Hi Everyone
I contacted a Mr Wim Govaerts who has written a book on Schnaufer....this is what he had to say regarding the action with JB348:
I have no detailed information from Schnaufer personally, most of this was destroyed at the end of the war, but his radio-operator Rumpelhardt kept a diary from which the following is an extract.
They were flying at an altitude of 5400 meters wenn Schnaufer shot down his first bomber at 19.13 hours. Shortly afterwards Schnaufer made another attack from beneath at a bomber, but this failed.
Then according to Rumpelhardt: "Suddenly I had in my Lichtenstein at about two kilometers distance another target in sight, which moved itself a few hundred meters lower. After a crazy pursuit, left, a little to the right, again somewhat left, now some to the right, and so on - was the Tommy in front of us. Heinz made a heavy attack to the left wing. Then plunged the bomber down as a burning torch, almost straight down, after which it exploded on the ground in a tousand gloing pieces."
After these two victories, the German radarsystem was apparently jaimed by the British and Schnaufer flew further on in the hope to get a glimpse from Bombers - so they turned to Wilde Sau at that moment - but over Bremen they noticed that a German nightfighter was being shot down by his own Flak, whereupon Schnaufer decided to fly back home.
This might perhaps explain as to why only the midupper gunner survived. He noticed the attack first hand - having sight over the wing he saw what happened. He was also the closest to the exit door.
So it might well have been possible that he noticed the heavy fire instantly, took his parachute, and jumped - the others most likely simply had no chance to get out, as the bomber was already plunging down at high speed.
Finding the exact crashsite is going to be difficult if you do not have help from someone localy, but you might already try to write to the council and explain them about your plans. Perhaps they have a local historian who can help.
