Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

Hello,

Recently acquired a photo of He59 D-A+SA?, in its civil Red Cross markings (painted white). I'm trying to ID its history and fate for entry into the EoE Photo DB.

Who can help?

Regards,

Larry Hickey
EoE Project Coordinator

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

Hi

I assume that this is D-ASAM He 59C-2 WNr.1994 which I have with Seenotflugkdo. 3 at Cherbourg in July 1940

Ian

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

Hi Larry,

If Ian's assumption is right, this He 59 was show down on 1st July 1940 by Spitfires of 74 Squadron.

I trust you may have all info about that incident. If not, please drop a PM and I can supply full details.

Regards,
Hans

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

Hi, Larry...

Sadly, the last letter is obscured in this image, but may well be the machine in question.

Ian, thanks for the unit information and possible location :).

Regards,

Paul

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

Paul, Hans & Ian,

Thanks for your inputs. Yes, that's the a/c and the specific photo image that I'm working with. I'm convinced that it is indeed, D-A+SAM. We carry this in the EoE Luft Loss DB as:

"July 1, 1940: July 1, 1940: Seenotflugkdo. 3 Heinkel He59 (1994). Damaged in attacks by Blue Section of No.72 Squadron (F/L E. Graham, F/O E.J. Wilcox, and F/Sgt H. Steere) during search mission for He115 of 3/KüFlGr.106 and landed at sea 8 miles off Hartlepool 6.15 a.m. BO Lt Hans-Joachim Fehske, BF Obergefr Erich Philipp, and FF Uffz Ernst-Otto Nielsen captured unhurt, BM Uffz Fritz Struckmann captured badly wounded - all took to dinghy and rescued by cruiser’s long-boat. Aircraft D-ASAM 100% write-off.
Despite recognising that this was extremely hazardous undertaking due to proximity to the English coast, a rescue sortie was nonetheless ordered by 9 Fliegerdivision and take-off from Norderney followed at 3.05 a.m. The crew protested strongly at the deliberate violation of Article 9 of the 1929 Geneva Agreement pertaining to Red Cross humanitarian aid. The aircraft was later beached and closely examined for any armament and mine racks."

This a/c is not to be confused with the better known D-A+SUO that force-landed on the Goodwin Sands, of the coast of Deal, Kent, on July 9th, and led to the change in rules about Luftwaffe rescue operations off the British coast.

I just got some additional info on this a/c from Gerhard Stemmer, which is somewhat contradictory as to whether this a/c was assigned to SNFlKdo 1 or 3 at the time of this incident: "After the modification the He 59 WNr.1884 (sic--clearly a typo for 1994) D-ASAM was delivered to Seenotflugkommando 1 Norderney on 26.Apr.40. It was lost due to British fighters on 2.Jul.40 (sic-we have 1 July 40 in our DB) still with the same unit but based as part of a small detachment at Schellingwoude in Holland."

Any further comment on the unit of assignment and Ian's "C-2" subtype source would be appreciated.

Regards,

Larry Hickey
EoE Project Coordinator

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

I was in touch with Fehske and the account of the action is in my Luftwaffe Bombers Battle book; no photos I am afraid

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

D-ASAM W.Nr. 1994 was an Arado built He 59D later converted by Walther Bachmann Flugzeugbau (formerly Aero-Sport), Ribnitz, to full Air-Sea rescue version He 59N.

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

Hello,

Since this would have been originally an He59D when manufactured, converted to an He59N by the time of its loss on 1 July 1940, where does the information about it being a "C-2" come from? Is this even possible? I presume that it should be carried as an He59N at the time of its loss if Adam's info is correct.

Regards,

Larry Hickey
EoE Project Coordinator

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

To Larry:
Unfortunately, the litteratur has given the He 59 a number of partly wrong version identifications, i.e. He 59B-2. The following versions were produced by Heinkel and also by Arado:
He 59a first protoype by Heinkel
He 59b (sometimes written B with capital letter) two prototypes by Heinkel
He 59C first series production from Heinkel
He 59D several series produced by both Heinkel and Arado
He 59E two series produced only by Arado as navigational trainer.
These are the variants I have seen after going through a large number of archive material, both in Freiburg and Munchen.
If someone can give any proof by original documents of any other versions, I would be most interested. I have seen an Arado document giving their He 59C as a C-1, but otherwise no sub-versions.

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

Adam,

Can you add W.Nr. ranges to this list of He59 subtypes? If we can get these defined, and add any further subtype refinements or details that anyone else can confirm, that would be most helpful in accurately completing our EoE Luft a/c loss/damages DB for 1939-40. Is it possible to hook these to specific W.Nr.'s?

Regards,

Larry Hickey
Eoe Project Coordinator

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

Well Larry

What I have is as follows for the Heinkel built ones (3 prototypes + 41 production aircraft)
HD 59a WNr 378 D-2214 later D-ARAR
HD 59b WNr 379 D-2215 later D-ABIF
He 59b WNr 442 D-2622 later D-AKIV
He 59C Wnr 528-543, 836-840
He 59D WNr 1510-1529

The Arado ones are tricky (122 are reported as built)
He 59D WNr 931 D-APUH, 933-935, 960, 1309-1332, 1628, 1725-1726, 1819-1831, 1834, 1839-1855, 1898, 1974-1996, 2584, 2595-2604, 2610, 2758, 2787, 2792-2798, 2827, 2862-2874, 2995

He 59E: 2863 and 2871 (included among the D-models above, since I am not 100% certain)

He 59N: conversions only

NOTE: Much of the Arado WNr above comes from loss reports and may be faulty plus some "in between" WNr are estimated by me to fill in ranges. This is dangerous, I know, but I did so with the hope that Seaplanes would come to the rescue...:)

Sources:
Volker Koos (Heinkel) of course
Roba/Ledet/Neulen: Les Hydravion etc Vol 1

Cheers
Stig

Re: Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate
 

A bit late to the party, but I found three pictures of D-ASAM in the archives of the city of Vlissingen (Flushing), dated 30 June 1940, so hours before the shootdown! The source even adds that the aircraft arived at 11 am and departed at 6 pm. It's perfecty possible that it took off from Norderney nine hours later I suppose.

I uploaded two of the photos to AirHistory.

Photos in Flushing archives

Regards, Peter