Western front-interesting bits of information

April 7th 1940 Hauptmann Hannes Gentzen with his first kill on the Bf 110 in the Western front, meant that for the next 16 days at least, a Bf 110 Zerstörer pilot topped the list as the highest scorer in the entire Luftwaffe. This latest victory brought Gentzen´s total of enemy aircraft destroyed to nine. His nearest rival, Hauptmann Werner Mölders of III./JG 53 would not claim his ninth until 23 April.

Me Bf 110 Zerstörer aces of WW2 by John Weal

 

"Numbers never tell the whole story, but one Battle of Britain statistic is as stark as it is sobering. The Luftwaffe had embarked upon the Battle with 237 serviceable Bf 110 Zerstörer...and lost no fewer than 223 in the waging of it."

Me Bf 110 Zerstörer aces of WW2 by John Weal

 

Now this is interesting. What was the BF 110's weakness?

 

Their speed, manoeuvrability and defensive armament were completely inadequate and their presence in the combat area was a liability for the escorting Me109 fighters.


The Battle of Britain - Home Page

 

Quite a list. I know I read in Len Deighton's 'Fighter' that the Bf 110 was the fastest plane available during the Battle of Britain. I will have to dig that up and get more details. Also, didn't they start out with the Daimler Benz engines and then went over to the Jumo engines which caused it's loss in speed? Good info as always Kai.

 

Churchill Sept 1939

But he was convinced that Britain must not be hesitant in its efforts to win the war and, as part of the Land Forces Committee, he recommended an Army of 55 divisions by 1941 with 20 divisions ready to stand beside the French by the spring of 1940. Critics charged that an Army this size would inhibit development of the Air Force and Navy. Churchill defended his position with the comment: "Pardon me if I put my experience and knowledge, which were bought, not taught, at your disposal."

1939: Action This Day (Summer/Autumn) - The Churchill Centre

 

Overlord

BBC - WW2 People's War - RAF Bomb Disposal Flight 6225

(I think this is the Goliath tank. Quite many there, it seems.)

Beatle Tanks

Some 300 found near the beaches. These contained 200 pounds of TNT in brick form. Removed the explosive but, owing to close proximity of troops and the danger of becoming targets for German bombers, had to bury explosive in a field to be destroyed later. Air Ministry and local command informed not to use the field as a transit camp, but was ignored, causing several problems. On the soft ground where we had buried the TNT, the troops made their latrines!! Some days later I received a dispatch rider from the transit camp which was partly surrounded by fire. Had to take immediate action to put the fires out before nightfall. Done by controlled explosive demolition.

The Beatle Tanks did not appear to have been used.

 

D-day and St Marcouf naval battery and Oberleutnant Ohmsen

BBC - h2g2 - Crisbecq – the Defenders’ Story

By around 6 am, all three K52s had been cleared of debris resulting from the night’s bombardment, and each was test-fired at longer range targets over the course of the next few minutes. Among several warships in close proximity within the bay, one was already firing at the battery itself. Ohmsen identified it as a light cruiser, though in fact the USS Corry was a destroyer. Just after 6.30, all three K52s at his disposal fired on the ship at under four miles range – point blank in Crisbecq artillery terms. The salvo of three shells hit the Corry midships almost simultaneously, breaking its back in a violent explosion. It sank within minutes, with the loss of 24 of its crew. This was the only sinking of a warship on D-Day itself.

By D-Day, the telephone links around the entire St Marcouf battery were extensive and reliable. The Americans never realised that the Azeville and Crisbecq gun crews could maintain a continuous conversation, and that more than twenty field scouts could talk to one or both. This is why the targeting of the guns was so relentless and uncannily accurate. All of the infrastructure was down to Ohmsen’s knowledge and direction.

 

Ventnor radar station

BBC - h2g2 - Isle of Wight Radar During The Second World War - A612334

However, on 12 August, for the first time, the Isle of Wight was a prime target. A detachment of 20 Junkers Ju88s broke from the main formation and turned to attack the Chain Home Radar station at Ventnor. The radar station was put out of action, the only one in the country in the entire war to have been destroyed.

On Friday 16 August, the Luftwaffe again attacked Ventnor Chain Home Radar station. The station had not yet been repaired since the last attack, when 7 Junkers Ju87s dived on the station. Five of the Ju87s dropped 7 bombs precisely on the radar station, destroying all the below-ground buildings and all but two of the buildings above ground. The Ventnor Radar Station remained out of service until after the reserve station at Bembridge was completed on 23 August.

After the two successful attacks on Ventnor Chain Home Radar Station, Germany never again attacked any of Britain's radar sites.

German Intelligence assumed that no serious damage had been done to any of the radar stations that were attacked. This was based upon reports from General Martini who had continued to detect transmissions from the Ventnor area after both attacks, which they assumed meant that the station was still operational. Intelligence assumed that the radar operations room and the equipment were deep underground, and that further heavy bombing would be wasted.

From " Hitler´s Stuka Squadrons" by John Ward:

" To cover up the dangerous gap created by the loss of the Ventnor station, the British transmitted a false signal on the wrecked transmitter´s frequency, leading the German listening posts on the other side of the Channel to believe that Ventnor was still fully operational."

 

Paul-Werner Hozzel (16 October 1910 – 7 January 1997) was a German World War II Luftwaffe Stuka pilot and first Stuka pilot to be awarded the coveted Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.

Hozzel, as the first Stuka pilot, was awarded the coveted Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 8 May 1940 in representation of his Gruppe’s success. This includes the sinking of military vessels, 60,000 tons of merchant shipping and the attacks against the fortresses Akershus and Oscarsborg Fortress.

Hozzel was awarded Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves on 14 April 1943.


Paul-Werner Hozzel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stuka-As - Oberstleutnant Paul-Werner Hozzel - Seite 1 - Post Scriptum Info-Board

 

Throughout the Second World War, cities, towns, boroughs, companies, organisations and even individuals patriotically raised funds to purchase aircraft for the hard-pressed Royal Air Force. These were known as presentation aircraft.

More Supermarine Spitfires - at least 3,000 in all - were funded in this way than any other aircraft type and at that time the nominal cost of each was £5,000 (today’s auction price would be around £300,000). Each donated aircraft bore a name suggested by its donor, usually marked in yellow characters on the engine cowling.

Some of the names were rather odd-ball. A Spitfire named "Dorothy" was bought as a result of subscriptions from women all over Britain who bore that name; another, "Gingerbread', was funded by red-headed men and women and flown by flame-haired Australian pilot 'Bluey' Truscott; while a third, "The Dogfighter”, was - appropriately enough - a gift from the Kennel Club!

The wartime record of the RAF aircraft known as "The Darlington Spitfire"

 

The Swiss protecting their airspace ( 1940 )

" Particular culprits were He 111 bombers of the Luftwaffe. Often damaged during raids on southern France, and anxious to reach their home bases, they did not hesitate to shave a few kilometers off the return flight by crossing the Swiss salient west of Basle. The Swiss were equally quick to defend their airspace, attacking such intruders whenever possible, and bringing several down.

An irate Hermann Göring decided to teach them a lesson, and II./ZG 1 was despatched southwards to do the job. On 4 June 28 Bf 110s escorted a single He 111 across the Jura mountains in a deliberate attempt to entice Swiss fighters over France. When this failed, the German formation itself ventured across the neutral border. It was immediately engaged by the watchful Bf 109s of the Swiss Air Force. The resultant combats ended with honours even- one Bf109 and one Bf 110 being shot down.

Four days later Hauptmann Dickore´s Gruppe was ordered to try again. After somewhat unsportingly bringing down a lone Swiss EKW C-35 reconnaissance machine over Pruntrut, the three Staffeln of II./ZG 1 formed into three separate defensive circles, stacked 2,000, 4,000 and 6,000 metres above the Swiss Jura, and awaited developments. They were not long in coming. A patrol of Swiss Bf 109s arrived overhead, diving down on the defensive circles from an altitude of 7,000 metres. Again a Swiss fighter was lost, the badly wounded pilot managing to crash-land his Emil at Bözingen-Biel, but this time four Bf110s failed to return. Wisely perhaps, Göring did not insist on a third attempt."

from Me Bf 110 Zerstörer aces of WW2 by John Weal

 

At one point during the Normandy invasion on D-Day in 1944, the ratio of enlisted men to officers approached an astounding level of 5 to 1. "Never in the history of human combat," General Maxwell Taylor wryly declared, "have so few been led by so many."

Anecdotage.Com - Thousands of true funny stories about famous people. Anecdotes from Gates to Yeats

 

15/01/1940

Nearly twice as many Britons have been killed on the roads since blackout started than by enemy action.

World War 2 Timelines 1939-1945 - War in Britain 1940 - Worldwar-2.net

 

Maginot Line at War Photo Archive

Awesome pics!

 

" Mr Bolland has written a book called " Team spirit", the story of the administration of 53rd Division in NW Europe.

Another item of particular interest during this battle was the issue of rum. During the complete campaign in NW Europe 53rd Division issued 2,894 gallons of rum; in the seven days of the Reichswald 1,228 gallons were consumed!"

From Tank Tracks by Peter Beale

 

Attack on the Ludendorff Bridge

On March 9, there were five US anti-aircraft battalions protecting the bridge, running a gauntlet from quad .50-cal machine guns up to 90mm guns. The attacks early in the day included the usual Bf 109 and FW 190 fighters, but also included improvised attacks by Me 410 heavy fighters. The first jet attacks on the bridge began on March 9 and included several Me 262 attacks, as well as three sorties by Ar 234's. One each of the jet types was lost to flak that day, and US units claimed 13 of 17 German aircraft making attacks. The third day, cloud cover protected the bridge in the morning, but in the afternoon, some 47 attacks were made with the anti-aircraft guns claiming a further 28 aircraft. The danger of low-altitude attacks led to attempts by the Ar 234 bombers to use the advanced Egon blind-bombing system from high altitude on March 12, but this was no more successful. This was the heaviest single day of air attacks involving some 91 aircraft of which the US AA units claimed 26 destroyed and eight damaged. Jet strikes against the bridge peaked on March 13 with 19 Ar 234 sorties out of the 90 sorties flown by the Luftwaffe that day; US AA units claimed 26 shot down and nine damaged. It was also the worst day of the campaign for the Me 262 fighter bombers, losing five aircraft to flak and Allied fughters. The scale of the Luftwaffe attacks dropped dramatically in the next few days because of the losses. By March 13, the anti-aircraft defense reached it's peak, with 16 AA gun batteries and 33 automatic weapons batteries for a total of 672 AA weapons around the bridge. Remagen witnessed the densest concentration of US Army anti-aircraft fire anywhere during the war and it accomplished it's mission. No German aircraft managed to hit the bridge in the ten days of attacks. Through March 17, the US Army estimated that the Luftwaffe had conducted about 400 sorties against the bridge of which 140 aircraft were claimed to have been shot down and 59 probably destroyed. Gefechtsverband Kowalewski had lost 18 jet aircraft in combat plus several more damaged aircraft crashing on landing, a total of about a third of it's original strength.

from Remagen 1945 Steve Zaloga

this was Hermann Goerings attempt,
(another one? Come on, how many chances are you going to give this loser? )
to enter the Fuhrer's good graces after loosing Hitler's favor for continued collapses.

 

Nazi Air Marker Hoax

Far from being sinister signs left by Nazi sympathizers, the markers turned out to have been entirely innocent patterns on the ground—in two cases made under the direction of the U.S. Government itself.

The number 9 had been made by fertilizer sacks dropped from a moving truck on the farm of C. Russell Bull at Kiptopeke, Virginia. Mr. Bull served as senior air raid warden for his region. Mrs. Bull was quoted as saying that military officials had visited their farm in March and called attention to the figuration of the fertilizer sacks, but had left after the layout was rearranged by her husband. She also noted that, “We’ve been drying bags that way for years. They are just thrown off a moving truck and it was only a coincidence that they happened to fall that way.”

The plowed-field marker was located on the farm of Thomas Kane, near Freehold, N.J. It had been created four years earlier under direct supervision of the soil-erosion bureau of the Department of Agriculture.

The V-shaped clearing was a feeding ground for birds near Haleyville, N.J. It was one of approximately nine hundred feeding grounds created by the New Jersey Fish and Game Commission in 1937.

The Washington Star concluded that it and other newspapers “were the victims of over-zealous army press-agentry, and as a result, participated unwittingly in what appears to be the great air marker hoax.”

 

92 LAA Regt. Loss of the SS Sambut on D-day

Fox Troop of 318 Battery having gone on separately to land on D-Day the rest of the Regiment and transport embarked on 3rd June at London Docks and were due to land on D+1 to reinforce them in defending Pegasus Bridge from air attacks.Overnighting off Southend our convoy set sail on 6th June.The escorting vessel ordered our captain to lower the barrage balloon to avoid detection from Calais but were passing Dover at midday when a loud explosion forward of the bridge from two 15 inch shells fired from Calais set the ship and deadly cargo on fire.

The Regiment eventually arrived at Aldershot,was re fitted and we met up with Fox troop at last on 29th June. Recent information found on the Internet showed there were 150 casuallties from all units on board.

BBC - WW2 People's War - 92 LAA Regt. Loss of the SS Sambut on D-Day

BBC - WW2 People's War - 92nd LAA-SS Sambut

BBC - WW2 People's War - Fox Troop at Pegasus and Horsa Bridges

 

The Fritz-X was also claimed to have been used to destroy the bridge at Pontaubault, to stop the advance of the US 6th Armoured Division, in August 1944.

Dawn of the Smart Bomb

The Fritz-X was a far more effective weapon than the Hs-293, but was shorter ranging and demanded higher operato skills. Around 1400 Fritz-X rounds were build, with around half expended in trials and training.