PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II
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Old 28th Sep 2018, 00:43
  #12354 (permalink)  
steamchicken
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Surrey, UK
Posts: 898
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The field headings are:
  • Purpose of flight - either Feindflug/operational or Überführung/positioning
  • Take-off
    • Place - places are in ex-East Prussia with the exception of Posen/Poznan
    • Date
    • Time
  • Landing
    • Place
    • Time
  • Carried forward
    • Minutes - probably over enemy territory as before
    • Kilometres - both of these have a running total from the previous page and a grand total at the bottom
  • Remarks - this includes the route, the crew, and sometimes some detail
  • A number, possibly the mission evaluation we saw earlier. this also has a carried item at the top.
Mission one was an operation from Thorn (Torun, Poland) on 20th October 44 at 1712, returning to Königsberg at 1945 after 153 mins and 950 km. That's actually 223 minutes flying time, so the number given is presumably for time over enemy territory. The crew included Uffz (Unteroffizier/Sergeants) Göttling and Wallner. I think the route given runs up the original border of East Prussia through Gumbinnen, a 1914 battle site. They were illuminated by searchlights and engaged by light and medium flak. They got one point. The day after next, they positioned back to Thorn. The one after that went as far as Bialystok in Poland or maybe Belarus but they had an engine problem.

Some of the trips are long - the longest is 1900 km and five hours - and the really long ones are marked "2SD2SD" or "2RB250". The last 2SD2SD is the longest trip on the 12th December. The next flight is a positioning flight from Posen to Thorn, but the previous one came back to Thorn. The one after that is operational and marked 2RB250. I think this means these are aircraft identifiers and they fetched 2RB250 from Posen. (Dunno why; Junkers didn't have a plant there. maybe a depot? a maintenance site? or it just happened to end up in Posen.)

You can't see the serial numbers used in the Leistungsbuch but they are linked; the authorising officer's note confirms serials 998 to 1009 and 1021 to 1036, on Christmas Day 1944. Although the stamp says Senior Lieutenant and Special Duty Officer (Oblt. und Offizier zbV), the signature says Captain and Squadron Commander and that's written out in full...I suppose nobody was in a hurry to issue new stationery. By the end of the page yer man had 506 hours of combat (30400 minutes/60) and 32 of those points.
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