Shadow over the Atlantic

by Robert Forsyth

  Barringer:

  Opening fire at a range of 250 yards with high-explosive incendiaries, our Hurricanes brought a lethal weight of fire to bear on the German plane which was quickly shot down, though the pilot, with no little skill, managed to ditch his shattered aircraft before it exploded.

  Augustin:

  As I turned towards our companion aircraft, a long tail of fire shot out of its left inner engine. It had already been hit. Everything happened very quickly, and suddenly the tail gun position reported back excitedly: ‘Enemy fighter was hit; crashed; fighter has disappeared in the water.’ As we had to reckon on further attacks from carrier aircraft, we flew even closer to the surface of the water. Our companion aircraft had quickly disappeared from view. Any help from us – almost 2500 km from base – would have been hopeless.

  Aboard 9V+GK, Unteroffizier Hans Baur, the rear gunner, and the gunner in the rear dorsal position opened fire at the Hurricanes, but the latter’s MG 151 cannon jammed. With the port inner engine on fire and the wing damaged, the inside of the Junkers rapidly began to fill with smoke. To make matters worse, the second pilot, Oberfeldwebel Gerhard Hartig, who had been at the controls at the time, had been seriously wounded and so Leutnant Nonnenberg took over and decided to attempt to ditch the aircraft.48

  However, Augustin’s crew had been mistaken over the apparent fate of one of the Hurricanes. Barringer continues: ‘Mearns and Wallis then turned their attention to the second Junkers. It, however, very prudently first sought refuge in the clouds, and then made for home.’

  In this, the FAA pilots were somewhat mistaken, as Josef Augustin relates:

  It was obvious to us that because of his excellent radar devices, the enemy had picked us up early on, and therefore the surprise fighter attack. But the remaining fighters had suddenly disappeared – whether because of fuel, or whatever reason, it didn’t matter – we remained without further attack. Because of this, although identified by the convoy escort, I ordered the mission to continue. Probably because the enemy reckoned they had shot us down, we were then able to fly around the convoy well to the south, then switch to a westerly course and subsequently flew with sufficient safe distance in the direction of the convoy to the north. We determined the number of vessels, composition, course and its estimated speed and transmitted our encoded report, along with a weather report for the sea area, via the radio.

  As the convoy steamed away far to the north, so we made course for home. It was a long return flight, undertaken entirely using astro-navigation. Thank God, the moon and the stars were shining brightly. Our instruments and sextants gave us a position, which was out by about 30 km on the whole route. However, this was something of a problematic deviation, since the Pyrenees could become a dangerous obstacle during a night flight.

  During the night, around 0100 hrs, we crossed the French coast. Here, also, we experienced a sudden surprise. Though we fired a flare pistol using the daily recognition code, we took fire from our own Flak. Although the Flak shot well and we were only at a height of 80 m, on this occasion we were incredibly fortunate – it is a wonder we were not hit. Around 0200 hrs we landed at Mont de Marsan after an 18-hour flight.49

  From the crew of 9V+GK, Oberfeldwebel Hartig (second pilot), Unteroffizier Walter Elies (2nd radio-operator), Feldwebel Erich Butschies (gunner), Oberfeldwebel Aloys Looschelders (flight engineer) and Unteroffizier Peter Demarteau (gunner) were killed when the Ju 290 crashed into the sea. Kurt Nonnenberg and Feldwebel Herbert Köhler (gunner) survived but were injured, while Leutnant Hans Koitka (observer), Feldwebel Wilhelm Meyer (radio operator) and Unteroffizier Hans Baur (rear gunner) were more fortunate to survive uninjured. The Junkers’ main survival dinghy had been holed during the attack by the Hurricanes and so the five survivors resorted to using their one-man dinghies.

  Barringer recalled:

  As far as the Squadron were concerned the Battle of the Atlantic was fought without rancour and a Swordfish, with Joe Supple as pilot and Johnny Lloyd as observer, was flown off to locate the survivors and keep them company. Joe and Johnny found them, a tiny speck in a vast sea, and stayed circling them, waving encouragement, until they were picked up by one of the escorting corvettes.50

  The men from FAGr 5 were shipped to England where Nonnenberg and Köhler were taken to hospital, while the three other survivors were slated for interrogation. According to the subsequent interrogation report:

  Survivors of the crew of this aircraft are unanimous in blaming the bad leadership of Hauptmann Pawlittke in the first aircraft, who flew at the dangerous height of 400 m in bad visibility. The sea was calm and visibility at sea level was good; had they flown at a height of 20/40 m, the normal height for such operations, prisoners were of the opinion that the fighter attack could not have been successful.51

  The body of Charles Richardson, who had taken part in the earlier of the two encounters, was recovered by the escort destroyer Highlander. According to Barringer, on the morning of the 27th, ‘Highlander took station close on our starboard beam. Once again the squadron lined up on the flightdeck. Once again there was a moment of absolute silence while every ship in convoy, its flag at half-mast, stopped its engines as the body of Charles Richardson slid into the grey waters of the Atlantic.’52

  The action taken by the members of 835 NAS against the Ju 290s on 26 May was recognized in the form of various citations for its pilots and personnel. Al Burgham, Stephen Mearns, Frank Wallis and Charles Richardson (posthumously) were mentioned in despatches ‘for courage and skill’ in engaging, driving off, or shooting down Ju 290s on 25 and 26 May that were ‘menacing convoy SL.158/MKS.49’.53

  To deal with its losses FAGr 5 had developed a policy of creating new crews by reshuffling existing crews and bringing in replacements from the Ergänzungs-Fernaufklärungsgruppe at Posen and who received training on the Ju 290 at Mont de Marsan.54 But FAGr 5 was soon to experience more tragedy.

  In the evening of 30 May, the recently delivered Ju 290A-7 Wk-Nr 0187 (KR+LR) 9V+L K of 2./FAGr 5 left Mont de Marsan to conduct a security reconnaissance flight over the Bay of Biscay. The aircraft’s commander and 1st pilot was Leutnant Heinz Ernst. Having completed its mission, at some point on the homebound flight, the Ju 290 was over the Spanish coast when it crashed into hills near the town of Posada de Llanes, midway between the ports of Gijon and Santander. The entire 11-man crew of Ernst, Unteroffizier Martin Steinbock (second pilot), Fahnenjunker-Feldwebel Hans Haberer (observer), Feldwebel Walter Borntrink, Unteroffizier Wolfgang Hertz (radio operators), Unteroffizier Friedrich Strobel (flight engineer), Oberfeldwebel Willi Schmalfeldt, Feldwebel Otto Borkowski, Feldwebel Kurt Bartoschewski, Unteroffizier Alfred Janke and Obergefreiter Paul Neumann (gunners), was killed. Their remains were recovered and moved to the Deutscher Soldat Militärfriedhof at Cuacos de Yuste, 210 km west of Madrid.55

  The official strength figures for FAGr 5 for May 1944 were as follows:

  Stab 1 A-3

  1.Staffel 5 A-5

  2 A-7

  2.Staffel 2 A-3

  2 A-5

  5 A-7

  Total 17

  But of these figures, far fewer aircraft were either being used operationally or were fully serviceable. Furthermore, two of the new A-7s, the enhanced variant needed by the unit, had been lost, one within eight weeks of being delivered, the other within six days of being received. At least 31 airmen had been killed on missions during the month.

  Back in Germany, on Tuesday, 23 May 1944, the weaknesses of the Ju 290 and its planned successor, the Ju 390, came under scrutiny, by no less than Reichsmarschall Göring. He was in a bitingly cynical, though remarkably prognostic mood when he chaired a high-level aircraft production conference attended by the Reichsminister for Armaments and War Production, Albert Speer, as well as Milch, General der Flieger Günther Korten, the Luftwaffe Chief of General Staff and other senior Luftwaffe technical officers. Göring asked:

  The following point now arises: what can be done to make possible reconnaiss
ance at extreme ranges? What type of aircraft do I have for this purpose? There are the Ju 290 and Ju 390, types which have a colossal fuel consumption, and now – keep a firm hold on yourselves and don’t fall under the table – the Me 264 [a planned long-range, four-engined reconnaissance/bomber intended for Atlantic operations]! This aircraft, which need be produced only in small numbers and could be further improved, would give us a much faster aircraft than the 290 and would make reconnaissance at extreme ranges possible. I would set a definite limit – and we have all agreed on this point – of one Gruppe, which could be set up to strength. This unit would be allotted special long-range reconnaissance duties and we must consider the possibilities if the 264 were especially adapted for this work. If this were done, we could exclude all the types which devour so much fuel such as the 290, the 390 and the [Junkers] 288.56

  Indeed, the rumours stemming from such high-level discussions quickly trickled back to Mont de Marsan; on 2 June, Leutnant Herbert Wagner, a pilot of 1./FAGr 5 who frequently flew with Major Fischer, returned from a trip to Berlin to where he had accompanied the Gruppenkommandeur. Wagner told his comrades that there was a rumour the new, six-engined Ju 390 had been cancelled.57

  It had been a grim end to the month, and it was not about to get any better, as Oskar Schmidt recalled:

  The radar devices on the enemy fighters were getting better. This gave us greater problems, because the enemy could identify our aircraft long before we could determine the enemy. Thus more and more attacks occurred – suddenly the enemy would emerge from the cloud, and nothing is worse than surprise! We did have Hohentwiel, but it was meant exclusively for ship-search.58

  On the last day of the month, as mentioned above, the Gruppenkommandeur, Major Fischer, was summoned to Berlin by the Luftwaffenführungsstab, where he was to attend a meeting to discuss FAGr 5’s recent operational performance and any resulting measures that needed to be taken. In his absence, the Gruppe was left with a feeling of uneasiness over what might happen on his return.59

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  FLIGHT AND FIGHT

  June–August 1944

  Anything that had legs had to go up in the air.

  Oskar H. Schmidt, Stabskompanie, FAGr 5

  In the early hours of the morning of 6 June 1944, three Ju 290s returned from a luckless radar reconnaissance patrol to the west of Gibraltar. No convoys had been found, and in all too familiar circumstances, one Junkers had had to return early, suffering from technical problems.1 However, at the same time, far more momentous events were taking place, as expected, as the Allies landed in France, pouring 155,000 men along with thousands of vehicles onto the beaches of Normandy. The Allied air cover for the opening of Overlord was immense, with sufficient capability to fly more than 14,500 sorties within the first 24 hours, dwarfing any meagre Luftwaffe reaction that there was. For the German military, the war had taken a dramatic, alarming and irreversible new turn.

  The day after the landings, Major Fischer called the senior officers of Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5 together to advise them of a significant decision taken in Berlin:

  In the interests of the Reichsverteidigung (Air Defence of the Reich), production of the Ju 290 and Ju 390 is to end. The operations of the Fernaufklärungsgruppe are to terminate. The unit will, on occasion, continue to fly Sicheraufklärung (security reconnaissance) along the coast, but the original tasks are to end. No replacement aircraft for the Ju 290 and Ju 390 are foreseen for the unit. The Gruppe is to remain at its present location at Mont de Marsan. However, if the U-boat arm is to be re-equipped and to go on to the offensive again, will not air reconnaissance certainly be required? A ‘Führer Directive’ is awaited over the further deployment of FAGr 5.2

  But such a ‘Führer Directive’ never came.

  FAGr 5 continued to carry out long-range Atlantic flights during the first week of June; at 1448 hrs on the 3rd, Leutnant Hellmut Nagel of 1./FAGr 5 took off at the controls of Ju 290A-5 Wk-Nr 0170 9V+DH for the eastern Atlantic. His crew picked up the presence of what they reported as a ‘west–east convoy’.3 Over the 4/5 and 5/6 June, more patrols were sent out to track the ships. In the case of the former dates, three Ju 290s were sent out, again as a group and again escorted by Ju 88s of ZG 1 over the Bay of Biscay, to conduct a radar search to the south-west of Portugal for the SL.159/MKS.50 convoy from Freetown and Gibraltar bound for Liverpool. The convoy comprised 33 merchant vessels and had sailed from Freetown on 17 May and from Gibraltar on the 30th. The Junkers flew to Cape Ortegal, then to Cape Finisterre, then to Cape Roca in Portugal, where the group split and each aircraft flew a different patrol route before returning to Mont de Marsan. The convoy was not found, and the only vessel picked up was a lone ‘independent’ at 1940 hrs. All aircraft returned safely.4

  Another attempt was made on the 5th, with three Ju 290s flying out at around 1430 hrs, escorted by six Ju 88s of ZG 1. The Junkers patrolled an area west of Gibraltar using FuG 200, but again the convoy eluded them. One of the aircraft was forced to break off early because of technical difficulties, probably connected to its Hohentwiel set.5

  Over the night of 8/9 June, the crew of Oberleutnant Günther Korn of 1./FAGr 5 flew in Ju 290 Wk-Nr 0170 9V+DH to the Spanish coast, and north-west of Santander they dropped a FuG 302 Schwan buoy as a trial under operational conditions.6

  After the first week of June, FAGr 5 effectively ended operations over the Atlantic, although it remained at readiness with just a few crews. For his part, Major Fischer spent his time increasingly away in Berlin, working with the General der Aufklärungsflieger and was rarely to be seen at Mont de Marsan.7

  For most of June, flying was confined to security reconnaissance over the Bay of Biscay, although shortly after 0945 hrs on the morning of the 23rd, a pair of Ju 290s was despatched to search for a northbound convoy passing the Bay. Despite not returning until after midnight, once again the convoy was not located.8

  At the end of May 1944, one of FAGr 5’s aircraft and crew, Ju 290A-7 Wk-Nr 0190 9V+MK, commanded by Hauptmann Emil Sachtleben of 2.Staffel, was assigned a special task and ordered to fly via Dessau and Pretsch in Germany, then via Aalborg in Denmark, to Trondheim-Vaernes, the new base for the Fw 200s of III./KG 40 in Norway. While en route, at Pretsch special solar compasses were fitted to the aircraft for its forthcoming mission.9

  Since 1941, the Germans had maintained weather stations in the Arctic. These were extremely important because the path of low-pressure areas over the North Atlantic, from west to east, is determined by the position and movement of cold Artic air masses.10 The synoptic analysis of weather systems moving over the Atlantic was therefore information that became crucial to both the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe in their campaign against the convoys, and so an attempt was made to set up a network of weather stations in the High Arctic.

  One such station, under the expedition name Bassgeiger, was established by the Kriegsmarine in the summer of 1943 at Cape Sussi on the uninhabited, High Arctic coast of Shannon Island in North-East Greenland. Bassgeiger would be one of only two such stations to become active and which would winter on the remote Arctic shores. The expedition had travelled to Greenland via the Wetterbeobachtungsschiffe (WBS – Weather Reporting Ship) Coburg from Narvik in August 1943. But after several weeks of forcing a passage through the ice belt, the Coburg became stuck in ice eight kilometres off the nearest land – Cape Sussi at 75° 20´ North on the island of Shannon, stranding the nine-man weather team and the ship’s crew of 18. Eventually, the expedition struggled its way ashore, manhandling its equipment; they established a base of tents erected inside a system of tunnels that they dug inside a large snowdrift, some three metres high and 40 metres wide, near the cape and which would house their accommodation and radio equipment.

  Sporadic supply and mail air-drops to Bassgeiger were flown by Fw 200s of 3./KG 30 based at Trondheim from September 1943 into the spring of 1944. In April 1944, however, Bassgeiger fought an encounter with the Danish North-East Greenland Sledge Patrol, which r
esulted in the death of the German expedition’s military commander, Leutnant Gerhard Zacher; in May, the wrecked WBS Coburg, still out on the sea ice, was abandoned and blown up. With all 26 remaining men crowded into tents in the tunnels, without a ship, and running low on supplies, it was decided that a rescue operation had to be mounted.11

  On 2 June, an Fw 200 C flown by Hauptmann Robert Maly, the Staffekapitän of 3./KG 40, left Trondheim for eastern Greenland carrying 9200 l of fuel. Also on board was Emil Sachtleben, who was to survey the emergency airstrip which had been prepared by the Bassgeiger team. After passing over the proposed landing site, the Condor turned back for Norway and landed safely at 2055 hrs after 13 hours of flying.

  The next morning, at 0828 hrs, Ju 290 9V+MK, which had been modified for very long-range flights, took off from Trondheim flown by Hauptmann Sachtleben with Oberfeldwebel Kreutzmann as second pilot. On board was a full crew, as well as a war reporter and the adjutant to a general – in all, 16 men. After a one-hour search in cloud and mist, the Junkers, weighing 37 tons, landed successfully on the one-metre thick ice at Nordenskjolds Bugt, south of Cape Sussi at 1517 hrs. It took 40 minutes for the weather team to load its equipment, then, along with the crew of the WBS Coburg, they boarded the Ju 290. Sachtleben took off again at 1600 hrs with no fewer than 42 men on board the Junkers, and returned safely to Trondheim at 2206 hrs, despite some damage being inflicted to the aircraft’s flaps during landing on Shannon Island.12

  On 6 June, 9V+MK left Trondheim to return to Mont de Marsan, staging via Aalborg and Ludwigslust, where the damage suffered in Greenland was repaired. By 13 June, the aircraft resumed reconnaissance operations over the Bay of Biscay.13

  On 12 June, in an exceptional development for a Luftwaffe air unit, FAGr 5 played a direct part in the war against the maquisards of the French Resistance. Since early 1944, the Maquis had gradually intensified its activities against the German military infrastructure in France in the lead-up to the Allied invasion. In an early example in February, Resistance fighters at a Peugeot factory at Sochaux-Montbéliard, in the east of the country, making aircraft parts, inflicted sufficient damage on equipment to interrupt production for five weeks; when new machine tools eventually arrived, they were destroyed on arrival. As the anticipated invasion drew nearer, such activity saw a widespread increase; in May at Bagnères-de-Bignorre in the Pyrenees, a factory involved in producing parts for self-propelled guns was put out of action for six months after an operation by a local Resistance cell supported by British agents. In the same month, a railway locomotive depot was destroyed in the eastern town of Ambérieu and 52 engines made unusable, while at Bar in the Corrèze, a hydro-electric station was so badly damaged it was inoperative for four months. Across occupied France, German forces were on high alert, while the security forces attempted to hunt down and deal with the Resistance groups.