18th June 1940

Junkers Ju 88 A-1 (WNr. ? - code ?)
Plouguerneau, " Leuré Lann ar Floc'h " (29)
(contributors : Nadège Anturo, Danièle Le Droff, Philippe Dufrasne)

Crew (Stab III./LG 1)
The crew was captured and then released upon the arrival of the Germans.

- Oblt Kurt SODEMANN (pilot), wounded.
 - Maj. Dr. Carl KRANZE (observer), wounded.
- Dr GERD,wounded
- Gefr. RESCHKE (radio operator)
- Gefr. Rudi SCHEIDIES (air gunner)

THE STORY

On June 18, 1940, three German aircraft were carrying out a mission against ships in the port of Brest. The Junkers Ju 88 A-1 of Stab III./LG 1 was shot down by anti-aircraft fire. It took off from Vitry-en-Artois. The crew, who attempted to hide, were taken prisoner rather roughly, which later led to the conviction of Jean-Marie Kérandel and Jean Balcon. Only Jean-Marie Kérandel was executed at Fort de Bouguen on June 28, 1940. He was the first person executed in Finistère. Jean Balcon was deported.
On June 27, 1940, while serving as vicar of the Saint-Louis parish in Brest, chaplain Jules Marie Joseph Pouchard, from Bais, was informed by a German chaplain that a man from Plouguerneau was to be executed. The following morning, he administered communion as viaticum to Jean Marie Kérandel, who would become the first civilian executed in Finistère.

TESTIMONY

♦ Danièle Le Droff, daughter of Georges Le Droff (who became pilot in the Free French Forces) - June 2014
" My father was from Lannilis, and he told me that a German aircraft had crashed in Plouguerneau, I think, and that although he was very young at the time [he was 17], he intervened because a number of people wanted to lynch the pilot. I don't know what became of him, but I found a photo of my father on the fuselage of the plane, adorned with the swastika. I also found the ID photo of a German airman ".

Georges Le Droff, at 17 years old, poses proudly on the tail of the Junkers Ju 88 shot down at Plouguerneau.
Photo with courtesy of family Le Droff

Photo of one of the crew members, obviously a Gefreiter, so either Gefreiter Reschke or Gefreiter Scheidies.
Photo with courtesy of family Le Droff

THE SAD STORY OF JEAN-MARIE KERANDEL

♦ Unmodified excerpt from the Le Maitron Biographical Dictionary website (link to the website)
(under Creative Commons Attribution – Sharealike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). 

" Born on June 3, 1883 in Ploudalmezeau (Finistère), executed June 28, 1940 in Brest (Finistère) ; farmer; member of the Resistance, the first Finistère resident executed by the Germans.

The son of François Marie Kerandel and Marie Philomène Menguy, Jean-Marie Kérandel, a farmer like his parents, was married and the father of eight children. He lived in the hamlet of Saint-Quénan in Plouguerneau, a town on the Abers coast in northern Finistère. On June 18, 1940, a German Junkers Ju 88 aircraft was shot down near Plouguerneau. This unusual event drew a large crowd to the crash site (including Kérandel). While three German airmen were easily captured, tensions rose when a knife was discovered on a fourth German. He was roughed up, though not physically harmed. The armistice of June 22 led to the release of the pilots, followed by a search for the assailants. That same day, Jean-Marie Kérandel was arrested by the Wehrmacht along with Jean Balcon. They underwent six days of interrogation, at the end of which Jean-Marie Kérandel's guilt was not satisfactorily proven. One of the German crew members stated that the assailant had a scar on his left hand, which was not the case for the accused. He knew who was responsible for the abuse but did not denounce him

Taken to Pontaniou prison in Brest, he was nevertheless sentenced to death by a court-martial on June 27 and executed by firing squad on June 28, 1940, thus becoming the first in a long line of those executed.

Recognized as " Mort pour la france " (killed for France), he was awarded the title of Interned Resistance Fighter (DIR). He was posthumously awarded the Resistance Medal on September 8, 1961, with publication in the Official Journal on September 22, 1961.
On the war memorial (1939-1945) in Plouguerneau, he is honored by a bas-relief bust facing his home in Saint-Quénan. The engraved names of the victims are : Jean-Marie Kérandel, François Léon, Jacques Normand, Gabriel Le Roy, Jean Sanquer.

Jean Balcon (born May 23, 1905 in Plouguerneau), deported on September 4, 1940 and imprisoned in Siegburg and Hameln, was liberated on April 7, 1945. "