Re: Aufklarung 1945 over UK
 

Your idea sounds quite plausible to me Brian.
I had thought of the flights as being of an offensive nature
whereas they are much more likely to have been defensive.
Thanks for your contribution.
James

Re: Aufklarung 1945 over UK
 

What little I have been able to learn about the (few) flights of the last quarter of 1944 and the first quarter of 1945 mirrors Brian's suggestion. The flights were to monitor shipping concentrations on the UK east coast as the OKW feared another landing, either in Norway, or possibly somewhere on the Denmark-North Germany-Netherlands coast might be in preparation. The Arado 234 shootdown near Rheine in Feb 45 was of one such sortie, to Hull.

The OKM were also deploying small submarines of the 'Seehund' and 'Biber' type/class in the N sea at this time and, again, reconnaissance of ports on both sides of the N sea was then the only effective means of finding suitable targets for a last ditch attack. I think ports such as Antwerp were also covered.

On the Ju 388 business -its a conflation of rumour and myth. No such intercepion happened. Would have been interesting.

Mind you, what about that rumoured encounter between that Westland Welkin and a Dornier 635 on May 9th 1945 somwehere off the Scilly isles......?

best

Chris Going

Re: Aufklarung 1945 over UK
 

The reason for the Ar 234 in Norway is explained in the KTB der Aufklärungsflieger!

Junker

Re: Aufklarung 1945 over UK
 

Come on Chris, don't keep us in suspension! What was the rumour?

Cheers
Brian

Re: Aufklarung 1945 over UK
 

I think that the key to the rumour may lie in the alleged location.....
However, 23 Ju 388s of all versions are thought to have been
delivered to operational units. They must have done something
with them before the fuel situation became critical?
Thanks to all contributors to this thread.
Jamesl

Re: Aufklarung 1945 over UK
 

Ha! Ha! Don't be hard on me, Chris & James, I come from Silly Suffolk!

Cheers
Brian

Re: Ju 388 Aufklarung 1945 over UK
 

Hi

As co-autor of the Ju 388 book - now also available in its English version via Schiffer - I doubt that Ju 388 were flown operationally over the UK. However it is not entierly impossible, that VersVerb OKL did fly such combat missions.
Christoph Vernaleken and I did not come across any reliable information on such events.
Moreover there were no such losses recorded by the official General Quartiermeister's Luftwaffe loss records of any Ju 388s.

Regards, from Vienna, Austria
Martin