Squadron Leader Wright had fired 120 rounds of 0.5-in ammunition and in his log book he wrote: ‘Hun was clueless.’40
Ju 290 9V+DK crashed into the sea at 53° 13´ North 14° 03´ West having made no sighting report for Fliegerführer Atlantik.41 The entire crew comprising commander and pilot Bergen, second pilot Baumgartner, together with Leutnant Martin Glöckelhofer (observer), Oberfeldwebel Heinz Felleckner, Feldwebel Heinz Schacht (radio-operators), Unteroffizier Gottfried Beninde, Oberfeldwebel Ludwig (or Gottfried?) Ebner (flight engineers), Unteroffizier Jakob Daniel, Obergefreiter Karl Zinke, Obergefreiter Josef Neubauer (gunners) and Referendar Werner Cordes of the Wetterwarte Atlantik was lost.42
This was a bitter blow for both the Luftwaffe and the BdU: FAGr 5 had lost 20 of its own trained men, and the Luftwaffe a skilled meteorologist and two precious, expensive and sophisticated aircraft. Schmidt wrote: ‘It was just accepted that they had been shot down by fighters. An old, experienced crew, with the Staffelkapitän of 2./FAGr 5…’43
Indeed, the Gruppenkommandeur, Hauptmann Fischer, took decisive action, as Hauptmann Josef Augustin, the Staffelkapitän of 1./FAGr 5 recalled:
Since neither of the crews had returned, that night, I was ordered by the Kommandeur of FAGr 5 to prepare a machine for readiness and to fly out the next morning to mount a search. I joined the crew of Hauptmann Pawlittke, as second pilot, for the search mission, with the objective of perhaps assisting our downed comrades with the help of distress equipment.44
There were yet further technical problems which had affected the performance of the Gruppe throughout the day; at 1038 hrs, Ju 290A-5 Wk-Nr 0176 9V+GH of 1.Staffel took off for the convoys, but after flying for some 500 km, its compass failed and, in a repeat of his frustrated flight the day before, Leutnant Hellmut Nagel was forced to turn back to France.45 In a separate move, that afternoon, Ju 290A-5 Wk-Nr 0173 9V+CK departed Mont de Marsan for Kerlin-Bastard in readiness for further operations over the convoys the next day.46
Then, as instructed, next morning, the first of two Ju 290s – an aircraft of 1./FAGr 5 flown by Hauptmann Willi Pawlittke – took off on its attempt to find the shot-down crews. Aboard was Josef Augustin, who recalled:
Around 0800 hrs in the morning we took off from Mont de Marsan – on a North-North-West course through cloudless skies flying at low altitude (c.100 m) over the water towards the south-west coast of England. As we were quickly in English coastal waters, we had to pay the highest attention to the airspace around us, as the British fighter defence had outstanding radar capability and was very dangerous. One shot from an enemy fighter was usually fatal for our machines, because the fuel tank (9000 l) located in the fuselage was a hazard of the first order. For all crew-members the flight was very strained, as all stations had to be manned continuously, simultaenously monitoring the enemy airspace while searching the surface for our missing comrades.
South-west of the English coast, one of the gunners reported a British four-engined aircraft, some 1000 m higher than our machine. On board we came to full alert and weapons-readiness. If we were recognized, we had to expect that the Viermot would warn the English defence. The next stage of the flight took place under the highest state of tension and alert for the crew. We were lucky not to be attacked by enemy fighters. Either the English Viermot had not seen us, or the English fighters had not been able to find us in the vast expanse of the Atlantic.
However, although we reported finding enemy shipping west of Ireland, moving east to west, we did not find our missing comrades at sea. Nor could another successive search aircraft under the command of Oberleutnant Karl-Heinz Schmidt of 2.Staffel find either aircraft. Both crews were given up as lost, and we never heard from them again.
The whole flight was free of cloud. The return flight to Mont de Marsan was without any encounter with the enemy, and after 16 hours we were fortunate enough to make it back to base and to land without incident.47
Augustin’s sortie was not the first flight out of Mont de Marsan that morning, for FAGr 5 had already despatched two Ju 290s to the Western Approaches, and followed Augustin and Pawlittke’s sortie with a fourth aircraft later in the day. The situation at sea, west of Ireland, was ‘busy’ with, in addition to OS.68/KMS.42, no fewer than four other large convoys in the area: ONS.29 Liverpool to Halifax, comprising 46 merchants and 23 escorts; ON.224 Liverpool to New York with 79 merchants and 34 escorts; OS.67 to Freetown with 27 merchants and five escorts; and HX.278 eastbound from Halifax, comprising 62 merchants and 34 escorts.48 The Junkers located all these convoys within an area 50° 30´ North–52° 30´ North 16° 45´ West–19° 45´ West, but as British intelligence surmised, ‘The German High Command, which on the basis of previous reports expected one westbound convoy only, must have been considerably perplexed by the signals.’49
The first two Ju 290s were assigned to fly out over the French coast at 0645 hrs, but one of these, aircraft ‘C’, turned back with engine trouble from 25° West 3182 at 0924 hrs. Just over two hours later, the crew reported that its aircraft was ‘flying on three engines’, but they returned to Mont de Marsan safely. Aircraft ‘G’, which took off to replace the returning ‘C’, was instructed by Fliegerführer Atlantik during the mid-morning to change course, and at 1300 hrs, it signalled that it had spotted what its crew believed was OS.68/KMS.42 in 25° West 7135, but was unable to provide details of composition or course. Instead, only a weather report was transmitted. At 1525 hrs, the Ju 290 reported sighting another convoy from 25° West 9215, actually ONS.29 moving on a course of 270°. Although no details of the composition of the convoy were signalled, its position was relayed to the Igel pack of U-boats which were then, as a result, redisposed farther north and south in an effort to intercept. Ju 290 ‘G’ continued to shadow the convoy for an hour or so before moving off and returning to Mont de Marsan.
Another Junkers was operational over the Atlantic later in the afternoon; the aircraft was decrypted by British signals intelligence as ‘F’. That being the case, with 9V+FH of 1./FAGr 5 being lost the day before, this aircraft must have been Ju 290A-5 Wk-Nr 0179 (KR+LJ) 9V+FK of 2.Staffel. At 1620 hrs, this aircraft reported a convoy on a westerly course in 25° West 0215 on course 270°, which was probably a part of ONS.29. The crew of the Junkers signalled that it had observed 28 motor vessels, two destroyers, eight escorts and two carriers. Just under an hour later, the aircraft transmitted a weather report and seems to have moved off.
A fourth aircraft, the second ‘G’, reported a convoy at 1600 hrs in 25° West 7353, and then an hour-and-a-half later it signalled the sighting of an aircraft carrier on a westerly course in 25° West 8166, which may well have been making for ON.224. At 2000 hrs, ‘G’ reported ‘mission completed’, and was back at Mont de Marsan at 0143 hrs. Tellingly however, the British decrypters noted ‘the peculiar vagueness of most of the sighting reports, which suggests that [the] aircraft remained at the maximum possible distance from their targets to avoid a repetition of the previous day’s disaster. The reliability of the positions given seems to be even less than usual.’50
Another Ju 290, ‘B’, was out over the Atlantic during the night, but did not reach the convoy area and was forced to return prematurely. Nevertheless, during the night of the 17th/18th, the U-boats awaited reports from air reconnaissance before finalizing the positions of their new patrol lines. Based on what information they received from FAGr 5, on the 18th they were ordered to redeploy into two parallel patrol lines ahead of the route of ONS.29 some 1000 km to the south-west of Ireland in order to carry out an ‘old style’ convoy attack at night. These weak groupings of 20 boats in total, formed from Igel and known as Hai 1 and Hai 2, included boats that had not reported for several weeks and there was little knowledge at BdU about whether they had even survived the operations of previous weeks. In fact, the Hai groups were severely depleted against their assumed strengths.
The reality for BdU was that this was to be a make-or-break operation. The Hai groups were in their positions by 1800
hrs on the 18th, and at 2000 hrs they were ordered to head south, at first submerged, but then at high speed on the surface, their instructions to get ahead of the convoy at all costs.51 In order to avoid attracting a mass of Allied carrier aircraft, the ‘main blow’ was to be delivered on the first night. BdU informed the U-boats that they had to reach the convoy regardless of the circumstances and were to remain on the surface with their 37 mm Flak guns fully manned, and bow and stern homing torpedos ready to fire. If BdU considered that the operation should extend into daylight, then only boats with malfunctioning Flak armament were to submerge; whatever the case, the priority for all boats was to strike at the carriers, then the destroyers. The signal of BdU was unequivocal: ‘Do your best. This long-prepared operation must succeed.’52
Fliegerführer Atlantik had promised air reconnaissance from 2000 hrs on the 18th onwards. At least six Ju 290s of FAGr 5 were readied, as well as a Bv 222 of 1./SAGr 129 and a pair of Fw 200s from III./KG 40, briefed to mount a search of the area 47° 53´ North 19° 26´ West. The first two Ju 290s were to fly out from Mont de Marsan during the mid-afternoon, along with the two Condors from Bordeaux-Mérignac escorted by 14 Ju 88C fighters from I. and III./ZG 1.
Aboard Ju 290A-5 WK-Nr 0174 9V+EH that day was the crew of Oberleutnant August Vaupel of 1./FAGr 5 (commander and observer, and a former officer of 3.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.10), comprising Leutnant Hellmut Nagel and Leutnant Kurt Nonnenberg (pilots), along with Feldwebel Justel, Unteroffizier Elies, Unteroffizier Heeg, Unteroffizier Roller, Unteroffizier Wischelow, Feldwebel Berndt and Feldwebel Leimenkühler. Hellmut Nagel, who was flying as the first pilot, recalled what was a typical mission for FAGr 5 at this time:
The whole crew had been on standby since the afternoon of 17 February. At about 1000 hrs the motorcycle rider comes with the operations order: take-off at 1400 hrs. My observer and I are collected at 1200 hrs by the crew bus. In the operations room the crew is instructed on the operational plan. Two escorted convoys have to be investigated, the first in every detail, while the second would only be discovered at night. Positions and courses have to be observed and reported.
The navigation watches are set to the chronometer in the operations room, then we go with the bus to the Junkers Ju 290 already prepared for take-off. The technical service personnel give us their readiness report. Including the two weathermen, we are a crew of 11. The second pilot, Leutnant Nonnenberg declares, ‘All ready for take-off!’ Gyro and course steering are checked. The intercom is checked with the name of each crew member, and the four engines are checked by the second pilot.
Start: flaps to take-off position, brake chocks away, windows closed and an announcement over the intercom: ‘We’re off!’ Throttles full forward, the co-pilot and I get the steering tight in our hands to guarantee a safe take-off. It is fascinating when a colossus like the Ju 290, with all its 42 tonnes, starts rolling. The radar station, 50 m behind the runway, speeds towards us. At first, the landing gear is pulled up at a height of 50 m, then follow the flaps and the engines are reduced to cruising power.
Our two radio operators extend the antennae in order to tune the communications equipment and the first check-call from the base station is received. Meanwhile the observer, Oberleutnant Vaupel, prepares his navigation table and fixes the first-time stamps on the sea map. All navigational events, actions, radio direction findings and course changes as well as astronomical fixes are copied on the map by the observer.
The first gunner surveys the sky from his rotatable Plexiglas turret fitted with its 2-cm machine gun, watching the airspace on the starboard beam towards the aft of the aircraft. The second gunner, also in a rotatable dome, located along the last third of the upper fuselage, monitors the airspace on the port-side beam to the tail unit. The rear gunner is located at end of the fuselage and covers the airspace at our backs. At a height of 100 m, we are welcomed by a Biscay low pressure area. An escort from the fighters of JG 101 [a fighter training Geschwader based at Pau, 95 km south of Mont de Marsan, under the command of the Ritterkreuz holder, Major Walter Nowotny] is not necessary due to the weather. The British long-range Mosquitos may not be expected in this weather. Nevertheless, the three gunners and the flight engineer test their weapons by shooting some salvoes into the sea, and after ten minutes the ‘weapons clear’ notice is given.
The flight engineer controls fuel and oil consumption, and oversees the pumping operations between the tanks, calculating the fuel needed from the course data and fixes by long- and short-wave radio direction findings. Everything is analysed and fixed on the map. The very short time used for radio transmissions for these findings should make detection of our flight by enemy reconnaissance difficult.
Additionally, after the second geographical fix point, every 30 minutes we switch on the FuG 200 system to search for ship targets. In two tuning ranges it is possible to locate ships, their numbers and size, from 35 km to 120 km distance. The observer is busy on his navigation table and communicates results, figures and instructions to the two radio-operators, who receive or transmit to the BdU in Paris or to the weather stations and the Norddeich radio station on the North Sea coast.
We have now been airborne for two hours and south to starboard should be Cape Finisterre in Spain. For direction and location finding we use the ‘Elektra’ radio navigation guidance system with its base stations in Stavanger in Norway and Sevilla in Spain. These radio bases give the navigational base for a location and our start point into the Atlantic: our position is 11° West and 43° North. The radio operators pull in the long-range antennae. Based on our electric altimeter, we change our height to 20 m, heading north.
We are now approaching the area of the convoys which stretches from southern England to the Azores, to Gibraltar and back. The low-altitude flight gives us the best protection against unexpected encounters. Every 30 minutes we climb to 300 m and fly a circle and switch on the FuG 200. Thereafter, we descend immediately to 20 m. In this way, we avoid being discovered by the ships’ radars on the convoy’s escort vessels. At such a height we move at a level where radar is reflected by the rough surface of the sea, so we will not be discovered.
While flying the next search circle at 300 m, the FuG 200 detects an unknown number of ship targets ahead of us. We come out of the circle immediately and we descend to 15 or 20 m and adjust our course directly for the centre of the convoy. Over the intercom system, a state of full alert is communicated to the whole crew.
The radio operator announces that the convoy is centred on the FuG 200 display screen. He picks up some 30 to 40 ships, together with a very big ‘target’. Shortly thereafter, visual observation confirms a medium-sized aircraft carrier. In very good visual conditions we spot a whole convoy from the many smoke clouds; merchant vessels and their armed warship escorts. As we approach to within 18 km distance of the convoy, still with our course to its centre, we get spotted. Some of the smaller escort ships move towards us in a broad front with waves visible across their bows and they start firing at us with all their guns.
The carrier to the west side of the convoy starts its attacks well. In such a situation we fly up to two kilometres from where their shells impact on the surface of the sea, while still observing the carrier and then we turn North on course 50°. The observer, the radio-operators and the gunners try to count the number of ships accurately. With our little Robot camera with its seven-centimetre lens, the observer photographs some of the ships. We cannot see whether aircraft from the carrier have taken off, and therefore we fly for half an hour along this course for about 80 nautical miles, because the carrier aircraft can only range 50 nautical miles from the carrier.
In the upcoming dawn, the observer and the radio operators will encode the messages to the BdU at Le Bourget near Paris. A new fine-tuning of the radio signals has to be made to transmit a new location via direction finding with the radio base stations at Stavanger and Sevilla.
We had now been underway for 17½ hours and encountered the area of the second convoy. It is a
westbound one, headed to the USA. Over the intercom the voice of the first radio-operator: ship targets 50 nautical miles ahead! All battle stations are manned immediately. Our FuG 200 enables us to adjust our course exactly to the convoy. We are now detectable by the ships’ radars of the escort vessels, but we are not physically visible due to cloud. From the various green marks on the screen, the two radio operators are able to detect as many as 35 ships.
The convoy makes course 215° West-South-West. We fly from the rear of the convoy to its leading point, and drop a parachute flare-bomb at both ends. They fall through the layer of stratos clouds and spread a harsh light across the sea to attract the attention of the German U-boats in the area.
After that we turn back South on a course 80° to Mont de Marsan. A clear sky, filled with stars, is the best condition to perform an astronomical navigational fix. The second pilot takes over at the controls, and my observer and I go with the bubble octant and our navigation watches to the stand in the middle section of the aircraft topped with a clear Plexiglas cover [the astrodome], to ‘shoot’ a star transversely and ahead.
With the octant, an extra bright star ahead and one off to the side are fixed for some seconds and the levelled angles are noted on the prepared form. A standardized calculation allows centring a cross section of two lines on our map that results in the exact location at the observation time. At the same time, our two radio-operators pick up, as an additional locating procedure, two secret radio beacons off the south coast of Ireland and one near Cap Finisterre in Spain. (See below.)
Our flight engineer and the second pilot commence some fuel-pumping procedures for our way home. The radio-operators encode the messages assisted by the observer. He also controls the navigational data of the course changes made over the recent hours. A new day, the 19 February 1944 commences. It is 0130 hrs and we have seven hours’ flight-time to go to Mont de Marsan.
Shadow over the Atlantic Page 19
