Mysterious tail of German WWII plane

A RUSTING piece of metal left hanging in a North Clare shed for decades may be a clue to a World War II mystery.
Michael J Daffy, from Ruan, spotted the metal frame in the rafters of Percy Hogan’s shed in Cooga years ago. Michael believes the rusty metal is part of the tail of a German WWII plane and he is now trying to piece together information about the plane and it occupants.
“The farmer who met the two pilots kept it and put it in his shed for about 50 years and I spotted it in the shed about 20 years ago. It is part of the tail of the plane. I didn’t know what it was but I asked the son of the man who met these people. He said his father took it down from the field and the plane was up in the rafters for about 50 years until I spotted it. He was selling the farm of land and I went over and he gave me the bit of the plane and I have it in the garage for the last six months. I started looking at it here one day and I decided to do a bit of research on it and there was no place I could go with it so I decided to contact The Clare Champion,” Michael explained.
“I’m told the plane landed in a townland called Cooga. The man who told me about it, saw his father go up to see the plane landing. There were two people in the plane and one pulled a gun on the local farmer and told him to stand back. Then the plot thickens. The Irish Army came with gardaí and the plane was taken away. The two men were taken away and there was never another word about it,” he outlines.
“I only have local knowledge about it. I have a piece of the plane in my workshop so I asked a couple of people who would have been around at the time but they couldn’t tell me much. The plane was brought away by the military and there is no record in any of the papers that I could see of the plane landing. It would have had to be a big thing to happen in this area at the time,” he adds.
According to Michael, the plane did not crash in Ruan but was landed there deliberately. However, despite landing in “the biggest field in Ruan”, Michael believes the small plane clipped a tree or hedgerow on its descent resulting in part of the tail coming away. Michael asked two pilot friends of his to look at the tail and see if they could figure out the make. His research indicates the tail is from a Luftwaffe Storch FI 56 or 156, which had a wingspan of more than 46 feet and was more than 32 feet wide. This model also had short take off and landing capabilities.
“One possibility is that this plane took off in Southern France, came up along the South of England and landed here in Ruan. It was definitely not supposed to go back because it didn’t have enough fuel. It definitely landed here. It wasn’t a crash. I would like to know what it was doing here. There was no way the two were going back. They couldn’t have. This was a one-way flight. The tank of fuel would not have brought them back. They may not have taken off from France either because even that would have been cutting it fine. They could have taken off from one of the islands off the south coast of England. The $10,000 question though is what the hell were they doing there?” he asked.
Ireland’s Military Archives have no record of a German plane landing in Ruan or its hinterland during World War II. However, the archives do contain daily logs from each look-out point in the country and one nearby may have recorded unusual activity in the area.
“None of the people who saw the landing are alive now. No one would have been able to confirm this or know for definite that it happened except it lost a piece of the tail,” Michael stated.
“Why was this not in the paper? Was it that it was taken away so quickly? I understand the wings could fold away and it would have been possible to pull the plane behind a vehicle. The Government at the time didn’t want anyone knowing about these two German pilots landing. There are no records of the military or the police bringing the plane away. I am convinced it landed there in 1943 but that there was some kind of cover-up,” he claimed.
Michael is hoping to find out what happened to the plane and its two occupants but admits the metal frame may hang in his shed for a few decades yet before he knows the full story.
“I am looking for any information on this landing, or what might have happened to the two pilots, or the plane itself. If anyone knows anything it would be great if they would come forward and contact me at inga.fussa@gmail.com,” Michael concluded.