However, she eventually fell in battle, crashing close to Motowski Bay in the Murmansk region of present-day Russia on May 28th, 1942 while serving with I./St.G.5 (marked as L1+KU). Her pilot, Lt. Eberhardt Klauck, and observer, OGefr. Hans Hüllen, reportedly survived the incident and made it back to German lines, although there is some evidence that Hüllen became a POW. They likely bailed out of their stricken aircraft as it was badly wrecked in the ensuing crash. The battered remains of this Stuka lay largely undisturbed for the next five decades until someone rediscovered them during 1996. A recovery then took place, with the wreck being imported to Britain in 1998. According to FHCAM, the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin acquired the remains a short while later, one of several Stuka projects that they have owned over the years. Wk.nr.5709 is believed to have moved on to FHCAM sometime in 2004.”

Permission to visit and photograph the multiple wrecks when in the UK was obtained. This part along with others now held in our Heritage Collection were obtained on this visit as surplus.