Kurt Brand

Unteroffizier Kurt Brand — A German Airman at St. Hilary

The Final Swansea Raid

On the night of 16^th February 1943, Swansea endured what would prove to be its last air raid of the Second World War. The attack was devastating: 32 high-explosive bombs and countless incendiaries rained down on the city, leaving 34 civilians dead and many more injured.

Dornier Do 217

According to German records, the Luftwaffe dispatched 37 Dornier Do 217 bombers, each carrying a crew of four. The formation took off from Eindhoven, Holland, and refuelled at Evreux, France, before pressing on to South Wales.

Bristol Beaufighters

At the same time, No. 125 (Newfoundland) Squadron RAF, stationed at the newly constructed RAF Fairwood Common (opened in June 1941), scrambled its Bristol Beaufighters to meet the incoming raid. The defenders intercepted the bombers over the Gower coast. At around 22:25, one Dornier was shot down in flames and crashed into the sea off Port Eynon. All four crew members were killed.

The aircraft was crewed by:

• Pilot: Günther Hubenthal
• Wireless Operator: Karl Hochmuth
• Flight Engineer: Hans Krause
• Observer: Unteroffizier Kurt Brand

Washed Ashore

More than two months later, on 25^th April 1943, the body of one of the crew was washed ashore at Rhossili. The remains, badly decomposed, were later identified as those of Kurt Brand, aged just 21.

A death certificate was issued on 27^th April 1943, listing his cause of death simply as “Due to War Operations.” His occupation was recorded as “German Airman”, with service number 58213/184. Like many German servicemen, the only identifying detail he carried was this number, etched into his military dog tag.

Burial at St. Hilary

On 28^th April 1943, Unteroffizier Brand was laid to rest in St. Hilary’s Churchyard, Killay, in a funeral conducted by RAFVR Padre H. S. J. Harries. His burial was entered into the parish register, page 26, burial no. 204.

Kurt Brand's name
St. Hillays Burial Register

Location of Kurt Brand's grave
with kind permission St. Hillay's church, Killay

Unlike the Allied airmen buried at St. Hilary, Brand was interred alongside the boundary fence, separated in death as he had been in life by the divisions of war. For 20 years, his grave remained there, unmarked and little known, while the churchyard around him filled with the graves of British, Commonwealth, and Allied servicemen.

Exhumation and Reburial

Kurt Brand's grave
Cannock Chase Germany Military Cemetery, Staffordshire

In March 1963, following an agreement between the British and German governments, Brand’s remains were exhumed along with those of other German servicemen buried across the UK. He was re-interred at the German Military Cemetery at Cannock Chase, Staffordshire, the central resting place for over 4,900 German war dead from both world wars.

Legacy

Unteroffizier Kurt Brand’s story is a poignant reminder that the cost of war was borne on both sides. For two decades, his grave at Killay lay apart from his comrades, a quiet marker of the Luftwaffe’s last raid on Swansea. Today, his name is preserved at Cannock Chase, while the sea off the Gower coast remains the final resting place of his three crewmates—Hubenthal, Hochmuth, and Krause—whose bodies were never recovered.

Though he was once an enemy combatant, his presence at St. Hilary reflected the shared fate of all who perished in the war, buried far from home under the same Welsh sky.