The vital wartime clue, found in a German forest

25th Apr 2025, Reading time: 22 minutes

 FINDING GOD IN ALL THINGS 

By David McMahon, Province Communications Manager

If you are the person who handed in three World War II medals contained in an envelope to a member of the Camberwell RSL six years ago today, on Anzac Day 2019, you are the key to the last element in a wartime puzzle. Perhaps you know the story of who looked after those medals for decades. What you might not know, though, is how your action that day brought closure to a family who lost a relative in World War II.

The medals were engraved with a name and a service number. They were vital clues.

The Xavier College connection

In the words of Catherine Hall, Archivist at Xavier College, “The medals belonged to Peter Andrew Marsh (OX 1940 – an Old Xaverian from the class of 1940).  The Camberwell RSL Secretary contacted the Xavier Archives about the medals as he believed that Peter (pictured, right) was an Old Xaverian and that – if confirmed – this would assist the RSL in searching for any of his living relatives. In January 2020, the Camberwell RSL handed the medals to the Xavier Archives for safe keeping as they had been unsuccessful in contacting any members of the Marsh family.”

In March 2020, the World Health Organisation pandemic declared the Covid-19 outbreak a global pandemic. While state and international borders closed and lockdowns were enforced, the April 2020 edition of Xavier News featured Peter’s story and his medals, while noting that Xavier did not know of any living family members.

“A day after the magazine was distributed,” Catherine says, “Dermott McCarthy (OX 1946) contacted us, having read the article. Dermott and his brother Brian (OX 1947) remembered the day the news spread among the students that Barry Marsh’s (OX 1947) older brother Peter (a member of an RAF Bomber Command air crew) had been officially listed as missing in action. Dermott went on to note that Barry’s descendants were living in Melbourne and that he would put us in contact with each other.

“The loss of Peter Marsh was a defining moment for the family. His father John passed away soon after and his mother Phyllis never really recovered. Peter’s brother Barry married Irene Hindle in 1956 and they had four children. Their eldest, a son, was named Peter after his uncle and three daughters followed: Geraldine, Elizabeth (Liz) and Ann. The story of their Uncle Peter was well known among the family and his medals were always thought to be missing. Research confirmed that the medals had been collected, but by whom was a mystery.”

From Xavier to the Royal Air Force

So what led Peter Marsh from Melbourne to the wartime RAF, where he served as an air gunner, occupying the mid-upper turret in an Avro Lancaster, a four-engine heavy bomber with a crew of seven? As Xavier College reported: “He was born on 27 January 1924 and attended Xavier Preparatory School Burke Hall from 1936 to 1937 and Xavier College from 1938 to 1940.  In 1936 he won the junior obstacle race in the Burke Hall Athletics; in his final year of 1940 he was a member of the Under 15s football team as well as gaining his Intermediate Certificate before leaving Xavier.

“In March 1942 he enlisted in the RAAF, aged 18. On 12 May 1943 he was promoted to Flight Sergeant in (the UK-based) 61 Squadron RAF and on 10 September transferred to 97 Squadron RAF, both squadrons under control of RAF Bomber Command.

“Peter was an experienced gunner and had taken part in 38 successful operations when on the night of 21 January 1944, targeting Magdeburg in Germany, he and other crew members of his Lancaster bomber were reported as missing in action. In November 1944, Peter was listed presumed killed In action, as of 21 January 1944. He was just six days short of his 20^th birthday.

“A Missing Research and Enquiry team later reported that the aircraft had crashed at Schmölau, seven miles north of Wittingen and 35 miles north of Braunschweig. All seven crew members were initially buried in a collective grave at Schmölau Cemetery. In 1948, after the war, Peter’s body was moved, together with those of the other crew members, to the Berlin 1939-1945 Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery in Charlottenburg, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, Berlin, Germany.

“Peter was posthumously awarded the Air Crew Europe Star, the 1939-1945 Star and the 1939-1945 War Medal.”

But Flight Sergeant Peter Marsh never saw those medals. These were the ones handed in to the Camberwell RSL in 2019, six years ago.

Wreckage in a German forest

Unbeknown to the Marsh family, there was also someone else – a stranger several thousand kilometres away – who was also interested in the story.

A few years earlier, in 2005, Michael Bartels, a German civilian, had come across pieces of wreckage in a forest. He was not sure if the sections of riveted metal might have belonged to an Allied aircraft or to a Luftwaffe bomber or fighter. On one piece of the wreckage, he found the stencilled letters, “JB299” and the word “port”. That was his first clue that it was remnants of an Allied plane. He did his own research, contacting British authorities, including the 97 Squadron Association, to discover that the metal pieces were from an RAF Lancaster with the squadron code OF-W.

It was Peter’s plane.

A significant journey for the Marsh family

In 2012, six years after he found the wreckage, Michael Bartels found the story of the missing gunner on The Marsh family website and was able to contact them to share details of his discovery. In 2019, Peter’s niece Liz and her youngest daughter Annie travelled to Germany to meet him. A video clip shows Liz talking on a train while on the journey to Winsen, near Hamburg, to visit the Bartels family.

She speaks directly into the camera: “My uncle, Peter Andrew Marsh, was shot down over Germany in January 1942. It was his second-last mission as an air gunner and he was then going to be sent back to Australia. Today, my daughter Annie and I will be visiting a family near Winsen, near Hamburg – Michael Bartels and his wife Christiana and their three children will be hosting us and they will give us a piece of his plane. We got up very early this morning in Berlin to make this journey.”

Liz then reads aloud from a piece of paper she is holding – a transcript of a letter from RAF authorities, received by Peter’s parents in 1944. “Dear Mr Marsh. It is with the deepest regret that I must confirm your son, Flight Sergeant Peter Andrew Marsh, failed to return from night operations on the night of 21-22 January 1944. I wish to express the sympathy of the whole squadron with you in your anxiety. Flight Sergeant Marsh took part in a raid on Magdeburg as an air gunner. No news has since been received. We can hope that the aircraft was forced to land and that the crew are safe, even as prisoners of war.

“Your son was one of the most experienced air gunners, having taken part in 38 operations against the enemy and was a member of one of our most reliable crews. They were therefore undertaking a leading role in this Pathfinder squadron. His kit and personal effects are being carefully checked and will be sent to the RAF Central Depository, from whom you will hear in due course. If any news is received, you will be notified immediately. In the meantime, I join with you in hoping that your son and the rest of the crew are safe. Yours sincerely, Wing Commander……”

In Liz’s own words on the clip: “The pieces of the puzzle will be put together when we meet Michael and his family in Winsen and reflecting on Peter’s story.”

Meeting Michael Bartels and his family 

The next part of the clip is filmed in the home of the Bartels family, where Michael has carefully arranged the pieces of the wreckage that he located in the forest. “These pieces were lying on the ground as if they had fallen there a month ago,” he says. The camera finds the section that has the stencilled clue: “JB299. Port.”

Michael, speaking to Liz on camera, says: “To find this was really amazing, because when an airplane came down in the war, then the Luftwaffe ground personnel responsible for this would come and normally pick everything up, but they didn’t find these parts. On this part you can see the serial number. The word “Port” indicates that it was a part of the left wing and that it must have been part of a British airplane. Then I started searching the internet and found out that there was a Lancaster designated JB299 – I found this on the squadron site. I contacted them in 2006 and they said they knew that the airplane came down and that the crew members died in the crash and that they were re-buried later in Berlin.

“Then I found your family website (six years later) and saw Peter’s logbook, letters and when you see this and you know that you have parts of the aeroplane, it’s unbelievable.”

Michael (pictured here in a screen grab from a video clip filmed by Annie) then crouches and takes out some books. He picks one up and explains that it deals with all the air crashes in the area that is now known as Lower Saxony. “There are two guys who have researched everything for each crash. They also found eyewitnesses and even researched who shot the Lancaster down. When the Lancaster crashed, there was an explosion. What I asked myself is why they didn’t try to bale out but it sounds to me like as if there was still some control of the plane. But I don’t know.”

He picks up the smallest part of the wreckage and says: “This part is from the engine cowling and you can see the power of the explosion.”

He gives Liz and Annie the piece to bring back to Australia. Liz picks up the other parts – one from the wing and the other a larger piece of the cowling. She turns the wing segment around to examine it. It is buckled in parts but one side still has the black paint used on Lancasters and other bombers that flew night missions. In a way, it is her first tangible contact with her late uncle.

The following clip, filmed the next day, shows Liz and Annie visiting the cemetery in Berlin, where autumn leaves provide an extra dimension to the lush green grass between the neatly symmetrical white headstones. After a stranger helps them find the grave, Liz says: “No one from our family has ever visited Uncle Peter’s resting place. I’ve managed to find some eucalyptus leaves and I have a little pot that I’ll put on the grave and hopefully it’ll continue to grow over winter. It’s quite an emotional moment for me but I think it’s important for us – for all of our family – to revisit Uncle Peter. Not that we ever met him, but we can imagine the short life that he had.”

Liz Marsh’s journey to Germany with her daughter Annie

I spoke to Liz Marsh after the Easter break this week, to get her side of the story. She was very generous with her time, even though she was about to leave for work. “I cannot remember exactly when Michael Bartels got in touch with my family,” she said, “but he contacted my brother Peter (who is named after our Uncle Peter, the RAF gunner) through the family blog. I think my brother might have been slightly sceptical to start with, just because the chances of that happening seemed so remote. But Michael said, ‘I’ve even visited your uncle’s grave’.

“In 2017, I think, my brother Peter and his wife Mauyra were doing a trip overseas and they thought that would be the perfect chance to go and visit Michael Bartels. But Mauyra got sick and they were unable to meet him.

“It’ll probably sound quite strange but I’ve always thought that I was the one who was meant to go over and get the piece of the plane. I don’t know why, but it was a strong spiritual sort of feeling that for some reason I was meant to get that piece of his plane. When it transpired that Peter and Mauyra couldn’t do it I felt, ‘There you go Liz, everything’s moved aside and you were meant to go’. I went with my daughter Anne in 2019. She was 19 at the time and at university. It was an extraordinary experience for both of us, but especially for her.

“We met Michael in the German town of Winsen. To me it seemed beyond real, the fact that he had found these pieces of wreckage on the ground in the forest. Unusually, there wasn’t even grass or weeds that had grown over the metal. I think he has found other wartime artefacts and as he said, normally you have to dig them up or pieces like this would be tangled up in undergrowth, but these were just sitting above the surface.

“He gave us one of the smaller pieces of metal and we caught the train back to Berlin that night. The next day, before visiting Uncle Peter’s grave, I thought I’d better look for some flowers to put on his grave. Just 200 metres down the road there was a bucket outside a florist’s shop – with eucalyptus leaves in them, believe it or not. At the cemetery, I had the grave reference to locate it, but my phone wasn’t working and I thought, ‘I’ll be here till midnight,’ because there were more than 3,000 graves.

“Then this man speaking perfect English just came out of nowhere. It was amazing. He said hello and he asked if I was all right because I was crying at this stage, thinking I was going to have to go through every grave. But he had this book with maps and reference numbers and he knew exactly where the grave was. We both went over and he even got some pictures of me standing beside the grave. I just thought, ‘Wow, how extraordinary that he showed up’.

“After that, I decided to mail that piece of metal back to Australia. I actually looked up all the reviews of post offices in the vicinity in Berlin to see which would be the best one according to star ratings and comments. Not only was I able to work out the best one, it was also the closest one to me! The man in the post office was an older gentleman and he was intrigued by the whole thing. He was very helpful, and even assisted in wrapping it and packing it. Then he helped me tape it up and I popped it into a postbox and mailed it to my brother Peter, who received it probably a couple of weeks later.”

Michael Bartels on welcoming Liz and Annie into his home

Less than 24 hours ago, on the morning of 24 April 2025, I was able to contact Michael Bartels and to ask him three key questions. He swiftly responded by email, despite the fact that it was close to midnight in Germany:

Have you ever found World War II wreckage before, or was the Lancaster wreckage the first time you found any in that forest?

It was indeed the first time I found wreckage from a World War II aircraft – this was in 2006. I got a hint from a guy who grew up near that forest, a person who had found airplane parts there when he was a child, after the war. So I went there and the parts were still there – this was unbelievable after such a long time. It is also unusual to find large parts such as complete engine cowling panels, still lying visible on the surface of the ground after 62 years.

How did you find out which RAF squadron the Lancaster was from, and how did you find the Marsh family website?

I found the plane serial number, JB299, painted on one of the large cowling parts, then searched the internet via Google in 2006 for the number, which is when I found the RAF 97 Squadron Association homepage. I contacted them and they told me that the plane had been shot down in January 1944 and that the crew members had been re-buried in the Berlin 1939-1945 War Cemetery in Charlottenburg after the war.

In 2012 I researched the net again for the crew members of the Lancaster. This time, because the internet resources and content had developed substantially over the years, I found the Marsh family homepage in Australia, with all this very personal content, including his RAF logbook and the letters of Peter’s mum. Now, for the first time, I had a face that personalised the wreckage and I could imagine the great loss the family had experienced.

I then contacted the Marsh family and offered to send the wreckage parts to Australia. To me, that was a way to finally bring back a part of Peter’s life in a very symbolic way to the family. It would have been appropriate to honour the sacrifice he made for freedom and peace, especially from the perspective of my generation in Germany, who have never had to experience a war and who therefore have had the privilege of living in freedom, in a democracy.  

No victim of war should ever be forgotten, irrespective of which nation they belong to. In 2015, I went to Berlin and visited Peter’s grave and those of his other crew members for the first time, and placed some flowers there.

What did it mean to bring closure to Liz and her family by inviting them to your home and giving them a piece of the plane?

It was a pleasure and an honour for me to show Liz and Annie the wreckage and to give them a part of it. Peter never was forgotten by the Marsh family and is still a part of their lives. 

I can only imagine what it would mean to my family collectively, or to me individually, if something belonging to one of our many family members who died in the war were to somehow be returned to us. It would feel unbelievable, such a long time after the war. The Second World War once separated nations, but nowadays acknowledging the fate of individuals/soldiers and remembering them together helps to connect people and nations and bring healing. That is my experience. 

Commemorative Mass at Xavier College

In 2021, in the context of a world still dealing with Covid-19, Xavier College held its annual Anzac Commemorative Mass. In the words of Archivist Catherine Hall, whose story the previous year helped track down the Marsh family, “One of the most significant events in the Xavier College calendar is our Commemorative Mass. The importance of the day cannot be understated.  It gives our community the opportunity to honour the sacrifices made by those who served in war and did not return.  In an uncertain year, we were very lucky to have had the opportunity to celebrate the Mass in person. This allowed us to complete the final chapter of an amazing story of service, loss and family.”

The 2021 Mass, however, held an elevated significance. With members of the extended Marsh family in the congregation, as well as serving and retired military personnel, Rector Fr Chris Middleton SJ blessed the three medals and the small part of the engine cowling before handing them over to the family.

During the Mass, Fr Middleton said: “It is this piece of Lancaster JB299 OF-W, together with Peter Marsh’s medals, that are being blessed today. Members of the Marsh family with us today include Peter’s sister-in-law, Irene Marsh; his cousin Biddy Crutch and her niece Maree; his three nieces and members of their families: Peter and Mauyra Marsh, Sean Marsh and Alina Quilliam and Siobhan Marsh and Jerry Llaguno; Geraldine Marsh and Michael and Sarah Vinton; Liz Marsh and Gilbert Girardi and Annie Marsh-Pearson;  Ann Marsh and Adrian Moorrees.”

“The reality is far more personal”

Looking back on that now, we ask Catherine what her role in solving the puzzle has meant to her.

“Being the Xavier College Archivist isn’t just a job, and it isn’t just a career,” she says. “There is something else, something intangible, something special about this work. On paper, I collect, catalogue, preserve and store documents, photographs, objects and textiles that relate to the history of Xavier College. The reality, however, is far more personal. It is the memories and stories of the students that come with the items that make them special. The objects are imbued with personal histories by the donors, a personal history that the current students connect with.

“When someone asks to donate an item, more often than not, the object is not in itself of monetary value or unique. We are often the last stop before the op shop or the recycling bin. Donating to the Archives makes someone feel that their object, their story, their boy, their family’s story, matters. I gather and collate the stories alongside the objects. This is what is so special about this work.

“This is just one student’s story, one family’s story, connected to a physical object. There are many objects with stories that fill out and provide colour to items in the Xavier College collection. The focus shouldn’t be on the archivist; our work should be invisible to the audience. The focus must be on the objects, the boy or man to whom they relate and how their individual story is a part of the wider College story. Current students are fascinated when they visit the archives. The past opens when the students can relate to the stories and objects displayed, when they can connect on a level that is relevant for them. By observing and realising their story is a part of the whole history, students are engaged. Memories and stories, as much as objects, need to be kept. By telling the stories of the past, with a physical object, we can best honour our history and those that came before us in this place.

“Peter Andrew Marsh’s medals were donated anonymously via the Camberwell RSL. On the surface, the medals were just objects to be returned and I was very grateful to be able to do so. As I spoke with the family, they noted they had been looking for these medals for years, the search hitting many dead ends. I came to realise that the return of the medals was forming a part of this family’s healing journey. The physical medals, to the family, had become symbolic of Peter himself. With the medals missing, Peter was missing, the story was not complete. The family needed Peter’s story to be finalised in order to allow the past, the present and future family members to heal.”

Graphic above by David McMahon.