Me-323 massacre

Wow!
great vids guys! I like the tanks being loaded! but the rocket assist on takeoff is very cool! nice finds guys!

from the underside that thing looks like a semi truck with wings!!

 

Good Vids guys!!!

 

I don't know if this picture is from the Mediterranean Massacre mentioned above, but it definitely shows an Me-323 in a world of hurt....









...interesting that the landing gear is down over water....


.... either the hydraulics were shot out, or it was on final approach for a carrier landing.....



....probably the hydraulics....yeah, I think I'll go with the hydraulics shot out...


-whatever

-Lou

EDIT: It's hard to tell what the black 'smudges' in the background are - boats? .... landing craft? .... other shot down -323's???

Here's a link to the site .... unfortunately, my Chinese is a little rusty.

 

Yes this could be one of the unfortunates. Let us be cautious though, there were a lot of montages made made by the intelligence service. This picture however looks genuine to me.

 

Description: South African pilots at Kairouan North/Temmar, Tunisia, recount the events of 22 April 1943, when Curtiss Kittyhawks of No. 7 South African Wing, and Supermarine Spitfires of No. 1 Squadron SAAF, intercepted and shot down a large formation of Messerschmitt Me 323 transport aircraft and their fighter escorts, which was attempting to reinforce the beleaguered Axis forces in North Africa, off Cap Bon, Tunisia. They are, (left to right): Major J D W Human (Sweep leader of No. 7 Wing), Major J E Parsonson (Officer Commanding No. 5 Squadron SAAF, credited with shooting down two Me 323s), Lieutenant R W Humphrey and Lieutenant F A Weingartz (both No. 5 Squadron SAAF, each of whom was credited with two Me 323s).

From
IWM Collections Online: Search Photographs Archive

 

Very Nice photo! This is an interesting thread. But I dont know chinese so I couldn't read the article. Thanks guys!

 

Here's the Google Translation of that page .... while it's always easy to make fun of these eTranslations, they do give a feel for whats being said - and are certainly better than staring at the Chinese characters (assuming, of course, that you can't actually read Chinese!)

EDIT: The picture above is in 'PART 3' of the translated page.... you have to clkck it a couple of times to get there.

-whatever

-Lou

 

One might note that the Me 323 was originally developed for the Seelöwe invasion of England. The competing Junkers Ju 322 glider was a 45 million RM failure.

 

Thanks scarface! That was a good article.

Thanks for the note T.A.

 

Thanks for the updates guys. there are more Gigant videos on youtube for those who wish.

 

I can imagine the panic going through the crew at this point.

And Lou, I'd gor for shot out hydrolics too.

Or it's a very large carrier.

Make the Doolittle raid look like child's toys!

 

Great photo!

I was hoping that one of the guru's of the flight records would show up here and tell us what the after action reports said about the Italian pilots!
Anybody?

 

Holy Thursday, just before Easter 1943, was the blackest day of all for the Me 323s and their crews. The following account of the incident is based on war diary entries, teletype messages of the Luftwaffe operations staff and statements by men who were there.
Ten Ju 52s of Kampfgruppe z.b.V. 106 took off from Pomigliano at 0640 hours bound for Tunis. The formation was led by Staffelkapitan Oblt. Biedermann. The Junkers were supposed to fly to Tunis with a group of fourteen Me 323s which took off from Pomigliano at 0710 hours and the maximum available fighter escort. Each Gigant was carrying about 12 metric tons of fuel or ammunition destined for Army Group Tunis, the embattled remnant of the former Afrika-Korps commanded by Rommel's successor, Generaloberst von Arnim. Sixteen Me 323s were originally supposed to take part in the mission, which was to be a repetition of a successful mission on 19 April when all aircraft returned safely. The sixteen aircraft were not the last still available to KG.z.b.V 323, as has been claimed in various publications. According to Geschwader strength reports from April 1943, at the beginning of the month I. Gruppe had fifteen aircraft, while II. Gruppe had 23 Me 323s, although not all were serviceable.
One of the Giganten assigned to the mission on 22 April could not be made ready to fly and aircraft C8+BN of Obfw. Karl Kandzia went unserviceable as it was preparing to take off. Following engine run-up, two engines failed during the takeoff roll. In addition, one tire blew and the aircraft was unable to achieve flying speed. Kandzia's Me 323 rolled off the end of the runway past the DF shack and ended up in a field. It was later recovered.
The fighter escort of 39 Bf 109s assembled over Trapani at 0830 hours. Another 65 fighters were supposed to fly out from Tunis to meet the formation. At 0835 hours the formation overflew the island of Marettimo west of Sicily and descended to a height of 20 to 50 meters above the sea. The specified route of flight was not over Cape Bon, a fact which had been stressed at the flight briefing the previous day, but over Cape Farina, which lay approximately 75 kilometers farther west. The area around Cape Bon was considered especially dangerous. The Ju 52 group was flying on the right, the Me 323s on the left. Approximately halfway between Sicily and Tunisia the Me 323s separated from the Ju 52 formation and, contrary to orders, set course for Cape Bon. Why the Gruppenkommandeur of II./KG.z.b.V 323, who was flying in Gigant C8+AR, ordered this course change will never be known. Most of the escort fighters which had taken off from Sicily stayed with the Ju 52s and did not go after the Me 323s until the fighters from Tunis had reached the Junkers. This splitting of the fighter escort meant that the Giganten had only 36 escorts instead of the planned 104.
Oblt. Biedermann saw the attack on the Me 323s beginning in the distance, however he and his formation of Ju 52s reached Cape Farina unmolested at about 0935 hours. Biedermann was supposed to take his aircraft into the holding area near Cape el Fortass. Instead, however, he led his formation to a German fighter base at Andeless and circled there until he received clearance to land at Tunis.
At 0925 two large groups of enemy fighters began attacking the Me 323s between Cape Bon and the island of Zembra. Conditions were hazy. The first group of enemy fighters engaged the Bf 109s of II./JG 27, which were flying at an altitude of about 2400 meters, and forced them away from the transports. This allowed the second formation, which was larger and made up mainly of P40 Kittyhawks of the South African Air Force, to attack the Giganten. The arrival of the fighters was no accident. First, Tunis and the surrounding airfields were the transports' only possible destination and they could only arrive within certain hours. Second, a secret transmitter, which was discovered that same day, had been sending information to the Allies on all German flight movements from Trapani. The radio was hidden in a confessional in a church on Monte Giovanni above Trapani. Under these circumstances it was no problem for the enemy fighters to intercept and destroy the transport units, especially since shortages of personnel and aircraft meant that they were usually weakly escorted.
The enemy fighters estimated the size of the Me 323 formation at 20 aircraft instead of the actual 14. Once attacked, the Me 323s took evasive action and the wedge-shaped formation disintegrated. The huge, cumbersome transports had little chance of even reaching the African coast. Usually able to sustain a great deal of battle damage, on this day the Giganten were carrying volatile cargoes and most caught fire or exploded after a few hits. Though they put up stiff resistance, shooting down five to seven enemy fighters, the Me 323s were shot down one after another until the last Gigant crashed into the sea in flames. The escort fighters from Tunisia were still with the Ju 52s and were too far away to intervene. In any event, it is likely that they could have done little to alter the outcome of this uneven battle.
Flight-Lieutenant Edwards of No. 260 Squadron arrived on the scene toward the end of the massacre and discovered the last surviving Me 323, which had so far escaped attack. He and two other pilots gave chase. They opened fire on the Gigant, which caught fire and crashed into the sea.
Only after he had arrived in Tunis did Oblt. Biedermann contact the adjutant of the Fliegerfuhrer by telephone and inform him of the air battle. On reading Oblt. Biedermann's written report, the Geschwaderkommodore of KG.z.b.V 323, Oberstleutnant Gustav Damm became furious and demanded to know why the air-sea rescue service had not been alerted by radio. The belated (beginning at about 1200 hours) rescue - Fieseler Storks dropping one-man life rafts, most of which missed their targets - was hampered by heavy seas and rain. Some men were picked up by motor torpedo boats, with the Storks circling overhead to guide the boats to the men in the water. The last survivors were picked up at about 1800 hours, after 8 1/2 hours in the water.
Aircraft losses: 14 Me 323s with 700 drums of fuel. Personnel losses: the initial tally was 2 killed, 113 missing (including 6 officers), 4 badly injured and 14 with less serious injuries. In the end, however, it was found that only 19 of the 138 men involved had survived this tragedy. Oberstleutnant Werner Stephan was among the dead and he was officially honored by Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring for his "heroic actions." In transport officer circles, however, it was believed that Stephan had arbitrarily changed course to reach Tunis more quickly and thus led the Giganten to their destruction. Had he lived, he would probably have been required to answer for his actions before a court-martial....
[details of each Me 323 lost on 22 April omitted here] ...According to Me 323 pilot Oblt. Ernst Peter, from the end of November 1942 to 22 April 1943 KG.z.b.V 323 had transported 15,000 metric tons of equipment to Tunis and Bizerta in approximately 1,200 sorties. Among the items delivered: 309 trucks, 51 medium prime movers up to 12 tonnes, 209 guns up to 150-mm caliber, 324 light guns, 83 anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns, 42 antiaircraft radars including "Wurzburg Riese" and 96 armored troop carriers and self-propelled guns. In April 1943 alone, the Geschwader lost 21 Me 323s to enemy action and 7 from other causes. The unit's actual strength on 30 April 1943, including new arrivals, was thirty-five Me 323s.


This is from Second World War Books Review
​

 

Here are some accounts:

It's always interesting to compare this kind of description to accounts of the same engagement from other works.
Here's what Richards and Saunders have to say in volume II of Royal Air Force, 1939-1945:

...On 22nd April they rashly committed a consignment of petrol to Me.323's—six-engined glider-type aircraft which they had previously employed only in small numbers. Several of these huge machines, each carrying some ten tons, attempted the passage under heavy escort. Intercepted over the Gulf of Tunis by seven and a half squadrons of Spitfires and Kittyhawks, the formation was mown down to the last aircraft. ​

Alan J. Levine tells the story this way in The War against Rommel's Supply Lines, 1942-1943:

On April 22, the Germans sent in 21 of the huge Me-323s, each carrying 10 tons of fuel to Tunisia. Although the clumsy transports were strongly escorted, this move marked the passage of the Axis daylight transport effort, already irresponsible after April 5, to the stage of insanity. The South Africans sent out 38 P-40s, covered by a South African Spitfire squadron and additional flights of British- and Polish-manned Spitfires. They downed 16 (or possibly 17) Me-323s, an Mc 202, and an Re-2001, and perhaps three or more German fighters. Curiously, Allied losses also are uncertain; at most they lost four P-40s and a Spitfire, which had to belly-land. ​

In Fighters over Tunisia, Christopher Shores provides almost two pages about the engagement, concluding with this paragraph:

Final confirmation of the early morning battle credited the DAF fighters with 25 Me 323s, eight Bf 109s, one MC 202 and one Re 2001, at the cost of four Kittyhawks lost and one damaged, one Spitfire belly-landed but repairable, and one damaged. This brought Allied claims for transports since the start of Operation "Flax" to well over 400 for the loss of about 35 fighters while engaged on these operations. However, on this occasion there seems to have been a fair amount of double-claiming again, particularly as the formation of Me 323s was originally assessed to be only 20 strong. While II/JG 27 put losses at 16, Stab/JG 53 reported that 17 Giganten were shot down. In any event, TG.5 was wiped out as a unit. ​

Dabrowski continues with Me 323 operations in the Med until withdrawn from Italy later in 1943, then on the Russian Front where the transports were pressed into non-stop service supplying threatened and besieged ground forces. The book also covers the USAAF raid on Keckemet in Hungary in June 1944 which destroyed a half-dozen Giganten on the ground. Chapter 12 deals with the Waffentraeger ("Weapons Carrier") version of the Me 323, a variant with a strengthened airframe which sacrificed cargo capacity for increased defensive armament and was used exclusively in the escort role. Chapter 13 describes the "Flying Workshop" version which was, as the name implies, fitted out with tools and work benches, stocked with spares, manned by technicians, and utilized to reach and repair Giganten forced down at remote fields lacking suitable parts or facilities.
The final chapters provide photographic galleries of the Giganten, including eight pages of color photos. One of the most illuminating is of a German Marder (self-propelled, tracked artillery) being loaded into a Me 323. This photo alone is sufficient to drive home the monstrous hauling capacity of the aircraft. Of several appendices, the most notable are "Formation and Movement of Me 321/Me 323 Units" and "Me 323 Gigant Construction List," the latter with aircraft-by-aircraft data on construction, designation, employment, and eventual disposition.

 

great stuff b-17!
thanks!

 

Great addtional info! So things are pretty clear now. The high death toll seems logical now:

1) the escorts did not fly but were too far away escorting Ju52s.
2) Werner Stefan changed course and flew the Gigants closer to the allies instead of following instructions and make a detour.
3) the rescue Staffels were warned far too late
4) bad weather caused many survivors to drown

Found another Gigant view for you

 

You can say that again! Well worth the Pos Rep I'm providing!

 

No problem guys and thanks for the picture skipper

 

Here are some diagrams on the Me-323 and how it loads, sorry there small. Post them on a word document and blow them up. I dont know why they are that small or click on them the picture on the site is really big

 

These are colors most likely used I read by the german 5th Transport unit. Which the Me-323 and Ju-52's were in. They are the engines painted yellow with the body of the aircraft green

Ju-52's arament at the time was:


1x13mm machine gun in Dorsal turret
2 7.92mm machine guns


The Me-323 armament:

18x7.92 machine guns