Western front-interesting bits of information

Robert "Bazzi" Weiss

On 28 September 1944 “Bazzi” shot down a Spitfire reconnaissance aircraft of the RAF`s 541 Squadron. The first confirmed victory of the Fw 190D-9.

Aces of the Luftwaffe - Robert Weiss

 

Alot of those aircraft kills are Il-2s!

 

On the British Resistance in 1940

From the Last Ditch by David Lampe

" Once the General Thorne asked that Auxiliary Units patrols be sent to test the security of his own HQ, and in the attack that followed , the raiders penetrated to the very heart of Scottish Command, to place a thunderflash under the seat of the General´s private lavatory. The raiders suffered no casualties and indeed were not seen."

 

Well, it wasn´t always a great job being Eisenhower´s guard....

From " Geronimo across Europe" by R. Edward O´Brien

" What made Reims a particular bad place at that time was the fact Eisenhower´s HQ was located there. At times there were probably more stars in Reims than there were soldiers. Some troopers after getting liquored up decided to play the game of getting Eisenhower´s policemen, the SHAEF MP´s. They´d spot an MP in his nice clean and pressed uniform and two or three troopers would take off and try to rough him up. The MP uniform was like a red blanket in front of a raging bull.."

 

With the evacuation from Dunkirk and the necessity for inter-service co-operation, Dowding and Keith Park were to learn of the typical non-co-operative manner of the Royal Navy. On the one hand they complained of inadequate fighter defence over Boulogne, yet at the same time they informed Dowding that:

" Our destroyers fire at any aircraft that comes within range, whether they make our recognition signals or not."


" Blitzed " The battle of France may-june 1940 by Victor Bingham

 

today near Kassel, Germany back in 1944 the US 445th bg lost upwards nearly 30 B-24's in the worst losses of any US bomb group during the war. the lw sent out it's 3 sturmgruppen..........

 

Bentley Priory was the headquarters of Fighter Command during World War II

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The Priory itself suffered very little damage from enemy action during the war; 2 small bombs destroyed a wooden hut near the married quarters, blast from a flying bomb broke a few windows, and the windows in the Officers Mess were shattered by the blast of a V2 rocket.

Ironically, it was an aircraft of our own Bomber Command that came closest to destroying the Priory. A Wellington bomber of No 311 (Czech) Sqn returning to its base attempted to land on the lawns in front of the Priory. It narrowly missed the Priory and crashed outside the Sergeants Mess; sadly there was only one survivor.

 

yes, quite a shame , it must be terrible to realize as a last thought that your are about to kill your friends

 

From Harry Yeide " Tank Killers "

A U.S. army study of 39 TD battalions of all types indicated that they , on average , deestroyed 34 tanks, 17 yowed guns and 16 pill boxes. Total TD losses as measured by replacements in the entire ETO were 539 M10´s , 215 M18´s, 151 M36´s and 228 towed guns.

 

" The Germans started their attack on France without a single Panzer formation in reserve. If the attack failed, Germany would have had no mobile units with which to respond to a possible Allied counter-offensive."

From " Wages of destruction "

Great plan, btw, Manstein, especially if you did not win in the first round....

 

November of 1944 during this week 63 years ago the LW night fighter force was starting to gear up for the Ardenne offensive by starting the dangerous night ground attack missions, and still in the air against the RAF that was pounding the Reich to pieces

 

" Hawker Hurricane " by Edward Shacklady

Battle of Britain

When the battle opened at the beginning of July...

Seventy-two percent of all Hurricane pilots had seen combat , compared with twenty-six percent of the Spitfire pilots.

Moreover, the Spitfire was still in advance of universal maintenance standards in Fighter Command, with the result that during July and August only eight airfields in No 10,11 and 12 Groups were fully equipped and competent to repair a category 1 damaged Spitfire. This imposed appreciable limitations on the deployment of Spitfires, as well as inevitably influencing pilots of slightly damaged aircraft in their choice of landing grounds.

...Göring chose to squander his bomber forces, using them to lure the British fighters into the air, and those bombers operated exactly within the altitude band in which the Hurricane flew best.

 

For some time Mustang’s operational range was greatly debated among the 309 pilots, who were the first Polish unit to fly that aircraft. Contrary to a common knowledge that Mustang couldn’t be flown to Norway and back, F/Lt Janusz Lewkowicz - fully qualified aeronautical engineer himself - made some calculation and was convinced it was not so. His calculations were duly submitted to the Group Headquarters where they were simply ignored. To prove his point, he made an unauthorized flight to Norway ( 27 Sept 1942 ), where he strafed some military installations at Stavanger and returned safely. This flight became notorious among Polish airmen and nothing short of a sensation among Allies air forces. For his flight, Lewkowicz was reprimanded for breaking the regulations and at the same time sincerely congratulated by Air Marshall Barratt. After that, nearly overnight, the Group’s planners had to reevaluate the task for the Mustang squadrons.

No 309 Squadron

 

A pic from the net on an anti-aircraft platform in the Thames Estuary in 1942.

Argghhh! The Home Of Two Of Jonah's Military Guys..: November 13, 2005 - November 19, 2005 Archives

Some 3/4 down the site....

 

At the beginning of May 1945, General Franz Boehme, commander of German armed forces in Norway reported to Dönitz that eleven divisions and five brigades remained in the country, the total strength of German forces in Norway amounting to 380,000 men.

Hitler/Dönitz Baltic Sea by Grier

 

On 8 may 1940 Gruppenkommandeur Hauptmann Hozzel, together with two of his pilots, Oberleutnant Elmar Schäfer ( whose bomb had crippled HMS Bittern ) and leutnant Martin Möbus, plus veteran observer Unteroffizier Gerhard Grenzel, became the first four members of the Stukawaffe to be awarded the Knight´s Cross ( Grenzel being the first NCO of the entire Luftwaffe to be so honoured).

Scandinavian sideshow from osprey

 

Following the surrender of Germany, the 82nd was ordered to Berlin for occupation duty. This lasted from April until December 1945. In Berlin General George Patton was so impressed with the 82nd's honor guard he said, "In all my years in the Army and all the honor guards I have ever seen, the 82nd's honor guard is undoubtedly the best." Hence the "All-American" became also known as "America's Guard of Honor."

82nd Airborne Division (United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

 

Norway was a quite place...

" In their nine months of flying the FW 190, I/JG 5 lost six pilots- all in accidents. Several others were injured, and a disproportionately large number of aircraft were written off or damaged.

..experienced very little action, as is well illustrated by one pilot who managed to get himself transferred to one of Finnish-based Gruppen. When quizzed about his number of kills by these eastern Front veterans, the newcomer had to admit that in over 60 sorties he had never even seen an enemy aircraft, let alone shot one down!"

From Scandinavian Sideshow 1940-45 ( Osprey aviation )

 

On the US Airborne on D-day

" The 82nd and 101st landings were considerably widespread. Some 25 miles long by 15 deep. On the morning of 6th, the 82nd could muster only 33% of its strength, the 101st only 38%. However, this did have the advantage of giving German counter-attackers the problem of where to focus their attacks."

From 82nd Airborne Division by Verier

 

Phony war ? Not completely....

" Between 1 September 1939 and 1 May 1940 the Armée de l´Air lost 914 aircraft. Yet the vast majority of these losses were attributable to accidents of one kind or another;only sixty-three French Aircraft were actually lost in combat during this period, and a further eighteen damaged- and of this total, thirty-two of the casualties were sustained in the course of a single month, September 1939. The Luftwaffe´s losses over the same period were 491 bombers, 61 dive-bombers and 385 fighters, making a total of 937 combat aircraft either totally destroyed or badly damaged- not a bad ratio to the French losses, when one considers that the Luftwaffe was involved in full-scale air offensives in Poland and Norway."

Air-war over France 1939-40 by Robert Jackson