Sons at War by Jane Sweetland
In Jane Sweetland’s family, there’s a legend that her uncle Ted and a German pilot Joachim shot each other down in World War II. While investigating this, Sweetland unearthed a true story that was more fascinating than she had imagined.
Ted Sweetland and Joachim Müncheberg were born just six months apart-but half a world away: Ted in New Jersey; Joachim in West Prussia. The blond, blue-eyed boys could have been brothers. They played the same sports and childhood games and enjoyed many of the same privileges. Then Adolf Hitler came to power.
Spurred by patriotism, Ted and Joachim joined their respective nations’ air forces. They were twenty-four years old when their stories ended in the skies over Tunisia.
When Jane arrived to Poland looking for traces of Joachim we discovered the beauty and history of this area. The Province of Pomerania (German : Provinz Pommern; was a province of Prussia from 1815 to 1945. Pomerania was established as a province of the Kindom of Prussia in 1815, an expansion of the older Brandenburg – Prussia province of Pomerania, and then became part of the German empire in 1871. From 1918 Pomerania was a province of the Free state of Prussia until it was dissolved in 1945.
Towns like Schonfeld (Polish: Żeńsko) Friedrichshof (Polish:Radomyśl) and Dramburg (Polish;Drawsko) were the places the German pilot Joachim Müncheberg and his family came from.
Find out more about her story and enjoy reading it.