Shadow over the Atlantic

by Robert Forsyth

  •Hauptmann Eckl, previously Staffelkapitän of 2./FAGr 5 under attachment to Sonderkommando Nebel, was now unassigned and to be found a new appointment by Major Fischer.

  Oskar Schmidt commented: ‘Finally, these were clear orders, and everyone now knew what was intended of him … However, until these new commands were arranged properly and the new establishments were effected, the existing formations would remain in place.’10

  On 14 February, Oberleutnant Herbert Abel, the Gruppenadjutant of FAGr 5, and Hauptmann Oskar Schmidt journeyed by rail from Munich to the headquarters of Generalmajor von Barsewisch at Jüterbog-Damm to discuss matters connected with the new arrangements. However, their outward and return journeys were tedious and badly delayed as a result of frequent air raid warnings.

  The following day, the OKL war diary noted: ‘The provision for the transfer to Norway of a Schwarm of 1(F)/33 contained in the directive of 1 January is cancelled. A Schwarm of 1 (F)/5 will be provided for operations in Norway.’11

  By late February, more personnel from FAGr 5 at Neubiberg were despatched to Norway. The Gruppe ensured that this was always undertaken using small groups of men with impeccable paperwork, otherwise there was always the risk that they could be ‘press-ganged’ during their journey through the Reich and commandeered for other purposes. The Gruppe also established its own radio unit at Grosshelfendorf, just to the east of the Hofoldinger Forest, from where a permament communications link was established with the new units in Scandinavia.12

  Some training on the Ar 234 had commenced. According to Josef Augustin, every 14 days, a pilot was ordered from Neubiberg to Burg-bei-Magdeburg for training on the jet; firstly Hauptmann Miersch, then Leutnant Hetz, then Leutnant Schmitt.13 As Hellmut Hetz recalled:

  Late in January 1945 I moved to Burg where I began training on the Arado. My first five-minute flight was made on the 30th, followed by a second which lasted 51 minutes. These were both made in an Ar 234B coded 9V+GH. I then transferred to Stavanger-Sola in Norway from where I made two more familiarization flights on 25 February and 3 March.14

  Indeed, the British had reported ‘one Ar 234 of 1./(F) 5’ as having arrived in Stavanger on 26 February, information that was born out by an entry in the OKL war diary for that day, which confirmed that ‘the Einsatzkommando 1./(F)5 has arrived in Stavanger with 1 Ar 234. This means modern jet reconnaissance is available in Norway.’15 They also picked up a radio transmission from the Kriegsmarine reporting a flight, which in itself gave the British their first signal that the Ar 234 was operating from Norway. On the 26th, the British noted that the ground echelons of Einsatzkommando 1.(F)/5 were at full strength at Stavanger-Sola along with a solitary Ar 234, although two more such aircraft were at Grove, having made an interim landing there. They were expected to head to Norway as soon as the weather had cleared and the skies were deemed safe enough.16

  On 1 March, the Stab FAGr 1 moved to Grove, and three days later, Generalmajor von Barsewisch ordered that operations previously undertaken by 1.(F)/Aufkl.Gr.123 were to be taken over by the Einsatzkommando of 1.(F)/5, which comprised Leutnant Hetz and Leutnant Eduard Schmitt, both former members of 1./FAGr 5. Furthermore, ‘Reconnaissance Ar 234s would be ready for operations from Stavanger in six days’ time … U-boat command is to pass requests for coverage direct to the Kommandierende General der Deutschen Luftwaffe in Norwegen (Commanding General of the Luftwaffe in Norway).’17

  This was the signal that, albeit in a new guise, at least some of the personnel of FAGr 5 would again be undertaking reconnaissance for the U-boat arm. Twenty-nine Type VII U-boats had sailed from Norway in February, and they had sunk 16 Allied ships of 50,000 tons, but, in the process, 16 boats – more than half the force – had been lost. This was the second month in a row that one U-boat had been lost for every Allied vessel sunk. In March, 29 boats would sail from Norwegian bases to British waters, accounting for nine enemy ships sunk of 20,000 tons, or one-third of a ship per U-boat.18

  Although Hetz and Schmitt had made some further training flights over Norway in late February and early March 1945, it would not be until the afternoon of the 23rd that the first operational mission was flown, when the two pilots flew a photo-reconnaissance from Stavanger-Sola to the northern British Isles in aircraft carrying the FAGr 5 unit code of ‘9V’, with Hetz covering northern Scotland in Ar 234B-2b Wk-Nr 140341 9V+AH and Schmitt in Ar 234B-2b Wk-Nr 140493 9V+CH, covering the coastal waters from the Firth of Forth south to the Tyne at South Shields. Hetz recalled: ‘I took off “heavy” (loaded with two RATO and two drop tanks) at 1450 hrs for my first operational sortie over Britain. This was completed at high altitude, and although an attempt was made by Spitfires to intercept, they could get nowhere near me.’

  Hetz crossed the Scottish coast north of Aberdeen and made his way towards the Firth of Forth:19

  Later I realized that one engine was overheating, but this didn’t bother me as I was used to this happening with the Me 262. Eventually, the engine became so hot that I was forced to shut it down. Despite this, fuel continued to be consumed at a high rate as well and I realized that there must be a leak. I turned back to Norway and began my slow descent back into Stavanger, knowing that even if the other engine cut out, I could glide her in. I had flown gliders before the war and had plenty of experience in this field.

  Another problem came when I tried to lower the undercarriage. It just would not work so I was forced to go around again, using the manual pump until it locked down. As I came in for a second time, the other engine quit and I did not have the speed to get the aircraft over some trees close to the runway. My Arado hit them broadside on and the sudden deceleration flung me, and the heavy seat to which I was strapped, head first through the glazed nose. I found this extremely disappointing! The flight had lasted 2 hr 20 min.

  Men came running across the airfield and took me to a first aid room where I was kept under observation for two days, before being moved to a local hospital. The only really severe injury was to my right ankle which was put into a plaster cast.20

  The following day, another Ar 234, most likely from the Einsatzkommando 1.(F)/5 – in which case it would have been flown by Eduard Schmitt, and probably, according to British interpreters, ‘for the benefit of U-boats’ – conducted a reconnaissance over the east coast of Scotland, observing firstly at 1526 hrs six small warships and one large merchant vessel eight kilometres north-east of Berwick; two small merchant vessels to the north-west; and two small merchantmen to the south. Then, at 1537 hrs, it spotted five merchant ships, while to the north, four more proceeding towards Newcastle. Elsewhere, there were only individual ships between the Firth of Forth and Middlesbrough.21

  By late March, purposeful air reconnaissance for the U-boats was at an end. It had become clear to BdU that losses in the waters off Britain had increased steadily since the beginning of February and so it ordered the boats to pull back seaward from the coastal areas, simultaneously authorizing commanders to return to base if enemy forces proved too strong.22 Nevertheless, Leutnant Schmitt is believed to have made one more flight on 9 April.23

  In the afternoon of 4 May, however, the desire to fly in the Ar 234 once again was too much for the recently injured Hellmut Hetz, as he recalled:

  Despite my crash, I was determined to fly once more before the end of the war. I had an argument with my Staffelkapitän, Major Augustin, but he eventually allowed me to take up another Arado coded BH on 4 May. I was the engineering officer for the unit at this time and I used this fact to convince Augustin, who was a non-flyer, that I should fly. I was elated that I had managed to make just one more flight before the British finally arrived 24

  Hetz was in the air for just 15 minutes.

  ____________

  In early February 1945, Major Fischer hinted to his senior staff that a mysterious, highly secret Grosseinsatz (major operation) was being planned for FAGr 5 in association with KG 200, which would involve the Ju 290s of the Gruppe, and that to this end, certain ‘special equ
ipment’ would be needed for pathfinding missions. The result of this was that towards the end of the month, as certain preparatory work was undertaken in accordance with directives from KG 200, the personnel and aircraft of the Gruppe, although scattered across the Reich, still retained their cohesion and identity in readiness for the special operation – the purpose of which had still not been revealed.

  On the 21st, OKL ordered that the commander of FAGr 1 was to be ‘subordinated to KG 200 for two special operations.’25 Furthermore, the earlier order to disband 2.Staffel was to be suspended for the duration of these operations. Fischer would be informed of details of his role in these tasks by Oberst Werner Baumbach, the new Kommodore of KG 200 ‘only as far as is absolutely necessary and as late as possible.’ In the meantime, the operations of FAGr 1 would remain unaffected, and aircraft would be assigned to 2./FAGr 5 as required by the Generalquartiermeister.26

  By early March, anticipatory rumours were rife at Neubiberg and Hofolding about how the Ju 290s of FAGr 5 would be deployed; on the 16th, two aircraft of 2.Staffel, the A-5 Wk-Nr 0171 9V+CH, which had been taken on by the Gruppe in December and was assigned to Hauptmann Eckl, and the A-2 Wk-Nr 0157 9V+BK, assigned to Leutnant Wagner and Leutnant Münsterer, were ordered to be available for ‘government duties’.

  There was also talk of a ‘special operation devised personally by the Reichsmarchall’, but on the 6th, Oskar Schmidt noted:

  The ‘Reichsmarschall’ operation was delayed again; the organization of so many units was very difficult at that time. There were very few clear instructions. Across several airfields, our flying crews were waiting to deploy the Ju 290 (for example, at Mühldorf, Neubiberg, Rechlin, Dessau and others). But we had the feeling that our Kommandeur, Major Fischer was ‘dancing at several weddings’ and did not want to miss out on anything. He had been given orders to take over FAGr 1. He also continued with the Ju 290 as Kommandeur of FAGr 5, as well as being involved in the special ‘Reichsmarschall’ operation, mainly from Rechlin. In addition, he wanted to continue to be involved in aircraft development matters with Oberst Knemeyer. Furthermore, he did not want to be excluded from discussions with Oberst Baumbach of KG 200 and also with the General der Aufklärungsflieger. Of course, all this meant he was constantly travelling (although mostly in our interests), but his various command tasks left him with very little time.27

  The possibility of launching a major air attack against the key power stations of the Soviet Union had lingered in the corridors of the OKL since 1943, when a ministerial official in the RLM, Professor Dr. Ingenieur Heinrich Steinmann, head of the innocuously titled Bauabteilung 10 (Construction Section 10) of the ministry’s administration department, had been commissioned to produce a feasibility study on the prospects of the Luftwaffe mounting a significant bombing raid against the power supply infrastructure of the Moscow and Upper Volga regions. The Moscow area alone accounted for 75 per cent of the output of the armament industry, and so an effective attack could have considerable impact on production. Steinmann believed that by carrying out such a strike, the Soviet Union’s ability to wage war would be severely impinged. However, when he submitted his report, it was met with scepticism by Luftwaffe intelligence officers, who felt that the proposed target list was too lengthy and that attacks on key industrial targets would produce more significant results. Undaunted, Steinmann set about producing a further report, this time centred around a strike against a range of Soviet hydro-electric and steam power plants.28

  Steinmann’s ideas received some support from Reichsminister Albert Speer, the armaments minister, who took the idea to Hitler. As Speer recorded in his memoirs:

  We had wooden models of the power plants made for use in training the pilots. Early in December I had informed Hitler. On February 4 [1944], I wrote to [General der Flieger Günther] Korten, the new Chief of General Staff of the air force, that ‘even today the prospects are good … for an operative air campaign against the Soviet Union … I definitely hope that significant effects on the fighting power of the Soviet Union will result from it.’ I was referring specifically to the attacks on the power plants in the vicinity of Moscow and the Upper Volga. Success depended – as always in such operations – upon chance factors. I did not think that our action would decisively affect the war. But I hoped, as I wrote to Korten, that we would wreak enough damage on Soviet production so that it would take several months for American supplies to balance out their losses.

  Nearly a year was to pass, by which time Korten had died as a result of wounds received during the assassination attempt on Hitler in July 1944. Then, on 6 November, under the codename Operation Burgund, Reichsmarschall Göring ordered that in the next full moon period a specially created force of ten He 177 bombers formerly of II./KG 100 was to carry out an attack on three Soviet hydro-electric plants.29 The bombers would deploy BM 1000 Sommerballon (Summer Balloon) floating mines and were to be placed under the operational control of KG 200, which in turn would act ‘in closest cooperation’ with Professor Steinmann.30 However, Steinmann was dealt another blow when KG 200’s operations officers calculated that a further 150 m3 of fuel would be needed for the operation over and above what he had forecast. Furthermore, acute difficulties were experienced in servicing the He 177’s Daimler-Benz 610 engines, for which parts were now in short supply. Because of these difficulties, the plan was eventually dropped.31 Thus, attention then turned to the possibility of using Mistel composite bombers, which took the form of a Ju 88 lower component ‘bomber’ with its cockpit replaced by a hollow-charge warhead, flown to the target by a piloted and attached Bf 109 or Fw 190 upper component, to carry out a raid.

  Under the codename Eisenhammer (Iron Hammer), Korten’s successor, General der Flieger Karl Koller, and Steinmann once more proposed a dawn attack against electrical power production in the Moscow/Upper Volga regions to be carried out in the forthcoming moonlit period (February–March 1945), specifically at the hydro-electric power plants at Rybinsk and Uglich and the steam-power plants at Stalingorsk, Kashira, Shatura, Komsomolsk, Yaroslav, Aleksin, Tula, Balakhna, Gorki and Dzerzhinski. German intelligence believed that 90 per cent of the Soviet Union’s motor vehicle production emanated from the Moscow/Upper Volga areas, along with 50 per cent of its ballbearing output and 60 per cent of its light assault-gun manufacture.32

  As before, Koller assigned operational control of the mission to KG 200, though the Geschwader was to carry out its task in close collaboration with the General der Kampfflieger and Professor Steinmann. To prepare for the mission, OKL further envisaged production of 100 Mistel by February 1945, and, should KG 200 require additional crews, the General der Kampfflieger was supposed to supply these. Just how realistic this expectation was by this stage of the war was a matter for conjecture. Koller and OKL also stipulated that if, as predicted, the winter ice around the targets thawed by the time the mission was carried out, BM 1000 Sommerballon would also be deployed.

  On 10 January, OKL demanded that in addition to the 100 composites required by the end of the month, a further 50 Mistel be ready by 15 February. However, the Kommodore of KG 200, the highly decorated bomber ‘ace’ Oberstleutnant Werner Baumbach, warned that II./KG 200 could provide only 15 trained crews and that these would be needed just to transfer completed composites from the Junkers assembly plants.33 A possible solution was to take on crews from KG 30, the pilots of which had been undergoing fighter conversion since the autumn of 1944, and thus were experienced on both the Ju 88 and single-engined fighters.

  In Berlin, however, it seems that competing interests were at work, for according to a minute from the OKL daily conference on 2 February: ‘The Reichsmarschall agreed that the 100 Mistel aircraft planned by Reichsminister Speer, in addition to the 130 already in production or completed, will not now be built so as to allow industrial capacity to be freed for other purposes. The Reichsmarschall intends to confer with Reichsminister Speer.’

  The pressure now was to build fighters and jet fighters for the de
fence of the Reich. Yet ten days later, the OKL diarist recorded: ‘Operation Eisenhammer will be carried out at all costs. Preparations will be expedited. The fuel required for the operation has been promised by OKW.’ The following day, 13 February, he wrote: ‘After the fuel required for Operation Eisenhammer had been provided by OKW, the Reichsmarschall decided that the operation will be prepared and carried out as soon as possible.’ Twenty-four hours later, KG 200, now assigned by Göring to supervise all aspects of Eisenhammer, confirmed that, provided initial preparations were completed in time, it would be ready to undertake the operation ‘as early as the end of February or beginning of March.’

  The effects of these developments and high-level orders filtered down to what remained of FAGr 5 in Bavaria. In early March, Hauptmann Schmidt of the Stabskompanie and Oberleutnant Abel, the Gruppenadjutant, used one of the unit’s tow-tractors, to which was fitted an empty signals trailer, to collect the required equipment needed for the Ju 290 to conduct pathfinding operations from a storage facility in the Harz Mountains – a long and dangerous journey of 560 km during which they would be prey for roaming Allied fighter-bombers. Somehow they managed it and returned to Neubiberg with the equipment safe and intact.34

  Commencing in mid-March, in halls with their walls covered with vast maps of the Soviet Union, extensive training and briefing sessions were given to the former bomber pilots slated to fly the mission. In the first leg, the whole attack force – Mistel led by Ju 88, Ju 188 and Ju 290 pathfinders – would fly north to Bornholm, where the course would be changed eastwards across the Baltic, to cross the coast north of Königsberg. Then, having flown over East Prussia and the old Soviet border, the second stage would take the formation along a highway from Minsk to Smolensk where it would split. One group of Mistel would turn south-east to attack Stalinogorsk and Tula, while the remainder would continue east towards Gorki. North-west of Moscow, one section would make for Rybinsk.