Shadow over the Atlantic

by Robert Forsyth

  From Rostov, Major Klinger, who had taken over command from Rainer in October, led his men on a long journey back to Gutenfeld in East Prussia where, in early 1943 under the coordination of one of the unit’s pilots, Leutnant Hellmut Nagel, they were to prepare for conversion to the new, but troublesome, Heinkel He 177 long-range bomber. Nagel would soon be replaced in this task, however, by Leutnant Josef Augustin. The latter, an experienced reconnaissance pilot, had flown with 2.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.123, and more recently had served as a photographic intelligence officer on the staffs of Luftwaffenkommando Don and I.Fliegerkorps.10

  Also based on the Eastern Front at this time was 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.100 under Hauptmann Karl-Friedrich Bergen, who had previously flown with Aufklärungsgruppe 121. Bergen was an experienced reconnaissance pilot, who had flown several types of aircraft, including the relatively rare Dornier Do 215, in an example of which he had suffered light injuries on one occasion as a result of an emergency landing in Belgrade in April 1941.11 The 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.100 had only recently been formed, or more specifically been renamed, from 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.Ob.d.L. (the Long-Range Reconnaissance Group of the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force), a unit that had carried out covert, long-range, high-altitude, deep penetration reconnaissance missions over Soviet territory before Barbarossa. Since October 1942 it had been based at Seshchinskaya, south-east of Roslavl. Like 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.10, it operated Ju 88D-1s and D-5s, but also numbered two of the new pre-production, twin-engined, two-seat Arado Ar 240A-0s, which had been converted from a fighter configuration with advanced, remotely controlled gun barbettes, as reconnaissance aircraft, with which it conducted long-range missions over western Central Russia. Earlier, this aircraft type had been used to fly similar missions over the British Isles.12 Also, like 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.10, 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.100 had accumulated some very experienced pilots within its ranks. Oberleutnant Hans-Otto Heindorff, for example, who had served with 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.Ob.d.L., had been awarded the Ehrenpokal and the Deutsche Kreuz, and would receive the Ritterkreuz on 21 October 1942.13

  But in February 1943, on instructions from the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe, the General der Aufklärungsflieger, Oberst von Barsewisch, ordered elements of 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.100 to be withdrawn from the front and returned to the Reich, while some personnel were reassigned to the Ju 88-equipped 4.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.121, which had recently moved to Seshchinskaya from Orscha-Süd under Hauptmann Günter Kratzmann. This amounted, in effect, to a partial disbandment of 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.100. Furthermore, the Staffelkapitän, Hauptmann Bergen, was also ordered to return home, whereupon he was then reassigned temporarily to the 4.Verbandsführerlehrgang (Unit Leader Intake) at the Verbandsführerschule/KG 101 at Tours in France for a brief period of introductory classroom training on very long-range reconnaissance using larger, four-engined aircraft.14

  Meanwhile, at Gutenfeld, after only a short period of He 177 conversion training under the coordination of Leutnant Augustin, the former crews of 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.10 were informed that they were to be transferred west, still under the leadership of Augustin, to Achmer airfield, near Osnabrück, where they would be reassigned to a newly formed unit for very long-range reconnaissance missions on a special, four-engined aircraft.

  Over the coming weeks they would be joined there by selected personnel from 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.100. In June Hauptmann Bergen completed his course at the Verbandsführerschule at Tours and he too headed for Achmer. The nucleus of men who would form the new long-range, maritime reconnaissance unit of the Luftwaffe had been gathered. It was now time to acquaint them with their aircraft, the Junkers Ju 290, and to train them to offer the badly needed reconnaissance support for Dönitz’s U-boat campaign – a very different form of operations to that with which they were accustomed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  FORMATION

  Achmer, March–November 1943

  Mit Gewitter und Sturm aus fernem Meer…

  (With tempest and storm on distant seas…)

  Richard Wagner: from the Steersman’s aria, Act 1, Der Fliegende Holländer

  The regional airport of Achmer lies just to the south of the eponymous village and 15 km north-west of the city of Osnabrück in Lower Saxony. A comparatively large airfield for the time, in 1943 it functioned as a base for Luftwaffe bomber units and was known officially as Achmer-Bramsche after the slightly larger settlement of Bramsche, just over 5 km to the north-east.

  Construction work at Achmer airfield began in 1936 and was completed in 1939, but there was a continuing programme of development and improvement running through to 1943. The site stretched for 2380 x 1370 m and comprised three concrete runways in the form of a triangle measuring 1800 m (with a 550-m prepared strip at one end) x 1700 m x 1550 m. Fourteen paved servicing hardstands, each fitted with refuelling points, led off the southern boundary. In 1943, the airfield was adequately and necessarily well camouflaged, and equipped with runway, perimeter and obstruction lighting, as well as a Lorenz guidance system for night landings. Achmer’s 50 or so open aircraft shelters and six perimeter parking sites were supported by a strong airfield infrastructure, which included two workshop hangars along the north-east boundary, an airfield headquarters building, along with administration buildings, barracks, flying control at the centre of the southern boundary, a motor pool and associated garages, and further barrack accommodation on the outskirts of Achmer village. Additionally, the airfield benefited from a rail spur which ran into the buildings area, and also served the fuel and munitions dumps, the latter being located to the southern and northern edges of the field. In 1941, a camp had been built to house Soviet PoW workers to the north-west of the airfield and further accommodation was built throughout the war on wooded sites in the airfield vicinity.

  On 18 August 1942, the ‘hot’ war came to Achmer for the first time, when the airfield suffered an attack from RAF Bomber Command. From August 1940, Achmer had been a base for the Dornier Do 17 and Do 217 bombers of Stab, II., III., and IV./KG 2 and during the 1942 attack, a Bü 131 of the IV.Gruppe of the Geschwader was destroyed. The airfield defences were stiffened and by the autumn of 1943, four 12.8-cm Flak guns had been set up on the Bramscher Berg just to the west of Bramsche, which were augmented by at least 12 light Flak positions located around the airfield, including some in specially built Flak towers. At that time there were nearly 1,200 NCOs and enlisted men based at Achmer in various capacities.1

  This was the airfield to which Oberleutnant Oskar H. Schmidt was despatched in early 1943 on orders of the staff of the General der Aufklärungsflieger. Schmidt had previously served as Offizier zur besonderen Verwendung (Offz.z.b.V. – Officer assigned for special duties) with 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.Ob.d.L., but as a result of his duties in Russia, he had been hospitalized for a period in Braunschweig. Upon recovery, he was instructed to report to Achmer where he was to establish a Stabskompanie in readiness for the building up of a new long-range reconnaissance Gruppe to be known as Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5 (FAGr 5) which was to commence operations over the Bay of Biscay, the eastern Atlantic, and western Mediterranean with an official strength of 40 Ju 290s. The purpose of the unit was to conduct reconnaissance and shadowing missions as required by the Befehlshaber der Unterseeboote and to report to the Fliegerführer Atlantik who, based on information obtained from FAGr 5, would direct the crews of the Fw 200s and He 177s of the Luftwaffe anti-shipping Geschwader, KG 40, based at Bordeaux-Mérignac in Western France.

  Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5 was to track the enemy’s northern convoy routes between Britain and North America, westwards from the north coast of Ireland, and the southern supply lines from Gibraltar, to and from the African coast, and westwards from south of Lisbon. It was to record and report on shipping movements through the means of visual observation, photography and use of FuG 200 Hohentwiel search radar. As a further function, the unit was also to provide regular weather reports. Schmidt was advised that personnel for the unit would be drawn from reconnaissance units presently operating ‘in the Crimea’.2

  The Stabskompanie was to in
clude the unit’s Bildstelle (photographic), signals and motor transport sections and was to be formed mainly from personnel reassigned from 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.Ob.d.L. and 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.10. Schmidt was soon joined at Achmer by Hauptmann d.R.z.V. Karl Nather as Bildoffizier (Photographic Officer) and Leutnant Hans Wessel as Nachrichtenoffizier (Signals Officer). For the next four months, until the end of June 1943, Schmidt and his colleagues worked hard to prepare support facilities, accommodation, supplies and equipment for the new unit. Although Nather was in nominal command of the Stabskompanie, it is to Schmidt’s credit that he worked very much on his own initiative to set things up and without the backing of a Gruppenkommandeur, since one would not be appointed until June.

  However, Schmidt was assisted, eventually and to a great extent, by the arrival at Achmer in June of Hauptmann Karl-Friedrich Bergen, the erstwhile Staffelkapitän of 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.100. Fresh from his large-aircraft training course at the Verbandsführerschule/KG 101 at Tours, Bergen had been appointed as the commander of 2./FAGr 5, the first Staffel of the new Gruppe to be formed. On 15 June, the first of his officers also arrived in the shape of Oberleutnant Herbert Daubenspeck, who would fill the role of Navigation Officer and Instructor in 2.Staffel.

  Following in the footsteps of Bergen and Daubenspeck, throughout June and July came the crews of 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.100 from the East, who would form the first cadre of personnel for 2./FAGr 5, although Achmer had still not yet seen the appearance of its first Ju 290.

  Meanwhile, in Berlin, Oberst von Barsewisch had appointed a member of his staff, Hauptmann Hermann Fischer, a very experienced reconnaissance pilot, to command FAGr 5. Born in March 1913, Fischer joined 1.(F)/Aufkl. Gr.120 at Neuhausen as Adjutant in late 1938. His first wartime assignment was with 2.(H)/Aufkl.Gr.13, a short-range army-support reconnaissance Staffel equipped with the Henschel Hs 126. The unit took part in the Western campaign and was later sent to Russia. In early 1942, Fischer was promoted to Oberleutnant and appointed Staffelkapitän of 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.22 based at Dno, where he transitioned to flying twin-engined Ju 88s. On 30 January 1942, he was wounded during an attack on Dno airfield by Soviet fighters. Promoted to Hauptmann, on 2 March 1942 he was awarded the Ehrenpokal, followed by the Deutsche Kreuz on 27 July that year. At some point thereafter he was recalled to Berlin to join the Staff of the General der Aufklärungsflieger.

  On 24 June 1943, Fischer flew to Achmer to inspect the facilities there and to hold discussions with Schmidt, Nather, Wessel, Bergen, and Daubenspeck, and the newly appointed Stabskompanie ‘Spiess’ (senior NCO), Hauptfeldwebel Heinrich Meyer. It was to be a brief visit, for it seems Fischer quickly became aware that he had not been fully informed of what was required of him. The next day he returned to Berlin to seek clarification and to discuss the role of FAGr 5 further with von Barsewisch. At that point things became sufficiently quiet at Achmer that the men of the Stabskompanie were allowed to take leave.

  Possibly as a result of Fischer’s return to Berlin, on 6 July, von Barsewisch, accompanied by Fischer, travelled to Achmer to inspect the new Gruppe and to address the small number of personnel in place there. Then, six days later, Fischer held his first major meeting with three of his senior officers with the purpose of devising operational tactics and the unit’s modus operandi. Meanwhile, as the worrying news came in that the Allies had landed on the southern coast of Sicily, the slow pace of the unit’s development meant that on 19 July, a number of men were released temporarily from service in order to join local crop-harvesting teams, whose labours were vital to the war effort. The Luftwaffe men were more than happy to oblige in this task; it was an antidote to boredom, it offered a pleasant break from service, it meant that there was opportunity to obtain some extra foodstuff, and there was even some romance between the men of FAGr 5 and some of the local girls.3

  Meanwhile, the arrival of crews to train on, and actually fly, the Ju 290s was proceeding at a snail’s pace, to a great extent because several key flying personnel from 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.100 had been assigned, temporarily, to other reconnaissance units. One pilot, Oberleutnant Helmut Eberhardt, who had flown with the 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.100 and the Führerkurierstaffel, was assigned to 2./FAGr 5, but spent only a brief time at Achmer before being transferred to another long-range reconnaissance unit. On 18 July, Oberleutnant Karl Schöneberger, a recent recipient of the Ehrenpokal, and his crew arrived directly from Russia to be joined three days later by pilot Oberleutnant Karl-Heinz Schmidt, with his observer, Leutnant Hermann Barth, and their crew. Another observer, Oberleutnant Horst Degenring, reported for duty a few days later. On the 21st, Oberleutnant Hanns Kohmann, Leutnant Hans-Roger Friedrich, Leutnant Hermann Kersting, Oberfeldwebel Gustav Albers and Oberfeldwebel Willi Wittemann, all greatly experienced long-range pilots formerly of LTS 290, arrived at Achmer.4 These men were assigned to 2./FAGr 5 with the express task of training pilots on the Ju 290 – when such aircraft eventually arrived. The Staffel did, at least, take delivery of some vehicles and lorries, including some heavy-duty Czech-made Tatra trucks intended for towing the big Junkers.

  A formal muster and inspection of the Gruppe was held on 23 July to mark the official commencement of Hauptmann Fischer’s assumption of command.

  Thirteen officers of 2./FAGr 5 used the pretext of making the first ‘long-range training flight’ to fly one of the unit’s new Ju 290s to Dresden-Klotzsche on 25 August. Having arrived in Dresden, they promptly caught a tram into the city centre, where they joined in the celebrations of their fellow Staffel officer, Oberleutnant Günther Pfeiffer, another former member of 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.100, who had married the daughter of Generalmajor Helmuth Mentzel, previously an instructor and commander of the Aufklärungsfliegerschule at Hildesheim and Braunschweig-Grossenhain.5

  It would not be until 16 August 1943, however, that FAGr 5 took delivery of its first Ju 290 when the A-2 model Wk-Nr 0158 SB+QH joined the Gruppe at Achmer and was assigned to Bergen’s recently formed 2.Staffel. This aircraft had first flown on 7 June 1943 and was fitted with FuG 200 Hohentwiel radar. It would be recoded with FAGr 5’s unit indentifier as 9V+BC. Two days later, the next aircraft flew in, in the form of Ju 290 A-2 Wk-Nr 0159 SB+QI, which was recoded for operational purposes as 9V+CC and also assigned to 2./FAGr 5.6 The Gruppe had to wait another month until a third Junkers, the A-3 Wk-Nr 0160 SB+QJ, finally arrived. This machine was recoded 9V+BH and assigned as the first aircraft to 1./FAGr 5, which was still in the elementary stages of training at Achmer under the leadership of the recently promoted Hauptmann Josef Augustin. The Gruppe Stab was assigned a single Ju 88.7

  A 3.Staffel was planned to expand the Gruppe and to be equipped with the Ju 88H-1 fitted with FuG 200 for long-range reconnaissance/anti-shipping operations as and when the type became available, but the Staffel was never formed. A 4./FAGr 5 would be formed in the spring of 1944 (see Chapter Twelve).

  The Germans were very aware that the air war at sea required high standards of training for long-range reconnaissance aircrew, particularly in navigation. Captured logs and documents from Allied aircraft and aircrew revealed, comparatively, just how advanced and meticulous the skills were amongst Allied airmen operating over the Atlantic and the Bay of Biscay. In the case of Luftwaffe crews, the most successful were those whose proficiency had been maintained by constant practice in the use of navigational aids and techniques in long-range operations.

  ‘In contrast to this,’ lamented a Luftwaffe report in early 1944, ‘the formations that have been employed for years in support of the army not only lack professional dexterity, but often also the right temperamental approach for carrying out the precise manouevres of navigation that are needed in locating targets on the sea. The crews are not to blame for this as they are usually concerned with terrestial navigation.’

  By late 1943, the Luftwaffe endeavoured to place emphasis on navigational training, including astro-navigational training, as well as instilling a rudimentary understanding of naval tactics and the composition of naval forces in order to recognize and understand
tactical situations and the best opportunities for attack.8

  During training at Achmer, considerable importance was placed on such skills, since in undertaking missions which would range 3000 km from a home base, and in order to maintain mission secrecy and security, dependence could not be placed on radio navigation, which gave out emissions and which could be picked up by the enemy. Thus, as at sea, the navigator aboard the aircraft would have to make use of a sextant, and as with the practice employed aboard a ship, readings and course depended on the sun, or at night, the stars. A good navigator would be able to determine a fairly accurate position of his aircraft after five minutes of readings.

  In this regard, several very long-range triangulation flights were made in the early autumn of 1943, starting from Achmer and flying out to Mykolajiw in the Ukraine, then to Helsinki, before returning to Achmer. Much to the delight of the personnel of the Gruppe, crews returning from these flights often brought back with them fresh food and produce from the Ukraine.9

  The personnel of 2./FAGr 5 gradually strengthened. On 6 September, an intake of Unteroffiziere was drafted in and trained up under the supervision of Oberleutnant Schmidt of the Stabskompanie. That day also, Oberleutnant Kurt Baumgartner arrived at Achmer. Baumgartner was another former 3.(F)/Aufkl. Gr.Ob.d.L. pilot, but he had been injured on 6 August 1942 in an accident when the Bf 109F-4 he was flying had crashed on take-off from Gostkino-Kharkov as a result of a servicing fault and he had only just returned to duty following a lengthy spell in hospital. Just over a week later, on 15 September, the first of two observers and recipients of the Ehrenpokal joined the unit in the form of Oberleutnant Oskar Nau, who was followed on the 26th by 28-year-old Hauptmann Richard Schmoll. Also joining 2./FAGr 5 in September was pilot Oberleutnant Karl Otto Kremser, who had flown previously with KG 40.10 With his experience at the Fw 200-equipped bomber wing, with whom it was intended that FAGr 5 would cooperate, Kremser, along with some other specialist KG 40 personnel, was assigned to FAGr 5 to advise on long-range, over-water operations.11