We got a signal from the Air Attaché in Dublin to say that about two weeks previously a Junkers 88 carrying the latest German radar gear had force-landed in a field north of Dublin at five o’clock in the morning. The Irish were prepared to let us collect this plane, provided we arrived in an aircraft carrying civilian markings, and wore civilian clothes. I was to lead the party to go. The first condition was impossible, as there was not a single aeroplane in all Britain with civilian markings after six years of total war. The second was flouted by our Group Captain, who insisted that for prestige value we went over in uniform, carrying our civvies in suitcases. On 2nd June 1945 we landed at the Eire Air Corps field of Gormanston, a little grass field where the men lived in tents, and where the Junkers had put down. There it was, standing forlornly on the field. In our martial glory we got a very cold reception from the Irish. Icily we were told to go at once into the CO’s office and change. But no sooner had we done this, than the same unfriendly characters were all over us, slapping us on the back, pumping our hands, filling us up with Guinness. We spent a hilarious night in Dublin, before interrogating the German crew next morning.

They had a strange story to tell. The pilot was a German South African, who had had, he said, no interest whatsoever in the war, being very comfortably settled with his family in South Africa, but had been forced to return to Germany to fight after threats to the safety of his children if he did not. This was the way the Gestapo operated in the ex-German colonies. As the war was drawing to its close and the Germans were retreating, their CO had got all his pilots together and said to them, ‘Look, it’s all over, we’re finished. We might as well get out of here. Every pilot can have his aircraft and full petrol tanks. He can take anybody else he chooses aboard, and clear out wherever he wants. Personally, I’m off to Sweden’. Four of the pilots decided to make for Eire, some for Sweden, others for Spain. The four for Eire set off in formation. Over Manchester flak split them up and one of them was shot down. Our man did not see the other two planes again, and they were almost certainly lost in the Irish Sea in the foul weather then prevailing. He flew above the filthy weather and picked up the coast of Ireland on his radar, broke cloud at 400 feet in the pouring rain, flew south down the coast until he saw the field at Gormanston, and landed with great skill in the half-light of five in the morning on the wet grass of a landing strip only 900 yards long. Now he was longing to go back to South Africa and become a man of peace again. We examined his radar, ran up the engines, and just managed to squeeze out of the little field. We headed for Anglesey, and there a flight of Spitfires picked us up and escorted us to Farnborough, just in case there were any suspicious gunners about.

— Wings on My Sleeve by Captain Eric Brown (Page 101 - 102)