board and the bomber had not reached its target destination when it was shot down. The remains of all crew members were removed shortly after the crash and buried in marked graves.
The other crew members were: Flight Lieutenant Donald McWilliam Sanderson; Pilot Officer Nels Peter Helin Anderson; Flying Officer William James Gilmore; Flight Sgt. Donald Edison Sherman; Pilot officer William Wallace Wagner; and flight engineer Sgt. James Wilson, of Lanarkshire, Scotland, the only nonRCAF member of the crew.
With the assistance of genealogists, finding families for them was relatively easy, says Wieman. But Smith was a different story.
Military records and genealogical research shows Smith was a son of Thomas B. Smith and Catherine Monica Smith, of Sydney, N.S., who both died decades ago.
According to a report from one genealogist, “Reginald had two brothers and one sister that I have been able to locate so far. A brother Ernest Joseph (b. 1907) and William T and sister Grace. They lived on George Street in Sydney ...”
Wieman approached newspapers in Nova Scotia early this year and lengthy stories ran in the Cape Breton Post and Halifax Chronicle-Herald but no relative came forward. Later it was learned that family members, either siblings or cousins, had moved to Hamilton at some point.
Warplane crash site research projects are common in Europe. And often the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton is contacted for assistance reaching families and for historical information.
One group, called the Somme Aircraft Recovery Group, emailed the museum in Hamilton in 2009 about a Lancaster crash site that researchers had come upon in Cambrai France. As it turned out, the Lancaster was the one on which the legendary Andrew Mynarski was a member of the crew.
The Warplane Heritage Lancaster — that is one of only two airworthy Lancasters in the world — is named for Mynarski in recognition of his heroics that led to him posthumously receiving a Victoria Cross.
On June 13, 1944, he found himself on-board a flaming Lancaster with other members of the crew having bailed out, except for a tail gunner who was trapped in the rapidly falling, out-of-control aircraft.
Instead of saving himself, he attempted to free the tail gunner, and suffered severe burns. Incredibly, the tail gunner survived crashing to the ground but Mynarski didn’t make it.
Museum curator Erin Napier helped the recovery group find family members of the crew and eventually a memorial was built at the crash site.
The recovery group later donated small pieces of the crashed plane, that are on display at the museum.
Napier says she has been contacted numerous times over the years by different groups doing research into warplane crash sites, including the most recent one by Wieman.
“It can be challenging to find family members. I’ve hit dead ends with it and not been able to go any further. But if it works it can be very rewarding because it means so much to the families.”
As for Wieman, he says, “We are finding these sites faster than we can plant stones. But for every site we find, there will be a stone in the end. That is our main goal.
“We want to bring these crash sites to public awareness again. They must not be forgotten.”