A Second World War German Army Officer's dagger and scabbard with hanger by Eickhorn
with a dark amber celluloid grip, with nickel-plated steel blade with slightly sharpened edges and a semi-pointed tip, blade is marked “Original Eickhorn, Solingen” with the company’s logo on the reverse ricasso, the pommel also constructed of nickel silver exhibiting an oak leaf design, scabbard constructed of silvered metal (magnetic), with a traditional pebbled finish and ball final, with the throat retained by a single mounted screw, decorated with oak leaf bands and rings for attachment to a hanger with silver and brown cloth and a silver portepee, blade length 26cm, overall length 37cm (hilt a.f)

Provenance: Owned by Flight Lieutenant George POW DFC RAF, whose plane was hit by enemy fire when returning from a radar detection mission over Germany. As the American B17 Flying Fortress caught fire, its pilot, Flight Lieutenant John Wynne, ordered his men from the 214 Sqaudron to bail out. They were rounded up by the German army and marched through the town of Pforzheim to the nearby village of Hichenfield where they were held in a boiler room. Only three weeks before this event, Pforzheim had been hit by a devastating raid by Bomber Command. Once a thriving community of 70,000 souls, the town was now only ruins and rubble. Mosquitos had dropped 1,825 tons of bombs on Pforzheim in just 22 minutes, causing a firestorm that destroyed more than 80 per cent of the town's built up area and killed at least 17,000 people. Many died in their cellars, when their lungs burst with the intense heat.

The town had been badly hit in the wartime bombing raids with many civilian casualties. After a few hours an angry mob, egged on by the local mayor, burst into the boiler room, beat up the captive men and marched them to the cemetary of a local church, where they were shot by Hitler Youth who were dressed in plain clothes and ordered to incite violence by posing as outraged villagers. Air Gunners, Sidney Matthews, Harold Frost and Edward Percival and wireless operator, Gordon Hall were all killed. The navigator, Dudley Heal and air gunner George Pow, were taken prisoner and eventually sent back to the UK without knowing the fate of their comrades. Air gunner, Norman Bradley and wireless operator, Tom Tate, managed to break free and successfully escape the execution mob.

The plane's pilot Flt Lt Wynne eventually managed to bring home the badly damaged plane, landing it at Cambridgeshire Basingbourn airfield. The German ringleaders of the execution were eventually sentenced to hanging by the war crimes tribunal and others were given various jail terms. The minister in the church of the German town of Hichenfield, where the men were murdered, was so outraged that he erected a plaque in their memory.

*With photocopied news articles and provenance.

Condition Report
Large section missing from the grip - additional images available on request.

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