Leatherhead Parish Church's German Airman

Luftwaffe Radio Operator's badge

This story is bound up with that of P/O Teddy Arnold RAFVR of Leatherhead Parish Church, who was killed on 10th March 1941 when his 35 Sqn Halifax bomber was shot down when returning to RAF Linton-on-Ouse near York from a target in France. It was the new bomber's first operation. It was shot down by an RAF night-fighter and crashed in the grounds of Merrist Wood Agricultural College (now Merrist Wood Golf Club) near Guildford. Possibly the night-fighter crews were yet to be briefed about this new RAF four-engined bomber.

Teddy was buried in the churchyard of Leatherhead's Parish Church, St Mary & St Nicholas, where he had been a chorister and a sidesman and where his parents were active in the life of the church. His father was Secretary of the Parochial Church Council.

There was a German airman already buried there and a local newspaper reported that the family asked that Teddy be buried next to him. During the war flowers were laid on both graves. It was said that Teddy's mother eventually revealed that they were laid by her because if Teddy had been shot down over Germany she would have hoped that a German mother would have done the same for him.

So who was the German airman, how did he come to buried at Leatherhead, and is he still there? This turned out to be a detective story.

When this research began the database of grave names in Leatherhead Churchyard, one of the largest in Surrey, showed the following entries:
290 ARNOLD Edward b1874 d1954 80 (Teddy's father)
290 ARNOLD Edward Rolfe b1916 d1941 25 10/03/1941 War Grave
290 ARNOLD Nellie b1893 d1963 70 (Teddy's mother)
291 MENIGMANN W d1940 27/09/1940

So was Menigmann W the German airman? The date was late on in the Battle of Britain.

In the late 1950s most German WW2 graves which were not situated in cemeteries and plots of Commonwealth war graves maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) in situ were relocated to the German Military Cemetery at Cannock Chase, Staffordshire. The names are on the CWGC database. But there were no matches* there for Menigmann either at Cannock Chase or among the war graves in Leatherhead. Where was he? There are no visible signs of a German grave next to Teddy Arnold's.

Nor did the name Menigmann produce any matches on the Ancestry database.

So what about the date of death, 27 September 1940? Were any Luftwaffe aircraft lost in the Leatherhead area on that day?

The Battle of Britain Memorial website tells the story day by day:

The Dorking Museum website, at the time of this research, provided this information about the Junkers 88 at Folly Farm:

27th September 1940 German bomber down at Holmwood;  crew land by parachute
People race to the scene when the pilot of the Junkers falls – badly burned and unconscious – by parachute in Yew Tree Road, Dorking**.  Other crew members land at Bradley Farm near Box Hill, Scammels Farm, Blackbrook, and the Norfolk Arms, Mid Holmwood. All are captured. A fifth crew member is killed when he falls from his parachute. The plane comes down at Folly Farm, Holmwood (causing a local woman to miscarry), the gun turret at Pilgrim’s Close, Westhumble, and the tail at Croft Avenue, Dorking.

Could the airman who fell from his parachute be the one? But why would he be buried in Leatherhead? Still no name and already there are discrepancies in the reporting.

The BBC People's War website has a story about an aircraft coming down at Folly Farm:

Village Life, Bombing, and Rationing: Childhood Memories of South Holmwood, Surrey by James C Mann
We had a Junkers 88 that came over our house just missing our chimney, this crashed in the Paddock about 50 yards behind Folley Farm House where the Adam's family lived. One of the engines from the Plane was dug up in 1976 and is now in the Brooklands Museum at Weybridge.

At this time my mother was 8 months pregnant with her 5th child and the Plane crashing brought on her labour. She was taken into Hospital where my sister Devina was born. As she was premature she was christened quickly, unfortunately she only lived for 5 days she is buried at St Mary's Church Holmwood with Mum and Dad.

David Burton of Dorking Museum responded quickly to a request for help about the airman and the Folly Farm aircraft with feedback from Robin Cooper, who has been identifying and researching WW2 aircraft crashes in a 10 mile radius of Dorking Museum:

"The [Folly Farm] incident involved a Ju88 A-I  code 3Z + HK werk nmr 8092, from 2K77 flying from Laon on 27/9/40. The target was in the London Area. This bomber was intercepted by a number of Hurricanes over Esher from 303 (Polish) Squadron RAF and the ‘kill’ was claimed by Pilot Officer M Ferric. The squadron lost 3 of its aircraft that day. 

At about 18,000 feet the port engine caught fire, its bombs were  jettisoned and it dropped out of formation and dropped to the south with attacks continuing.

I have a crew member spelt as Unteroffizier Wilhelm Manningmann aged 24, he was the Wireless Operator. He  jumped over Leatherhead. His parachute failed and he fell to his death near or on the sewage works. The remaining crew jumped over Bradley Farm (now Denbies Vineyard, then No 1 Home Guard Training School) and were captured uninjured. Part of the canopy fell over West Humble and part of the tailplane over Croft Avenue from where it was taken for exhibition in the Lincoln Arms. The aircraft continued un-crewed down the A24 and reaching the environs of Folly Farm, rolled on its back and crashed vertically just to the south of the farm. A woman living in the house miscarried as a result of the shock.

The PoWs were Flight Engineer U/O Albert Ackerman (26); observer U/O Hans-Joachim Tenholt (28)  and Pilot U/O Rudolf Schumann (22). We have a photograph at the Museum of the PoWs under guard."

So the connection with Leatherhead is established - albeit via the sewage works - and there is a new version of the name - Unteroffizier Wilhelm Manningmann.

But that still did not produce a match on the CWGC database.

However progress was made with a search on the name Manningmann on Ancestry, which tolerates some variation in spelling:

So a death had been registered, the registration date made sense and there was yet another version of the name - Menningmann.  What would searching on that produce? Again nothing on the CWGC database. But of all places a memorabilia website had chapter and verse - and a shock:

So despite there being no visible evidence of a German grave in Leatherhead and there still being no match on the CWGC database, if he wasn't reinterred at Cannock Chase where was he?

Walter Schmidt from Ravensburg was flying in another 2 Staffel KG77 Ju 88 (the same unit as Wilhelm Menningmann) as gunner and recounts the day:

"I was a gunner on a Ju 88 of the 2 Staffel of KG 77 which took part in the raid. It was one of the most memorable acts of enemy action that I took part in, of my 200 sorties from 1940-45. If I remember correctly, the target was a gas works in London. We were flying with eighteen machines of the first group in formation of two squadrons. The approach height was about 5,300m and the bomb release 5,100m.

At this height the warning came through the intercom of "fighters below right". As I glanced below and slightly to the left, I could see fighters myself. I believe they had a big red circle on their wings without white. The green camouflage paint was very dark, by that we recognised the British fighters at once. They were flying about 200m below us, against our flight direction.

Then commenced the most hectic aerial combat I had experienced. We were attacked by fighters without a break. Often I saw several aircraft at once being shot down in flames, with black or white smoke trailing, or like red torches. The '3Z + HK' broke in the middle at the point of the cross insignia. One couldn't possibly observe everything. Our own fighters were more than likely too far behind and above. At this time, we were still under strong fighter attack. After a quick look round I saw several parachutes descending.

Between the fighter attacks, I noticed to my horror that the release on my parachute harness, on which I was lying most of the time, had opened. It opens itself on a 90 degree turn and with light pressure and was now lying loose with the parachute on my back. Between single fighter actions, I managed to get my parachute operational again. Should it have been necessary to use my parachute in that condition, I would have had the same fate as comrade Menningmann, who fell out of his harness. In the meantime, both our squadrons were scattered all over the place and we returned home alone. After our return to base, we observed only nine aircraft returned from this action."

Andy Saunders' book Luftwaffe Bombers in the Blitz 1940-41 (Pen & Sword, 2015) has photos of the pilot and the crash site, the latter captioned as follows:

Yet another Junkers 88s of KG77, this time from 2./KG77, was shot down at Folly Farm, South Holmwood, Surrey, earlier that same morning. It was also headed for London, but the crew jettisoned their bombs before baling out. Three of the crew landed safely but one man, Uffz Wilhelm Menningmann, fell out of his parachute harness and plummeted to his death at the Leatherhead Sewage Treatment Works.

The unfortunate Menningmann suffered a fate that most British citizens of the period no doubt felt he deserved. Perhaps a reflection of that feeling was the sad spectacle of Menningmann's lonely funeral, reputedly attended by only the priest, the pall bearers and the undertakers.

Very often such funerals had a wide military presence, conducted with military honours, and with attendant groups of civilians who were either curious or caring. If the story is correct, then this all seems to have evaporated for Willi Menningmann who still lies buried in Leatherhead Cemetery. Here, firefighters deal with the smoking crater caused by the violent vertical impact.

Kathy Atherton included the Folly Farm aircraft crash in an exhibition at Dorking Museum: "According to David Knight's Dorking in Wartime book, Unteroffizier Menningmann fell into the sewage beds near Leatherhead on 27th September 1940 after he fell out of his parachute when he bailed out of his plane. He was buried in the parish church shortly afterwards with only the undertaker and vergers present."

Via Ancestry (Germany, Military Killed in Action, 1939-1948 records) it has been possible to look at an index card in the German archives  about his death.

Even the Germans had trouble spelling his name correctly:

Family and forename: Mennigmann Wilhelm [and written above in red Menningmann]
202459/92
G-A 573/0839
born: 10.9.16 in Dortmund
Unit: Luft 2 Staffel Kampfg 77
Rank: Uffz Bordf
Erfennungsmarte 28/55511 (service number?)
date of death: 11.10.40 (in red 27.9.40)
place of death: England
buried on: 3.10.40
Place and number of grave: Leatherhead Parish Kirchhof Surrey
Reported by: [various entries referring to Engl List]

 

To which this reply came, from a highly respected Battle of Britain author:

Brian Hennegan is the author (with the late Goff Powell) of several books on Leatherhead. Both were choirboys at the Parish Church with Teddy's father. So to try and resolve matters the editor asked him what he remembered of the grave next to Teddy's.  Without prompting Brian said there had been a headstone of the war grave type for a German airman next to Teddy's headstone, but the body had since been been repatriated to Germany. The repatriation was a long time ago, he said, possibly at the end of Canon Ball's time as Vicar or the start of his successor Sandy Morris's incumbency (1959). 

When looking at the CWGC online record of another War Grave in the Leatherhead Parish Churchyard there was an image of a Graves Registration Report Form. The date is 17 March 1955. It includes 55511 28 Uoff W MENNIGMANN German Air Force 27.9.40 Grave Marking: CWC, maintained by relatives. That entry is crossed out. So perhaps he had been repatriated by then?

There the story rests for now.

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* [In retrospect no matching on the CWGC database could be because he was already in a designated CWGC cemetery as there are a number of war graves in the churchyard. Or the name was not quite right.]

** Robin Cooper: "The Ju88 had a crew of four and are all accounted for in the text of your report. However, there was a German pilot who parachuted from his aircraft a few days after this incident and [it was him who] landed in Yew Tree Road close to the Ranmore end. He was picked up by Canadian troops and taken to Dorking hospital, badly burned."

Research by Frank Haslam with thanks to Robin Cooper, Brian Hennegan, Kathy Atherton and Lorraine Spindler.
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page last updated 11 Jun 20