German Accounts of Battle of Britain Missions
 

Been 'dicked' to give a bit of 'entertainment' for a BoB dinner; thought I might give an account of what the Jerries went through, as it would be a bit different. Tried various searches, but to no avail. Anyone got any ideas/links to any good sites that I could legally plunder?

Globemeister - I apologise for butting in, but I've recently been looking for books on the same subject.

So if anyone knows of any decent books by German airmen (pilots/navs, gunners etc) on their experiences during the BoB I'd be very grateful.

Don't know of any links for it just now but the TV Series/book "Spitfire Ace" by channel 4 had a good few interviews with german vets in, might be worth seeing if there's a copy floating around the net?

Try Googling.. Adolf Galland... That should give you some info.

"The First and the Last" by Adolf Galland should be available through your local library.
"The Luftwaffe Fighters' Battle of Britain: The Inside Story - July-October 1940" by Chris Goss.
"Spitfire on My Tail: A View from the Other Side" by Ulrich Steinhilper.

Can't help the OP I'm afraid, but I have dug up various short accounts from the RAF point of view (including a couple from mechanincs and one from a rock) from about t'interweb for reading at BofB dinners/events should anyone need such a thing.

Gotta have it done by tomorrow. Can anyone email any of the text?

You could try asking this lot ....

Luftwaffe Experten Message Board -> Welcome to the LEMB & The Rules

Try this link :

Axis History Forum • View topic - The Luftwaffe in the Battle for Britain

Some interesting opinions including somebody claiming the BoB was a 'draw'. That should give you something to go on.

Not dissimilar to stating that apart from the drive to the airport, Mr and Mrs Kennedy enjoyed the trip to Dallas....

Good luck,

Eagle402

Globemeister - check your PMs

Battle of Britain
 

There's always the point that Douglas Bader was ---- rather than hero; I used to work with a chap who was groundcrew at Tangmere ( shown in the film B of B quite correctly as the place getting bombed to bits, then the squadrons moving to the 'flying school' - Westhampnet, now known as Goodwood - my grandfather was a ground to air gunner there, but the only thing he got in his sights was crumpet !

Anyway I was told that on the day of Bader's fail to return, a party was held ! There was no doubting his fighting tenacity, just he wasn't so good as a human being.

It has recently been 'proved' - as much as anything can be - by Luftwaffe records & other sources that he was shot down, not collided with as he later insisted.

In 1994 I was engineer/deckhand ( long story ) on a 128' barge in Burgundy. One week I was doing an overhaul, so able to invite my then wife down.

We noticed a chap on his own in the restaurant, from a small British boat.

On asking him to join us, it turned out he'd been a Spitfire pilot, shot down quite early in the Battle of Britain.

He'd been a POW in the same initial camp as Bader, and mentioned " Oh yes, we all had a good word for Bader, but I can't repeat it in front of your wife ! "

Bader. Yes. Perhaps he wasn't the pleasantest of men, but thank God we had the likes of him and Gibson when we needed them. Tony Blair, on the other hand, is absolutely charming. I'll say no more.

If anybody wants to read the non-airbrushed version of the first few years of WWII up to and including the BofB, I'd recommend "1940 - myth and reality" by Clive Ponting. It looks at the broader strategy and organisation that lead up to the BofB, rather than analysing the battle itself, but it is nevertheless a very good read. He does indeed, as another poster alluded above, conclude that the BofB was more of a draw than a turning point in the war as it has since been portrayed.

Yep, Clive Ponting is the same bloke who blew the whistle on the sinking of the Belgrano, who after being sacked by the MoD went on to become a history professor at a decent university. But don't let that put you off unless you are a committed hollywood-history redneck..

Globemeister, we were flying a holiday charter from Tegel to Palma (I think) so full up with German holiday makers. One by one they came up front to take the obligatory snaps of the Flight Deck and thence give way to the next visitor. I noticed though that one chap had hung back, probably about the age I am now, and was looking at the flight instruments. "Excuse me, but is that your Gyro and that one your Kompass (ie German accent)?", he asked. "Yes, are you a pilot?", I replied. "Not now, but many years ago I flew the Emil" "Oh really? (covering up total ignorance of that aircraft)". "Yes, I shoot down 3 Tommies!". Click!. Suddenly the Emil was revealed as the Me109E. "But soon it was my turn and I was shot down" "Oh bad luck (this a little disingenuously), what happened?" "It was a beautiful day, and as I came down by parachute over the Kannel I can see France and England also. From France I see a motor boat coming towards me, but then from England I see one also coming" "Who got to you first?" " Oh that was such a bad day for me!" "Because the English captured you?" "No because the Germans rescued me! I had to go back to the war, and soon we had to go to Russia and spend the rest of the war on the Eastern Front!" I am ashamed to say that I have forgotten his name now, but he must have been both lucky and skilled to have survived the Eastern Front to the end. He also told us that every year in Tegel there was a Luftwaffe reunion to which all pilots of all nations were invited. He was the most charming and modest of men, especially given that he was an ex-fighter pilot (time to get undercover now) and the very antithesis of the Nazi stereotype. If this tale is of any use to you, Globemeister, feel free as they say.

Globemeister

Bader and the batman made to stay at Colditz is a known story. Bader died 1982.
Kenneth More did him a good snow job when he made the movie.(1956)
Disgraceful behaviour from an officer.

Perhaps at the last hour, the Prussian cavalry might once again save the British skin?
HyperWar: The Battle of Britain--A German Perspective

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ww2/batlbrit.pdf

At any rate, old bean, hope this is useful and tomorrow a victory.

Further to the recommendations above I have pm'd Globemeister but unless he can get his hands on a copy my suggestion will be too late. However, I can recommend :

'I flew for the Fuhrer' by Heinz Knoke. Memoirs of a Luftwaffe fighter pilot. 400 missions, 52 Allied kills including 19 USAAF bombers. Shot down and badly injured himself near the end of the war. Awarded the Knight's Cross.

In stock at that well known river related site. Superb read. There are also some good references to life in a Luftwaffe night-fighter squadron in Len Deighton's excellent 'Bomber'. Fiction but, as ever, the research is superb. One story that comes to mind is two of the pilots playing cards in the afternoon prior to that evening's mission. One loses heavily and is reminded that he now owes a serious amount of marks especially with inflation being at lunatic levels. He replies drily "my money's in my other trousers".

Chugalug2 - great story - thanks for that amigo. My dad, on business in East Berlin in the early 70's, met an ex Me-110 pilot who had flown relief missions during the siege of Stalingrad. I still have his autograph on a 'Dogfight Double' box (featuring a Typhoon and a FW-190 iirc) that my dad had bought on the outbound trip. I remember my dad conveying the utter despair that the guy had experienced as virtually all of the supplies/ammo fell into Russian hands.

Regards and good luck tomorrow,

Eagle402

Years ago, when I was a sprogg Harrier pilot, we deployed during a NATO exercise to Diepholz on the North German Plain. Deipholz was a Luftwaffe recruit training base with a 4000 ft runway and it was commanded by Oberst Otto Kraft. Colonel Kraft used to enjoy coming into the bar of an evening and having a drink with us. It quickly transpired that, during the war, he had flown Me110 nightfighters and the Me262.

One of the "mates" said to him:

" Colonel, I believe the Me262 was a bit of a handful in the circuit, is that true?"

Colonel Kraft:

"Ze only time ze 262 vos a problem in ze circuit vos venn zere vos a Typhoon downvint".

The boss took him for a trip in the T4 and they poked off to the Moehne See. Running down the lake with the HUD bombfall line through the dam, the colonel was heard to mutter:

" Zat iss not zo clever, Herr Ving Commander. It hass been done before, you know".

Don't give them any time;they started it, we won.

They tried really hard (Jubilee, Torch, Overlord) to get rid of my Dad.

Ponting, and others, maintain that the Battle of Britain was a draw. He and they are wrong.
In simple mathematical terms of aircraft destroyed on each side during the battle, one could perhaps argue it was a draw. However, it was not a tennis match.
The vital objective of the Luftwaffe was to obtain air supremacy over southern England which was essential in order that the ground troops could cross the Channel and successfully gain a bridgehead on the South Coast to begin the invasion of Britain. The RAF prevented them from achieving that objective. Without the desired supremacy, or even superiority, in the air the Wehrmacht was forced to call off the invasion.
That was certainly a victory for the defenders and also a significant turning point in the war which, up to then, had been a walk-over for the Axis.

While I cannot agree that the BOB was a draw I do not
believe that it was a great victory against great odds
that it was claimed to be.When one looks at the capabilities
of the aircraft the Luftwaffe were using,the tactics they
employed,and their incompetent intelligence services, one
can only come to the conclusion that they were pre-programmed
to lose.
Regards