RAF 6.1: (English Version) Lachen Speyerdorf ~ The Memorial Ceremony
Royal Air Force
Saturday, August 1, 2023 - Five Years On
Translation of Address in English
The Address
Lachen-Speyerdorf
Saturday, 4 August 2018
On behalf of my family, I thank Frau Silke Schneeweiß, my German teacher.
Without Silke I could never have made this Address to the German People in German.
Part I
To the Lord-Mayor of Neustadt and Weinstraße, Mr. Weigel, and the inhabitants of Hasloch and Lachen-Speyerdorf.
To Mr. Meyer, First Representative for the City of Hassloch.
To Group Captain Roland Smith, Royal Air Force, Air Attaché Berlin,
and Colonel Daniel Constable, Allied Air Command, Royal Canadian Air Force.
To the members of the German Air Force, Lt Col Dr Graf, Commanding Officer Sanitary Regiment 2, Rennerod
and Captain Jacoby, Commanding Officer of the Karlsruhe Barracks.
To Pastor Michael Paul, Parish of Heilig Geist Neustadt, Diocese of Speyer.
And the families of the Crew of Handley-Page Halifax MP-E DK 165,
as well as the People in Germany ...
Greetings from Great Britain, Canada and Australia.
It is a special privilege for me to be here today and to speak in the name of my Uncle, Kenneth Ernest Webb - after whom I am named.
I will never forget the day I received an urgent message to read that day’s newspaper - an appeal from Mr. Erik Wieman and Mr. Peter Berkel to those who might be related to the pilot of DK-165, the which crashed here in this forest on a Saturday morning, the 17th April, 1943.
And it was even more extraordinary to write to the newspaper as Sergeant Pilot Ken Webb's direct descendant and next of kin - also Ken Webb!
When the newspaper contacted me the following morning, the journalist was very excited!
"Have I understood that correctly? You are related to Kenneth Webb, the pilot, you are also Kenneth Webb and also a member of the Royal Air Force? "
"Yes!"
A Long pause!!
"That is amazing!"
And I thought, "You can say that again!"
Part II
As a boy, I grew up in the shadow of the tragedy of World War II and its impact on millions - even billions - of families.
I became aware that as a member of the UN, under all circumstances, we should prevent the horror of war in the future.
As I look around today, I am saddened that, although there is peace in Europe, terrible wars are being waged elsewhere.
Human nature never changes.
I can only say that one should not think about this for too long.
But I think we have learned a lesson, and it is imperative that the European Union, and the UK, remain as strong as ever.
We must never allow another war either here, on the European continent, or within the islands of Britain.
We are here to commemorate men who came under fire and crashed here.
Six were killed ...
The seventh, Sergeant Leslie Mitchell - or "Mitch" to his crew - miraculously survived the disaster!
He returned to England as a former prisoner of war in the autumn of 1945.
Mitch proved to be a lifeline for my family, because he was able to give a full report to Ken's parents and his two brothers, and the description has never changed over the decades.
What I have always remembered is the image of Mitch, as he was trapped in the rear section of the fuselage which had broken away from the rest of the plane.
German civilians freed him and leaned him against a tree.
They gave him a lighted cigarette and pointed to the rest of his plane, and confirmed that there were no survivors.
Mercy Compassion Reconciliation
The Three Pillars, upon which all of us must rest our lives.
The Tail Fins and reamins of the rear turret (‘tail-end charlie’) of a Handley Page Halifax
This is NOT the tail section of DK165 but is shown here to assist the reader,
as an all too common sight when aircraft break in half and the tail lands separately
from the rest of the plane.
Image courtesy of IGHF with all rights reserved
The Fuselage of the Halifax DK 165 MP-E
This IS the Main Frame of Fuselage near Sgt Les Mitchell's
mid-upper gun turret
Image Courtesy of IGHF and to whom all rights are reserved
Part III
I had many questions, and I remember the words of Ken's mother, my grandmother, from fifty-eight years ago, as if they had just been spoken this morning.
"Ken! You must remember. That not all Germans were Nazis! "
That was also the point of view of Ms Christabel Bielenberg, former British citizen, who married Peter von Bielenberg and accepted German citizenship.
During the war, her husband was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Ms. Bielenberg nevertheless sat down opposite the head of the Gestapo and secured her husband’s release!
She is part of the Passive Resistance, especially in the rural areas, and she speaks about this in her memoirs - The Past is Myself and The Road Ahead.
Her husband was actually part of the German Resistance Movement!
Because of her personal experience, Ms. Bielenberg made an important contribution to the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. Their cooperation with the Allies has been instrumental in giving Germany the long and painful road to a new future and leaving the terrible times behind.
In addition, I would like to mention Mr. Otto Hempel and his wife Elise, who also belonged to passive resistance in during 1940-1943:
They distributed postcards in Berlin to denounce the regime - portrayed in the movie "Alone in Berlin" (2016).
They were executed by guillotine in Berlin in 1943.
In one of his many letters to his parents, my uncle wrote that they should not worry about not seeing him for a while because he was on his way to the USA to train as a pilot.
He wrote, "I think it serves a good purpose!"
And that was true!
Earlier, in September 1938, during the Munich Crisis, he had written to his parents:
"It does not matter what you say, or what newspaper articles you send to support your opinion, I'm determined to join the Royal Air Force!"
I think I have inherited this determination !!!! ;)
All crews knew they had a mission to perform. They focussed on fighting the Nazi regime. And none of them had chosen this route, although all members of the crew were specially chosen volunteers.
This is an example of how justice, in its severest form, suddenly rebelled against evil.
The price is unbelievably high!
It overshadowed the gruesome Great War - the First World War – involving many more nations and one man intent on eradicating entire peoples.
In addition to RAF service, I was a lawyer. In 2006, I drafted a will for a client who was a rear-gunner in a Lancaster. He spotted a model airplane on my desk, and as we got to know each other he began hesitantly to talk about his RAF service in bomber command between 1941-1945. I remember his words:
"Mr. Webb, you have no idea what we saw and what I saw below me. It was gruesome and there was little talking to each other when we approached our destination. It was very dangerous and we had to concentrate intently. When the bombs dropped, the plane became so light that the pilot had to fight the sudden uplift and stop the aircraft from going into a stall or a tail-spin. None of us ever applauded. We tried not to think of the people on the ground below us. "
And then he said the following and I have always remembered this.
"If we had thought about it, we would have compromised our resolve and endangered the operation and bombing by not thinking what would have happened as a result. Terrible! Terrible!!"
I always think that the crews have no grudge against the German people. But they definitely had something against a madman who had tricked the Germans, or as we say in England - "catching us on the hop"- taking someone by surprise - and I will always maintain that position. That's one of the reasons I'm very much aware of passive resistance.
Civil disobedience often found expression in the kindness of strangers.
I refer to four people in the year 1943 and to the civilians who helped Mitch.
The late Mr. Watta and his widow, Mrs. Watta. Likewise Mrs. Kraus and her deceased mother. It was possible for me to write to Mr. Watta when I learned what he had seen at the crash site. I think the families of the crew saw the letter. I wanted Mr. Watta to find peace and to leave the horror of what a little boy had seen on that cold Saturday morning.
I am sad that Mr Watta has left us, especially since he has been a great honour to all the families. He was an architect and artist and expressed the need to draw a mural of the entire crew. This is indeed living compassion and reconciliation.
And I am glad that Mr. Watta Junior is here today to represent his father and mother.
I am delighted that Mrs. Kraus is with us today.
She was still a young girl at the time.
The crew had been buried in the local cemetery and Mr. Wieman was astonished when he saw Mrs. Kraus sitting in the cemetery garden in the year 2016.
When asked if she knew where the graves could once have been, Frau Kraus replied that she certainly could! In addition, she named all six names of the crew, even though she did not speak English.
It is therefore a privilege for me, on behalf of my Uncle, Ken, and my late father Desmond Webb, to remember again Ken's crew:
Flight Sergeant Stanley Braybrook, Flight Engineer
Sergeant Kenneth Williams, Navigator
Sergeant Jack Kay, Bomb Aimer
Flight Sergeant Allan Ross, Wireless Operator-Air Gunner
Sergeant Leslie Mitchell, Mid-Upper Gunner
Flight Sergeant Geoffrey Brown, Rear Gunner
Frau Kraus had been instructed by her mother to plant flowers on the graves. All this happened when the war reached its peak and was at its most violent. That is the kindness of strangers; that is the silent resistance that would cause the regime to bleed and be defeated.
And that's my point!
Frau Heidi Kraus ~ Samstag, August 4. 2018 - Der Gedenkstein
Part IV
We look back on a period of seventy-five years.
Frau. Kraus, thank you for all you did in 1943 for my Uncle, Ken Webb.
As his nephew, I ask my nieces Suzie Opacic and Caroline Opacic to present these flowers both to Herr Peter Watta Junior for your mother and in memory of your father, Herr Manfred Watta, and also to Frau. Kraus and in memory of your mother.
Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to the German Air Force. I know that there is no connection between the Air Force of that time and today. Nevertheless, it was an immense comfort to my grandparents that, according to the army report, Ken and his Crew were buried by the Air Force with full military honours.
Thank you on behalf of all the families of the Crew.
Under no circumstances can I stand here as a guest of the People of Germany without reminding myself that this was "total war" and that ordinary citizens of all nations and all sides would never have chosen this terrible path.
It was important to me to visit the German War Cemetery in Cannock Chase, England on April 17 this year, to pay respect to seven other Airmen, alone. They were killed fighting in the skies over England in the April-August campaign of 1940 : the Battle of Britain. Their tombstones have neither rank nor squadron.
Werner Kruczinski 20 KIA 2.8.1940
Willi Rautenberg 26 KIA 21.8.1940
Leon Deeken 21 KIA 8.4.1940
Anton Folly 32 KIA 9.5.1940
Ernst Rost 26 KIA 8.4.1940
Willi Geiger 19 KIA 18.8.1940
Kurt Geerdts 28 KIA 8.4.1940
Lest We Forget
Finally, on behalf of my family and Crew, and especially on behalf of Sgt Plt Ken Webb, pilot and skipper of DK 165, I would like to thank Frau. Silke Schneeweiß for her extremely hard work for me. I've been learning German since 2017 - an ambition since childhood.
I also want to say quite frankly that I find it remarkable how Germany has coped with this terrible period of its history.
I thank Mr. Wieman and Mr. Berkel from the bottom of my heart. Both managed to draw the entire circle from 1943 to 2016 with the precision of a navigator.
On behalf of all the families I make this Presentation.
Many thanks.
Thank you for your attention.
Kenneth .T. Webb
Saturday, 4 August 2018
Hassloch und Lachen-Speyerdorf
und
Neustadt und Der Weinstraße
Deutschland
Herr Erik Wieman (centre), Ken Webb (Jr) and IG Heimat Forschung Team members.
15 April 2023
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