WWII Stuff

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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby Doorstop » Thu Apr 09, 2009 11:47 am

Dugald wrote:
floweredpig wrote:Who knows, maybe there was a picture of the Kiellors factory on the label and the observer was using it to help with the bomb-run navigation.


Tomahawk Cruise Marmalade. ::):
I like him ... He says "Okie Dokie!"
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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby BrigitDoon » Fri Apr 10, 2009 2:59 pm

well skelpt coupon wrote:Yup, a Swordfish attack disabled the Bismark's steering and allowed the Royal Navy to catch up with her.

The Royal Navy's Historic Flight has three Swordfish on its books. They've been flying them at airshows for as long as I can remember.

http://www.royalnavyhistoricflight.org.uk/aircraft/
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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby well skelpt coupon » Wed Apr 15, 2009 2:13 pm

Howdy,

I was interested in the story of the Ju88 that landed at Dyce Airport. Does anyone know what became of the crew? And, more pertinently, what incentive we offered to get them over? Fascinating Stuff.

I also had a wee look at the Royal Navy's Historic Flight site and I was surprised that they didn't have a Vampire, de Havilland not Dracula. After all, this was the airyplane that showed jets could land on aircraft carriers. Which makes you wonder what sort of person wants to grow up to become a test pilot!

That Unlimited Air Racing in America still has a few old warbirds competing - assorted Sea Furies and Mustangs. 60 year old airyplanes flying at speeds they weren't designed for, basically at ground level. Which makes you wonder what sort of person wants to grow up to become a racing pilot. :mrgreen:

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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby Dugald » Thu Apr 23, 2009 10:58 am

well skelpt coupon wrote: I was interested in the story of the Ju88 that landed at Dyce Airport. Does anyone know what became of the crew? And, more pertinently, what incentive we offered to get them over? Fascinating Stuff.


WSC, sorry for the delay in commenting on your post about the "Ju88 that landed at Dyce Airport.". I guess this is the aircraft I was thinking about when I wrote, "A German aircraft, loaded with new radar equipment, did intentionally land at an RAF airfield on the Scottish east coast ,...", on an earlier post. I hadn't known it was a Ju88. As far as I recall the action of the German aircraft wasn't the result of responding to some British offer, but rather, simply a spontaneous desertion on the part of the pilot. If I recall correctly, the other member of the two-man crew was an unwilling participant in the desertion. I imagine the crew of the aircraft became POW's. I think the RAF station commander lost his job as a result of some sloppy security after the plane landed.
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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby well skelpt coupon » Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:00 pm

Howdy Dugald,

I did some checking, mainly with Google, and of course came up with various internet conspiracies. According to some reports, the Junkers was escorted through Allied airspace by the RAF. If this is true it points to some sort of prior arrangement.

Thinking of POW camps, weren't they heavily policed by assorted Nazis and SS men. I'm thinking of the riot and murder of some inmates at... Comrie (?) I really should check up on these things. :D But the point is, even if it was simple desertion, the crew of the Ju 88 would receive some close attention for what was an act of treason. The enemy values the spy but despises treachery as Schiller said. So surely they were housed in a special unit?

Who can tell, but I'll keep digging.

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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby Dugald » Fri Apr 24, 2009 8:34 pm

WSC, I'd guess that at this stage of the war, any German aircraft that got anywhere near the British coast would have been intercepted by RAF fighters; and if the Ju indicated (wing wiggling) it wished to land in Britain, then I'm sure it would not have been attacked. I don't think being escorted to a British airfield necessarily means the action was part of a British-tailored desertion. The radar on board the Gerry was pretty advanced stuff so it must have been quite late in the war. I still feel the German pilot was simply deserting, which at this stage of the war was a very common practise.

I don't think many German POW camps were 'policed' by Nazis. Oh, there would have been some cases where the die-hard Nazis enforced a toeing of the Nazi line, but how different would this have been from the British 'policing' their POW camps in Germany? I don't think it would have differed all that much. Oh yes, there were a few cases where the German POW's themselves had murdered fellow prisoners; this did happen in Canada, but I believe it was more the exception than the rule.

There was one case in Holland where the Canadian Military actually provided weapons to the German Navy so that the Germans could execute German sailors who had refused to sail in order to pick up German civilian refugees in the Konigsberg area who were trying to escape the Red Army. The German sailors were incarcerated in a Canadian POW camp at the time and I think six sailors were executed... bloody idiotic decision on the part of the Canadians as the war was practically over!

I agree with you, the crew of the Ju 88 would have received some close attention for having deserted. It escapes me whether or not the Luftwaffe knew what happened to their aircraft... they wouldn't have known if it had been shot down. I think this is one of the reasons the RAF station commander lost his job... the media found out a Gerry had landed or something.
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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby well skelpt coupon » Sat Apr 25, 2009 1:42 pm

Howdy Dugald,

Follow this link for a rather good account of the story.

http://www.rafmuseum.org.uk/london/collections/aircraft/aircraft_histories/78-AF-953%20Junkers%20Ju88%20R1.pdf

Going by this, the full story never has, and probably never will, be told. But as a keen amateur writer I can sense a blockbuster in the making - as long as I can bring the Knights Templar into the tale. :D

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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby Dugald » Sun Apr 26, 2009 9:31 pm

Great post there WSC; I enjoyed reading it very much. It tells a lot of what happened with this defection, or desertion, or whatever. I don't see anything here which would lead us to believe the German pilot's defection was expected by the British. Professor R V Jones tells us that the Ju88 had been sent up to intercept a British BOAC Mosquito and "it was time for them [the anti-Nazi crew members] to get out of the war". The article tells us further that "There had been no apparent pre-warning of the detection for the airfield or Spitfire pilots.", which again leads us to believe the Germans simply deserted. I'm a bit intrigued by the mention in the article that Schmidt, the pilot, actually got a job as a pilot in Germany and eventually "emigrated and disappeared"... leads one to wonder if this is a euphemism for something a bit more sinister. I agree with you, the full story will probably never be known. Interesting stuff!
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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby munroman » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:31 am

I met a former RAF mechanic who trained at Dyce during WW2 before being sent to the Far East, where his unit managed to avoid seeing combat.

He maintains that every Saturday a Fiesler Storch (spelling?) flew in from Sweden, complete with German markings, stayed a few hours, refuelled and headed off. He never found out what it was doing, but from his memory it would appear at a regular time, without escorts.

He said the first time he saw it overhead he dived for cover!

Has anyone heard anything about this?
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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby well skelpt coupon » Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:05 pm

Howdy,

Glad you liked the article about the Ju 88 desertion Dugald. I actually found the link on a French aviation forum so it would seem that this footnote in history is still the proverbial enigma wrapped in a mystery inside a conundrum.

There are a couple of things in the report that still seem ambiguous though.

Schmitt, the pilot, was the "... son of the one-time secretary to the Weimer Republic's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Gustav Streseman."

Which is interesting in itself, but seems more significant when placed next to... "Schmitt’s' safe arrival in the UK was signaled to his father in Germany with the coded message `May has come' broadcast by the British propaganda radio station `Gustav Seigfried Eins'..."

A code is only useful if its recipient can translate it. So Schmitt's father had to have been given prior warning to listen out for the words. After all, with Schmitt absconded, there would be little sense to contact the father, explain the code and tell him to listen to the radio station when he could just be told, on initial contact, that his son was safe. So this suggests, to me at least, an arranged defection.

Munroman, I've not heard the Storch in Dyce Airport before, but I know that we had several of them - one was Montgomery's choice of transport no less. I have my doubts a Storch had the range to fly between Sweden and Scotland though, so it was possibly being tested by the Allies. But I'll do some digging. And if I can't find anything interesting, I'll make something up. :mrgreen:


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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby Dugald » Mon Apr 27, 2009 11:39 pm

Yes WSC, a proverbial enigma wrapped in a mystery inside a conundrum, is an apt description of the Ju 88's flight to Scotland. I understand what you are saying about the `May has come' coded message to the Pilot's father in Germany, but even this could have been given to the father beforehand with the instruction "In the event that I......", but like you say, we'll never know.

Thinking about what happened at Dyce on 9 May 1943, and the fact that the media found out about a Luftwaffe Ju 88 landing voluntarily, one wonders why it was that the Gestapo didn't get after Schmidt's father, because it would have been easy to put 2 and 2 together and come up with Schmidt's flight. Yet, it seems Schmidt's father wasn't arrested. I wonder too, why no mention is made in the article you posted, about the disciplinary action taken against the Dyce RAF Station commander for his sloppy security.

I agree with you WSC, regarding your comments about the Storch landing at Dyce. I always thought it was an aircraft capable of flying only short distances, and question whether it could fly to Scotland from Sweden. I wonder a bit too Munroman, whether a RAF mechanic under training at Dyce would have been privy to such clandestine flights. Oh he may well have seen an Storch aircraft with Luftwaffe markings, but if it really was carrying out work for British intelligence, I'm sure it would have been kept well under wraps. But. I'm only guessing, I just haven't ever heard of this before...it is though, an interesting piece of wartime stuff Munroman.
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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby well skelpt coupon » Wed Apr 29, 2009 2:29 pm

Howdy,

I haven't found anything about a Storch at Dyce etc, but I did find this bulls... ,er interesting tale.

A chap called Ken Williams claims to have met Douglas Bader in a hotel in Liverpool in 1942. Even though Bader had been shot down the year before, possibly in a "friendly" fire incident, and had been held in various POW camps since.

The link takes you to a site called Above Top Secret - which may well be a euphemism for away with the fairies. :D

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread292208/pg1

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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby Dugald » Wed Apr 29, 2009 11:48 pm

I visited the web site you posted WSC, and I agree with your suggestion that "Above Top Secret" is a euphemism for "away with the fairies."... just rubbish! Preposterous is how the author himself describes the British POW flying over to the UK for a pair of tin legs then voluntarily returning to his POW camp in Germany, and that's how I'd describe it too!
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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby Vinegar Tom » Wed Oct 28, 2009 11:46 pm

Minefield control tower at Gallanachmore , Oban overlooking the Sound of Kerrera

Secret Scotland describes it a lot better than I could:

Secret-Scotland

I chose the hard way up through the brambles and hillside strewn with off-cut branches and wire fences – much easier via the caravan park :)

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The ground floor

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Upper floor showing access hatch with WW2 health & safety guards and ladder to top viewing area. And contemporary wall decoration :)

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Slideshow
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Re: WWII Stuff

Postby HollowHorn » Mon Nov 23, 2009 9:35 pm

http://aerial.rcahms.gov.uk/

Hidden secrets found as new aerial website launches
Aerial photographs of prisoners in the central courtyard of Colditz high security prison and POWs working on the infamous bridge over the River Kwai, along with images taken during the post D-Day battle for Normandy and the Suez Crisis of 1956, are now available to view for the first time.

The photographs were discovered as part of a painstaking process of cataloguing and digitising imagery from The Aerial Reconnaissance Archives (TARA) for the new National Collection of Aerial Photography website, which launches today. TARA is made up tens of millions of Allied and German aerial intelligence photographs dating from the Second World War onwards, but only a small percentage has so far been catalogued and digitised. Discovering exactly what the films contain is an ongoing task requiring in-depth detective work.

Manager of the National Collection of Aerial Photography, Allan Williams said: “We are uncovering new images every day, but to locate photographs with such powerful links to major events is incredibly exciting. Without doubt, we’ll continue to make amazing discoveries. The amount of reconnaissance photography taken during and since the Second World War is astonishing. It provides us quite literally with a new perspective on historical events – from the air.”

The launch of the new website is integral to the RCAHMS conservation plan for TARA, which includes further research and progressive digitisation for display online, as well as storing and preserving the original materials for public access.

The National Collection of Aerial Photography website is free to browse, although in-depth viewing requires a subscription, currently £15 for two years. It also offers search and image purchase services. A dedicated search room has also been set up at RCAHMS Edinburgh headquarters for people wishing to carry out their own research.

As well as TARA, RCAHMS has an unmatched collection of over 1.6 million aerial photographs of Scotland dating from the 1920s to the present day. A section dedicated to Scottish aerial imagery is also available on the new website. As part of the launch, you can now view previously unseen RAF aerial photography from 1945 to 1951 taken as part of ‘Operation Revue’, a major post-war land use assessment that informed the building of the Scottish ‘New Towns’.

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