30 Jun MY STRANGEST IDENTIFICATION
In 1991 I received a tangled trail of documents regarding a Spitfire pilot who crashed at Boulogne in December 1944 and who oddly had no identified grave. It appeared the Padre who buried him found no obvious ID and thought he was Polish so buried him as an Unknown Polish Aviator. In the post war exhumations the Aviator was examined twice with no success and finally in the late 40s the Poles exhumed him and reburied him in the Langanerie Polish Cemetery in Normandy. He was there until 1994. The docs I received indicated the Pilot was likely a Czech. We were able to confirm no Poles died that month and the only missing Pilot was a Czech, Jaroslav Kauer. Kauer was the only aviator that fulfilled the characteristics of the unknown, so an ID was made.
So we could plan a named headstone on his grave .. but the Poles decided to exhume him from their cemetery and take him back to Boulogne Eastern where he is today!