ABILENE, Kan. (Tribune News Service) —  “I first was like, I need to talk to this person and try and get more details. I wanted to know how he found us and how he got interested in it. Then, when I found out he had been researching crashes for 10 years, I was just really amazed by his dedication to the project,” said Cape Cod, Mass., native Carly Smith about her reaction when a German man called her out of the blue.

The man, Maik Petersen, has spent his personal time over the last 10 years researching World War II plane crashes in the countryside around his hometown of Dagebüll, Germany. Once he has identified the plane and its pilots, he attempts to contact the descendants of the pilots and assembles a memorial at the crash location.

“I don’t want them to be forgotten in a few years,” Petersen said. “If I don’t do anything right now, in 10 years nobody will remember what happened. Once the last eyewitnesses die, it’s over.”

Currently, Petersen is attempting to contact the descendants of 10 U.S. soldiers who died in a plane crash. One of the soldiers was Staff Sgt. David Surls of Herington, Kan. After internet research and a post in the Herington Happenings Facebook group, Petersen found a niece and great nephew of Surls, Lavona Christner and her son Paul Christner.

“It was (unusual), but Mr. Petersen was very kind and he spoke really good English,” Lavona Christner said about receiving a call from a German native. “We had a nice conversation.”

“He has gone out of his way to reach out to families of loved ones who died in Germany,” Paul Christner said. “He certainly didn’t have to, and I’m sure had other things he could’ve been doing. He has sent multiple pictures of items retrieved from the plane wreckage and is currently working on a memorial to be placed at the crash site.”

Surls and the crash

Staff Sergeant David Surls was the second youngest of 13 children. Joining the U.S. Air Force, David’s position was assistant engineer on the B-24H his nine shipmates and he manned. According to declassified reports Pertersen found and eyewitness account, the crew’s mission was to bombard Kiel, Germany. On the way back from Kiel, B-24H was shot down by a German fighter plane. While the B-24H attempted an emergency landing, their view was impaired by a snowstorm. After narrowly avoiding a house, the B-24H could no longer maintain the speed to stay in the air.

“The house still exists today,” Petersen said. “The eyewitness from the house told me she and her entire family wouldn’t be alive if the plane would have hit the house.”

The plane crashed into a field, rolled over and exploded. The plane is believed to be shot down by enemy aircraft. The plane was last seen Jan. 4, 1944. His body was brought back to the U.S. in 1949 and buried at Sunset Hill Cemetery in Herington. His body is still there. Lavona Christner said she never met Surls, as she was born in 1948. Lavona and Paul both said they are considering traveling to Germany to visit the crash site.

Petersen found parts of the B-24H wreckage in a field several miles southeast of Dagebüll near the town of Bredstedt. He found the site and its history thanks to two eyewitnesses, Ingwer Paulsen and Ilse Schneider. Paulsen witnessed the crash, and Schnieder tended to the graves of the soldiers at the age of six before their bodies were brought back to the U.S.

Below are all 10 soldiers and their positions on the B-24H:

– First Lieutenant Robert L. Hull, pilot

– Second Lieutenant Edward E. Durrance, co-pilot

– Second Lieutenant Vincent B. Coleman, Navigator

– Second Lieutenant John E. Lessey, Bombardier

– Technical Sergeant James F. Johnson, radio operator

– Technical Sergeant William R. Hay, engineer

– Staff Sergeant William L. Buchert, assistant radio operator

– Staff Sergeant David L. Surls, assistant engineer

– Staff Sergeant Edward F. Griffin, armorer gunner

– Staff Sergeant Raul Vasques, armorer gunner

Petersen said he has so far contacted five of the 10 soldiers’ families. He will wait to erect a memorial if Paul and Lavona Christner and the other soldier’s family decide to travel to visit the crash site.

“That’s one of my fastest researches,” Petersen said. “I heard of it a few years ago, but I kept researching crashes with survivors, because the chances of finding living relatives are way higher. I just drove into the village, asked an elderly man who was walking on the street if he knew something about a plane crash. 10 minutes later, he brought me to the exact spot, and, 20 minutes later, I found some pieces with the metal detector. That was at April 21 this year.”

Petersen’s research

Dagebüll is located in north Germany on the same peninsula as Denmark is located. Petersen said most people of younger generations living in his area of Germany believe World War II left that part of the country untouched, and nobody died there. So he is erecting these memorials to commemorate the soldiers and crashes of the soldiers to unearth history in his area before the eyewitnesses pass away. This year alone, Petersen has erected one memorial and will erect three more. In total, he has researched over 30 WWII plane crashes.

“A lot of evenings, a lot of weekends, searching with a metal detector and talking to eyewitnesses, searching for people who know eyewitnesses,” Petersen said. “Yeah, it’s really a lot of time. I think it’s worth it.”

Along with eyewitnesses, Petersen confirms the details with declassified WWII documents found on the internet and local documents such as obituaries.

“Finding the document is easy, but it’s hard to tell which plane is which document,” Petersen said when finding missing air crew or crash reports. “So you need to know exactly where it came down and know just one name from the crew.”

The wreckage can also reveal clues as to what type of plane crashed. Petersen said he identified Surl’s plane as American from one piece of metal with a serial number marking it as a B-24H. Petersen said he also found a chain necklace. While he does not know which crew member the necklace belonged to, he wants to send pieces of the chain to families of the soldiers.

Petersen said most of the crashes are American aircraft with some belonging to Great Britain and Germany.

Memorials and families

Once he’s identified a plane and all the soldiers onboard, Peterson erects a memorial of a plaque on a boulder. The plaque has information of the plane, the outcome of the plane and all the soldiers on board with their pictures.

One of the most difficult parts of the process is contacting the families. With a foreign number, Petersen said it’s sometimes difficult to prove he is not a scam caller. Sometimes, Petersen will ask Carly Smith to reach out to families ahead of time to alert them.

“Through my interest in it and his long-time interest, we started to work together because there are some times where he can’t find a certain family that’s connected to a crash or he’ll call and people will think it’s a scam,” Smith said . “He calls from a foreign number, so he’ll ask me and I’ll try to call. As an American calling from an American number, sometimes I have more success in someone answering the phone.”

Petersen first contacted Smith back in 2024 about her grandfather. Carly’s grandfather Sergeant Philip Smith died in 2000. He also flew in a plane that crashed in the German countryside. He survived, but the family never learned where he had crashed. Petersen found the plane crash sight in a field near Dagebüll and information the Smiths did not know about the crash.

After building trust, Carly, her father and aunt visited Germany to meet Petersen, the crash site and attend the dedication ceremony for the stone memorial.

“A ton of people came out for the ceremony. They received us so warmly. Had a reception after. We got to speak with two eyewitnesses who were children at the time of the crash,” Carly Smith said. “At that point we had contacted all the families from the nine men who were on that plane. People who couldn’t attend, we had a Zoom call going so they could watch the ceremony and talk to the witnesses, which was unbelievable.”

Petersen is still researching and identifying crashes around his hometown of Dagebüll. He can be contacted about useful information involving crashes at maik.petersen@gmail.com.

© 2025 the Abilene Reflector-Chronicle (Abilene, Kan.).

Visit www.abilene-rc.com.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.