The Exbury Junkers - A World War II Mystery

On a fine spring morning in 1944, seven weeks before D-Day, a lone German bomber emerged from the clouds over the Isle of Wight. It circled low over the northern part of the island and somehow managed to withstand a barrage of anti-aircraft fire before flying across the Solent to the Hampshire coast, where it fell victim to an attack by two RAF Typhoons and to further anti-aircraft fire. The bomber crash-landed in a field close to Exbury House which, at this time, was the home of HMS Mastodon, a naval headquarters closely involved in preparations for the Normandy landings. None of the men on board the Junkers survived.

In the aftermath of the crash, a number of questions began to arise... Why had the Junkers flown alone in broad daylight directly to an area of the south coast of England where preparations for D-Day were reaching a crescendo? Why had it loitered suspiciously over the Isle of Wight? Why, when it was under attack, had it appeared to take little or no defensive action? Why had it fired red Very lights? And, crucially, why were there seven bodies in the wreckage at Exbury when the Ju 188 should only have been carrying a crew of four?

John Stanley first encountered the mystery when on a family holiday on the Isle of Wight and determined to uncover the truth about the mystery. He subsequently spent many years of his spare time painstakingly researching the incident, including contacting every known eyewitness and all the relatives of the seven young Germans who died in the crash. The results of his patient detective work are to be found in this fascinating book.

Available from:
Woodfield Publishing