50 years after the Schoeneck Crash
     continued...........

The Enigma of the pilot who disappeared

The fate of Ralph Schaffer, the on-board commander, remains to this day a mystery. He is not found on any lists of the prisoners of war given out by the authorities. All the investigations of his family members, friends or survivors have been to this day in vain. George Lesko assumes he was killed by civilians. His name tags have been recovered on a Waffen-SS, appearing on the Russian front. Tim Shaffer, nephew of the vanished pilot and himself a military veteran of the U.S. air base Halm (Hunstruk) has come to Schoeneck several times to find some trace of his lost uncle. An appeal to witnesses has been published several times in the press. According to one witness who has asked to remain anonymous, one of the pilots had found refuge in a tree in the garden at Gersweiler. He had been killed there by a retired member of the Wehrmacht. Madame Madeline Kin, the sister of reverend Enkle, has affirmed to us that her brother had been called during the course of the war to Gersweiler to bury an American aviator. But she cannot be more precise about the date. Finally, Toni Blum, commissioner of police in Saarebruck and Inge Plettenberg, journalist, have recently put forth the hypothesis that Ralph Shaffer would have been able eventually to have rejoined the group of Russian partisans "Fischtschenko", which evolved at St. Avold before the liberation. An American lieutenant was found among them. But here also new investigations are necessary. Tim Shaffer in any case pursues his quest. The time has not healed all the wounds. He wants to know where his uncle is buried. His family has the right to know where they should pray. And why not a memorial plaque at Schoeneck in recognition of the five pilots who have written in their blood the word: Liberty.

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