So
what was the fate of the participants in this five-minute encounter? For
the surviving German crew it was three days in
Lerwick in' jail and hospital,
where Bernhard
 Luking's
wounds were attended to more thoroughly, and thence transport to London via
a series of hops in aircraft, motor cars and trains. Their first leg was by
HandleyPage Harrow from Sumburgh, and there they- met Berry and Watson. Thurz recalls them as being very shy: `I don't know why; it was not I who
had harmed them - they had shot at me!' After interrogation at Cockfosters
he was sent to No. 1 PoW Camp at Grizedale Hall, Cumberland (see Volume 1,
pages 114-115). Ultimately he was shipped to Canada, spending four years at
Camp 20 at Gravenhurst, 100 miles north of Toronto, before being returned to
Britain. He was released on January 19, 1946. During this time he met a
colleague, who told him that a passing German aircraft had been `listening
in' on the British R/T,
and thought he had been shot down near the
Orkney island of Burray, as he heard that he `had been shot down by Berry'!
As Karl Heinz Thurz remarked when he revisited the island, he was not
entirely unhappy about being shot down as he couldn't envisage surviving the
whole war with the rate of attrition his Staffel had suffered.
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As for Pilot Officer A. E. Berry, he
stayed with No. 3 Squadron, was awarded the DFC in March 1942 and became a
Squadron Leader in May. He was killed whilst leading the Squadron into
attack against ground positions at Dieppe on August 19, 1942.
Today the remains of the Heinkel are probably the largest pieces of a German
aircraft still to remain above ground where it crashed. A section of the
tail and fuselage and the two deteriorating Junkers Jumo 211A-3s still lie
amid other small items scattered across the bald patch in the grass which
marks the spot where the plane burned. The high winter winds have spread the
lighter pieces over the surrounding fields and into the small stream that
runs down to the old mill. Sacrificial electrolysis has left some parts as
clean and bright as new, whilst others crumble at a touch. Over the years
parts have been put to practical use, such as exhaust pipes for tractors,
etc., owing to the
scarcity of materials locally. One of the elevators was said to have ended
up on the island of Yell, to be used as a wind-vane on a windmill. The
pilot's seat-amour was converted 'directly into ploughshares, although it
had to be sent away to
Lerwick, being too hard for
any local cutting machinery.
The two dead crew members, George
Nentwig and Leo Gburek, were buried in the small parish churchyard at the southern end of the island, to share it
with generations of islanders and past victims of the sea. As the burial
service proceeded, two Hurricanes flew
overhead, performing aerobatics, One wonders if this was Berry and Watson?
We may never know.
CHRISTOPHER BARKER 1987
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