16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Were German night fighters/intruders active over England on the night of 16-17 June 1944?

The compliation of air-air victories from BA-MA microfilms includes the following information on 17/6:

Kdo. IX. Fliegerkorps/Lft.3
1. Uffz. Ottern 6/kG51 claimed u/i 4-engine aircraft at 2225/05 Ost, 4,500 m [England] at 0200 according to Film C 2027/IIAnerk Nr. 15
1. Fw Trenke 6/kG51 claimed u/i 4-engine aircraft at 121/05 Ost, no height [England] at 0215 according to Film C 2027/IIAnerk Nr. 16

Questions:
1. Can these claims be related to any specific Bomber Command or other loss over England at that time/place?
2. Can anyone provide a reference to a source that would provide the location of the grid references aove?

Thanks
David Isby

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Hello David!

I do not know if this is of any help for you, but I do own a so called "Luft Naviations-Karte in Merkatorprojektion" and checked the grids you provided on this map;

grids 12 and 22 (I would start with these as a reference for the coordinates you have given) lie on a straight line between Vlissingen and Southend, grid 12 contains Canterbury and Folkestone in its South-Western corner and runs up to Harwich while grid 22 lies to the North West of the Straits of Calais and has Dunkerque and Ostende on its Southern edge.

I do hope that this is a starting point for you, unfortunately I cannot tell you how the grids on this navigation chart are subdivided so I cannot provide more details;

cheers from Vienna
phil

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Hi David.
The positions are given in the old Lw grid system. The link below has a converter (LUMA, use pre MAY 1943), which will convert the positions to lat./long.
http://www.gyges.dk/reporting_grids.htm and this is a part of the story:
http://www.gyges.dk/Wilde%20Sau%20Frankrig.htm I have a copy of the German document.
bregds
SES

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Hi David !

You can use LUMA for finding your map coordinates.
See: http://www.gyges.dk/reporting_grids.htm

2225/05 Ost
is the center point of this map (with about 5 km radius)
http://mc.multimap.com/cs/bworld//M1...00W700H400.gif

121/05 Ost
is the center point of this map (with about 15 km radius)
http://mc.multimap.com/cs/bgb//X25/Y...00W700H400.gif

bye,
FrankieS

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

...and no Bomber Command losses match easily

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Hi David

I believe they may have been US B-24s returning late from a raid - I will endeavour to find out more unless one of our American friends can provide the answer.

Cheers
Brian

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

I too believe that these losses could be US bombers, returning late from a raid;
AFAIK, the 410s were not equipped with a radar set, so a full night intruder sortie would have been very difficult to fly for them, a intruder sortie during the last daylight hours seems more probable to me too.

btw, isnt there a book about a particular costly raid where ME-410s decimated a US formation returning from a raid against Hamm IIRC?

cheers
phil

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

The book you're thinking of is "Night of the Intruders" by Ian McLachlan. I've not read it.

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Just to point out that the claims were made at 2:00AM and 2:15AM. It would be pitch black at that time unless a full moon.

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Hallo David

This night was first of all a major Bomber Command night with a raid on Sterkrade as part of its job! As Chris so aptly state, it is VERY difficult to co-relate specific RAF losses with German claims!
Luftwaffe made 40 claims this night while RAF lost 36 to all causes. The number of damaged aircraft unknown.
Part of KG 51' s job was to take action over Britain so it is quite possible that the shoot downs claimed in fact WERE over Britain.In fact Chorley DO list some aeroplanes lost over Britain this night, but most losses seems to have happened over Holland and also over the Channel, so the individuals from KG 51 might have stumbled across returning bombers as well. The grid reference, to me, indicate that the pilots of KG 51 in question were rather unsure of where they were and their navigators did their best by using this system. So even if pinpointing those places I would be very cautious using that as evidence of WHERE exactly these two claims were made.

B Rgds
Stig

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

"Intruders over Britain" shows no sorties or claims by German intruders on that evening.

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Hi George!

I was thinking that the book I had in mind does not contain any useful info for the night in question;
but IIRC it should feature info about the intruder role of the ME-410 equipped KG-51 Gruppe.

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

I beleive there was an intruder attack over the U.K on the 15/16th June to the area 'Raum Cambridge'. This appeares to be borne out by Home Office reports which say one enemy aircraft was over East Anglia on the 14/15th and the following night ten aircraft flew overland during the attacks by Flying Bombs. The Home Office reports make no mention of enemy aircraft over the U.K. on the 16/17th. Either KG 51 were operating over the continent agaist RAF bombers ( like SKG 10 did over France in May ) or a proposed intruder attack did not get as far as the U.K but resulted in claims.

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

I concur with Brian-they were used in the n/f role (without radar) but most if not all of their kills were whilst intruding over airfields. The time would rule out US bombers and the logbook I have from a crewman shows no missions that night

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Many thanks to all for their responses.

I assume that there were no RAF night fighter or AAA claims of aircraft destroyed over England on the night of 16-17 June 1944.

The location of the second of the two claims by KG 51 is interesting in that any aircraft shot down in that location would have likely come down on land or in coastal waters under radar surveillance. Of course, as has been mentioned, the accuracy of this position is likely to be questionable. I suspect that looking out for Mosquitos would have had priority.

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

A 219 Squadron Mosquito claimed an Me 410 near Dungeness on 16/17 June. Apparently there were no other claims. I've no info on the crew or on whether there were any corresponding LW losses.

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

II/KG 51, the intruder unit, lost nothing 16-17 June 44

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Thanks Chris.

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Interesting. One of the two German claims may relate to this, from a list of raids on 8th USAAF installations in the UK:

"RATTLESDEN (HB) 0212 hrs 15 June 1944 1 twin-engined E/A strafed B-17 approaching to land, and dropped bombs on airbase. 4 x 250 kg (sic) bombs in open field, 2 x 250 kg bombs near Red Cross Club which was damaged to a slighter degree. 2 x containers of anti-personnel bombs disposed of by RAF unit. Altitude: 300 to 800 ft. Weather: Fairly clear - few scattered clouds.
Efficiency of defensive plans: Satisfactory. It is thought intruders followed RAF inland. Further, it is thought intruder picked up PFF in traffic pattern and circled until beginning of landing."

This could well refer to 15-16 June 1944 but unlikely to have been 16-17 ?
The HE bombs would probably have been 50 kg size which with two containers of SD2 would have been a typical II/KG.51 Me 410 bomb-load on these intruder attacks.
Chris Goss might also be interested to know that it was common practice for 8th USAAF PFF units to position aircraft to several airfields prior to the day's mission, so USAAF bombers airborne in the night skies over Britain were not that uncommon. Also, the USAAF carried out a considerable number of night-flying practice missions. In addition, there were also a few nocturnal USAAF units including the Night Leaflet Squadron and the 801st "Carpetbaggers". In short, German intruders finding American bombers at night was no big surprise.

What I did find surprising was that ALL the II/KG.51 claims for the infamous night of 22 April 1944, when nine USAAF B-24s were shot down by a small number of intruders returning from the mission to HAmm, were for RAF HALIFAXES !!!

Hope this helps.
Regards,

BC

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

It's this claiming that made me think these KG 51 a/c hadn't been directed to intercept the B-24s but had only been out to do a bit of dirt around England and happened upon the returning B-24s by accident.

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Hi BC,
A very fine piece of research. A mix-up of dates is not uncommon in German documents. My speculation is that the Feldwehbel responsible for the KTB may stack a few days work and then catch up, hence the wrong date. And far too often, when we examine a night claim we focus on BC, and forget the USAAF night ops. In another thread we have a discussion related to 4 B-24 night claims on 8 JAN 1945, I'm sure they were Lancasters. But - a kill is a kill.
bregds
SES
www.gyges.dk

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Brian: II/KG 51 was active over the UK on 14-15 June, losing Fw Heinrich Ramm & Uffz Karl Seeland to 219 Sqn at 0302 hrs. I also agree that USAAF ac would be active at night albeit not as much as the RAF but the norm at that time of night would be Bomber Command, especially this night. Also, on 22 April, I agree that Halifaxes seemed to be the favoured victim but they also claimed a B-17! All matched claims by II/KG 51 after midnight can be matched to RAF losses apart from 12 Apr 44 when Lt Wolfgand Wenning shot down a B-17 of 96 BG and 28 Jun 44 when Uffz Franz Wachtler probably got a Carpet Bagger of 801st BG

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Was the Rattlesden incident that which was reported in the Home Office report as '' On the night of 14/15th. a single machine dropped bombs in East Anglia '' .

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Hi Chris:

The 219 claim you refer to on 14-15 June - was that the Gloster / Oswold crew?

Cheers,

Mark

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Yes it was Mark

Re: 16-17/6/44 night fighters over England
 

Many thanks Chris - I had them down as having claimed a Ju 88. Will add your info to my notes.

Cheers,

Mark