Chapter 7 - THE SARNTAL CONNECTION

There it was! In this translated Luftwaffe report, Olson's capture location was in the Sarn Valley. Where is the Sarn Valley? Jim thoroughly scanned road maps and atlases of Italy with no luck. WWII combat charts were checked with no success. Then, studying the pictorial tourism map sent from Ritten, Jim saw a small notation in the upper left corner with an arrow pointing west and labeled 'SARNTAL'. He quickly fired off an email to Mr. Righi at the Ritten tourist agency.

February 1, 2000

Dear Mr. Righi--

Could your office please send me via email a description of the Sarn valley and its location with respect to Ritten? I assume there is a Sarn River running through it. Thank you,

Jim Graham ----------------------------------

Mr. Righi's generous spirit of cooperation was evident in the next response from Europe. He had passed the request on to his fellow tourism director in the Sarn Valley.

February 3, 2000

From: info@sarntal.com

Dear Mr. Graham,

Thank You verry much for Your e-mail to the Tourist Office of the Ritten in witch You ask for descriptions of the Sarnvalley, special for a "Sarn-River"(?). We can inform You, that doesn't exist any river in our valley, wich is named "Sarn-River". The principal river through our valley is named "Talfer", or in Italian languague "Talvera". We can send You some information of our valley, but only in german or italian languague. Thank You for Your interest for our valley. Yours faithfully,

Tourist Office Sarnvalley

Walter Perkmann --------------------------------------

The two page attachment to his message was a German language promotional document describing the vacation and skiing attributes of the region. There was no map or distance information evident in the material and the language barrier prevented anysimple derivation of the location answer. It was obvious that Mr. Perkmann did not know the real purpose of the inquiry about the Sarn Valley, so another email was sent to acquaint him with the search effort.

February 3, 2000

To: info@sarntal.com Attn: Walter Perkmann

Dear Herr Perkmann,

I very much appreciate your rapid reply to my inquiry. I would like to have some information about your valley and I hope it would include a detailed map of your area. The item which led me to inquire about your valley was a German Luftwaffe report of the capture of one of my squadron's pilots in October 1944. I have been doing some historical research for my squadron and have been investigating materials that exist in the U. S. National Archives. I will attach a copy of that report to this message for your interest. I would be very interested if there were any residents of your valley who might have witnessed the crash of the airplane or the capture of the pilot. The aircraft was a P-38 Lightning--a twin engine fighter airplane with two tail fuselages. I again thank you and will be pleased to receive the information about the Sarnvalley.

Jim Graham, Seattle, WA U.S.A. --------------------------------------

A pair of somewhat unexpected replies were received.

February 9, 2000

From: Goeller Florian goeland@dnet.it

Hello Mr. Jim Graham

My name is Göller Andreas and I am a friend of Mair Christoph, that is the teenager that make the practise job on the tourist office in the Sarnvalley, where you have asked Herr Perkmann about some information during the second world war. We two go to the same school and at the moment we have two weeks something like a practise job at some offices in our valley. We are very interested in your research and so we both the last days worked very hard on your questions, but now to our results about this historical event.

- In the last day we watched in archives in our valley but we didn' t found some written papers about this crash of the airplane, so we went to Bolzano ( the capitol of SouthTyrol) to the biggest library. Also there we watched in papers of october the 21 and so one, but we didn´t found information. - Now a better information, my grandfather was witnessed of this crash of the airplane, at this time he was 14 years old and his father at this time was a "Sodmann"(that means he had to work a something like a soldier for Hitler) here in the Sarnvalley. So the american airplane with the pilot Virgil O. Olson was shot by a german "Flak"( that was a big cannon or gun). This "Flak" was situated on the mountain (the exact place its called "Kirchkorn" in german), it is a place in the mountains between "Pens" and "Durnholz" (this are two short valleys of the big sarnvalley). So when the american airplane was took by the shot of the "Flak", so the airplane began to smoke and my grandfather saw also that ca. 3 or 4 persons made a parachute jump out of the airplane. The airplane afterward crashed to a mountain it´s called in dialect german "Garmesegg" and there the pilot was capture, he has not big hurts. The other three american soldiers were founded in the mountains of "Durnholz" and also captured by german soldiers, also the other American soldier was captured.

I'm sorry I have at the moment not more information, I don't know whats exactly happended with the american soldiers that were captured and I have no information about the airplane (Lightning). I hope with this research you have enough information, it's not so easy to find more stuff about this event. So I wish you good luck by your researches, I hope you can understand everything, because my English is not so good. Ok greets from SouthTyrol (ITALY)

Andreas Göller --------------------------

February 10, 2000

Dear Mr. Graham

I have recived your E-Mail today. I am a 18 year old boy, and I attend a commercial school in Bolzano. At the moment I am here in the Tourist Office to make two weeks of practice, to learn more about buisness. After this week I must return to school, so if you have further information for me or other you can contact me with the following E-Mail address. mair.christoph@dnet.it or mair.christoph@tiscalinet.it

My interests are history, the armed forces and technology. I hope you have recived the E-Mail from my friend, about a aircraft, that came from North and was shut down by a german Fluck. As soon as possible I will send you a map of our area with the chrashpoints. At least I want say you that i can understand your language, my motherlanguage is German, my second language is Italien at the thirdth is English

Yours sincerlly,

Mair Christoph --------------------------------------

There were two more searchers added to the team----two eager young interns at the Sarntal tourist agency! As evidenced by their messages, there was a fragile linguistic link. It took several email exchanges before the U.S. team members understood that it was Christoph Mair—not Mair Christoph! Jim emailed them a photo of a P-38.

February 10, 2000

Dear Jim Graham

Yes the computer was able to show us the picture (photo) of the P-38. It´s also true that the story that I have told you in the last E-Mail is not correct, because my grandfather sad also that in this airplane were eight people, because it was a "Bomber". Yes our first language here is German, the second one is Italian and the third one English. So we studied English only for three years at school and our written English is not so good. I think my speak much better in Englisch, because I was four months ago in America (New York, Washington and Amherst). So I hope you will find more information about the event, and it would be perfekt if you let us know all of the research that you make, because it is a very interesting historical adventure. Secure we will sent you an E-Mail if we find more information about this event. Good luck

bye

Andreas -----------------------------

Jim was eager to keep these two students involved in the search effort, as they obviously had roots in the Sarn Valley.

February 10, 2000

To: Goeller Florian; Mair Christoph

Good morning fellows! Thank you both for your efforts to locate Lt. Olson's crash site and any witnesses or information related to his parachute landing and capture. I understand you will going back to school next week, but I hope you won't forget about our search. If you ever find any local information about the incident we hope you will send us an email. Ms. Diana Dale is very hopeful that we will find some witness or very factual information about her uncle, Lt. Bill Wisner, who also was involved in the event over your area on October 20, 1944.

The eye witness account that I sent you with the photo is about all the real evidence we have of the situation, but there also was a report from a bomber pilot who was flying nearby that day, that he saw two parachutes coming from the three P-38 crash. He was at quite a distance, so we can't be very sure about that report as evidence pertaining to our search.

Our search has been very active since the first of this year and we have made lots of helpful contacts. We are also communicating with people in the Ritten area and Bolzano who have some possibilities of witnesses, so we hope to collect enough information to know what & where it all happened 55 years ago. I will follow up with more information to you later. You might be interested in the story of another search we recently completed for another pilot from my squadron. The story is told in the website at www.behindbarbedwire.com/carlh.htm Thanks again. We hope to hear more from you.

Best wishes,

Jim Graham ----------------------------------------

The next morning, Christoph Mair greeted the team with a very promising message.

February 11, 2000

Dear Mr. Graham

Yesterday I get news from my Math teacher, with luck we have found the aircraft you are searching. I have new informations about two or three aircrafts chrashed in my neighborhoot. On of the pilots was arrested by the german army, his right foot was in a bad situation but he could walk. I have another information about a pilot, I think but I am not secure, he died in the crash, men found his body without live. I hope to can give you further information next week, when I have spoken with the persons who saw the pilots and aircrafts in 1944. The first information can underline the date and the time when the aircrafts chrashed. Can you tell me how was the 20.10.1944 with sune or rain.

Yours sincerlly

Mair Christoph ----------------------------------------

The scenario was a good fit to the October 20, 1944 mission! The pilot with the injured foot was surely Olson. Was the dead pilot Wisner or Twedt? Hold it!---Don't jump to conclusions! Maintain the analytical search mode! So back to Christoph--

February 11, 2000

Good man! You are still searching!

I checked the mission reports. Our squadron mission report said the weather was clear and visibility unlimited, so the sun was likely shining at 11:20 AM. The other squadrons that went on up to Regensburg encountered some clouds as they got close to Innsbruck. They reported a cloud cover of 6/10 in that area. As you question your witnesses, could you please find out if they think that any pieces of the airplanes might still remain. Sometimes the people liked to save a small rememberance of the event. We would also like to know the details & people who were the first to find the pilot who parachuted to the ground. Thank you very much for your continuing effort.

Jim Graham -------------------------------

Email communication keeps a tight loop—while sending one, the answer may be in the mailbox!

February 11, 2000

A friend told to me that during the summer, when he must going in the mountains, he can see pieces of aircrafts and a big railgun. I must now ask him better. Good night Mr. Graham p. s. now I am leaving the Tourist office. my address mair.christoph@dnet.it

Yours

Mair Christoph ----------------------------

The Luftwaffe capture report on Olson was emailed to Christoph to provide him with more ammunition to query the local populace and to spark their recollections of the incident 56 years into the past.

February 12, 2000

Subject: I am back to school

Hello Mr. Graham I must say you, that I am very missing the work. I must ask you if you can resend the the two E-Mails you have written to the Tourist Office. Because I need them for a report, that I must write in the next days. I need the two E-Mails sent to the Tourist Office on the 9.02 with the subjects: "Air chrash description an P-38 Photo" and "Re: News about the chrasch of USAF-planes in Sarnvalley" Thank you for the capture report, the report will be verry helpful for me. Your hear from me, when I can find new informations.

Mair Christoph ------------------------------------------

The requested messages were re-sent. Maybe his report at school might spark some fellow searchers for airplane parts & debris.