Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

The LW lost one Ju 86 P over Ukraina on 15 April 1941. According to David Kahn’s Hitler’s Spies (1978) the LW lost two planes during their clandestine photo recon operations over the USSR, one of them a Ju 86 with pressurized cabin, which suffered sustained engine trouble at 39,000 ft and descended to 16,000, whence Soviet fighters forced it down.
According to Timin, Mikhail, Air Battles over the Baltic 1941 (2018) Junkers Ju 86 P was forced to make an emergency landing in the area around Rivne on 15 April 1941. According to Bergström, Christer, Barbarossa - The Air Battle: July–December 1941 (2007) on 15 April 1941 a Ju 86 P crash landed near Rovno and inclement weather forced down another Ju 86 P near Vinnitsa. Rivne/ Rovno is about 220 km NW of Vinnytsia/Vinnitsa, and Rivne Raion 255 – 204 km NW of Vinnytsia.
Did the LW lost two Ju 86 Ps on 15 April 1941 and did Soviet fighters play an active role in one of the cases?

TIA
Juha

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Juha -

4.(F)/Aufkl.Gr. Ob.d.L.
(Unit Code T5 + )

On 15 April 1941, Ju 86P (D-APEW) operating from Kraków experienced engine trouble while on a photo reconnaissance mission to the Kiev-Zhitomir area and came down near Rovno/W Ukraine. The crew was captured and taken to Rovno, but later liberated from Soviet captivity by advancing German troops at the end of June 1941.

[Sources:
T.Rowehl-Chronik, held by Militär Geschichtliche Forschungsamt (MGFA); G.Thomas and B.Ketley – KG 200: The Luftwaffe’s Most Secret Unit (Hikoki Pub. Ltd, 2003); C.Shores - Fledgling Eagles: The Complete Account of Air Operations During the ‘Phony War’ and Norwegian Campaign, 1940; F.K.Mason - Battle Over Britain; W.G.Ramsey (ed.) - The Blitz, Then And Now, 3 volumes; BA-MA Freiburg: RL 2 III Meldungen über Flugzeugunfälle…..(Loss Reports – LRs); NARA WashDC: RG 242 (various rolls from T-312, T-313, T-321 and T-971); W.Horst (president of the Aufklärungsflieger veterans association in Germany) – personal correspondence with the author, 1994-96); web site ww2.dk.]

There is no mention in any of the sources above about a second Ju 86 P coming down at Vinnitsa on 15 April 1941.

Larry deZ.

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hello Larry
Thanks a lot for the info!
So only one loss and probably purely by technical reason without any active role by Soviet air defenses.

Juha

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

The W/Nr was 5141 and the crew were the pilot was Uffz.Schnetz and the rest of the crew were made POWs

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hello Tom, thanks a lot for the info!
IIRC at least Schnetz survived the war.

Juha

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Just to add that observer's name was Uffz. Rudolf/Rudolph Walther.

Regards, Leendert

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hello Leendert
thanks for the extra info!

Juha

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hello Juha, Larry, and Co.

There’s visual evidence of strenuous Soviet efforts to counter one, at least, of these overflights at just this time. If you have a look at Roy Stanley’s 'World War II Photo intelligence' Photo 3-10, page 75, (Sidgewick & Jackson 1982) he reproduces a vertical image taken ‘SW of Vilnius’ on 17 April 1941 which shows a Soviet I-153 pacing the reconnaissance aircraft. According to Stanley the aircraft tracks the high flying a/c for a distance of c 150 Kms. I’ve looked through the SIS plots in the US but can't find a sortie candidate I’m happy with yet. ObdL plots preserved in TsAMO include one sortie (SU 1441) dated 17 April 1941. This may be the one. More when I know more.
Best
ChrisG

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hello Chris
Thanks a lot for the info!
I don’t have a copy of that Stanley’s book, even if I have some books on the photo intelligence, even Stanley’s ‘To Fool A Glass Eye’ but yes, Soviet fighter pilots were not allowed to shoot down German PR planes but IIRC were at some point allowed to try to persuade them to land. Timin in his Timin, Mikhail, Air Battles over the Baltic 1941 (Warwick: Helion, 2018) only mentions that after 10 April 1941 the German recon activity over the Baltic region dropped sharply. “In total over the course of one or two days flights were only recorded on 11, 12, 17 and 18 April and on 8 May.” But he mentioned that one reason for that was the transfer of German recon activity to a zone comprising the Western Special Military District, and the Kiev Special Military District. Active operations over the Baltic region resumed from the end of May.
In the book there is a map giving the German penetrations into the Soviet airspace over Lithuania and Latvia which were observed by Soviets from 1 January to 10 April 1941. It gives plane types, dates and times and flight paths. In the text he gives descriptions of the flights between 24 January and 5 March 1941 (9 flights, giving a/c type or as unidentified and its route, all interception attempts were unsuccessful but the last plane was fired upon by AA artillery) and between 3 and 10 April (22 flights, a/c type, altitude, routes, Soviet reactions, now interceptions were sometimes successful, but German planes turned away when they saw the Soviet fighters, in one case on 5 April, ‘He 111’ H=4.000 Soviet fighters fired 20 warning burst of mg-fire while the German plane flew out to sea and in one case 17 fighters were sent to intercept a Do 17 at 4.000 m which turned away when encountering the Soviet fighters). On the 15 April Ju 86 P case I found this

Mirek Wawrzynski 18th December 2013 20:41 Re: Ju-86P and R losses

15 Apr 41 D-APEW shot down VVS fighters crew POW later escapes

It was force landing not shot down due to eginge failure, one owa earlier switch off. Of course Ju 86 was detected and chatched by Soviet pilot from 46. IAP on I-16. Pilot did not open fire to it or "victim". Plane forece landed on Soviet territory near Równo (ex-Polish town). From the thread Ju-86P and R losses http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=36176

Juha

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hi Juha,

A number of years ago I found the following information about 15 June 1941 on a Russian language website and using Google-translate tried to decipher the information. This is my take on what it said:

Lejt. Schounov of 46 IAP as Flight Commander in a MiG-3 forced the Ju 86P down in the Kiev Special Military District. The crew was interned but released before the invasion.

Sen. Lejt. Alekseyev shot down a Ju 88 over Vinnitsa.

Hopefully, the Russian experts on this forum can either verify or declare this spurious.

Best regards,

Jim

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

You’re very welcome Juha.

I must add a correction. I cited the 17th April sortie plot as SU 1441, but its SU 1339. Sortie SU 1441 is dated 5th June 1941. Either way, by April 18th the sortie number was SU 1344, and by May 28th had climbed to SU 1393 -mostly, I think, sorties into the Western Special Military District and the Kiev district.
Incidentally, those working on sortie tallies (like er, me) need to have a care. I’m coming across garbled entries on the DoD SIS Degree Square overlays, with some films clearly taken on the same flight, apparently getting sequential ‘F’ Numbers. This is messing up my estimations of actual sortie rates. This is something I’d have asked Roy Stanley about if I’d known before…
Keep well everyone -if you can
ChrisG

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hello Jim
thanks for the new lead!
Unfortunately Khazanov & Medved in their MiG-3 Aces of World War 2 mention only the 10 April case when 3 MiG-3s from 31st IAP tried to intercept an unidentified a/c flying at 11.000 m (so probably a Ju 86 P) in the Kaunas area, all 3 MiGs stalled into a spin and two of them were lost and one pilot killed, the other pilot bailed out. Hopefully our Russian experts can tell more.

Hello Chris
Very interesting!
According to Timin the Commander of the Air Forces of the Red Army Lt.Gen Zhigaryev reported to Marshall Timoshenko on 17 June 1941 that in the period from 1 January to 10 June 1941 there were 122 incidents of foreign a/c crossing the state border of the USSR.

Juha

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Juha, Hi,

…looking again at the TsAMO Stabia OKH plots I think we can identify a likely candidate for the GAF overflight which 31st IAP unsuccessfully tried to intercept. This is SU 1326, which passed westwards over Kaunas on April 10th 1941. It was equipped with three cameras (S,R,L) the imagery from which was plotted by V Abteilung. They are to be seen in TsAMO Fond 500, 12451, Akte 837, frames 50-52. Slight mystery: the ‘Spektrum’ installation (plot on scan 51) is cited as returning imagery at 1:15,000, while the R and L scale is 12,000. The plots are all pretty congruent indicating one pass, but what was the f/l used on ‘S’?
Knowing the crash locations of the two Mig-3 could help confirm this was the a/c involved.

Best

ChrisG

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hello Chris
no info on the MiG crash locations but Timin gives the route of the German high flyer as noted by Soviets as at 1128 hrs crossed the state border to the W of Shaki, and after having passed over Ligaine (25 km NW of Kaunas), Ariogala (50 km NW of Kaunas) the a/c flew back to German territory over Virbalis.

Juha

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Juha,

Very useful this, I have F1131 dated 17th March 1941 (plot in TsAMO, Print set survives in US); rising to 'SU 1462' on 9 June 1941. In other words, during this three month period ObdL flew 331 sorties. If Lt.Gen Zhigaryev reported 122 incursions in this period (or longer, given that it was from January) the same sequence was surely used to index all ObDL strategic sorties. I've got some 1940 and 1941 UK overflight dates. Ill check to see if they mesh. More later...

Best

ChrisG

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hi Guys, just want to highlight that the cameras used on Ju 86 P-1 was 3 Rb 75/30, with only two Rb 75/30 kept on the Ju 86 P-3.


The Do 215 B-4 on the other hand had two Rb 50/30 and one Rb 20/30 - which could explain why the S (Senkrecht) would have a different scale than the right and left cameras. Just raising the issue that there is no information on the plots divulging the type of aircraft used for the flight (unfortunately). Since also other types of aircraft were used for these overflights, I'd be hestiant to tie the plots to an aircraft type unless it can be verified by e.g. flugbuch entry or similiar confirming the geographical route.

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hi Mikael!

Used as I am to endlessly seeing the notations SK, SG, and SD, I'm glad to learn that the single letter 'S' in the notation R S L stands for Senkrecht. So, thank you.

Some of the 1939 AObdL plots I've seen have a camera position 'M': if you have an expansion of that I'd like to know. I'm assuming its a bit like the first V in the American 'VV', for ventral vertical?

with Best wishes

ChrisG

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

"Lejt. Schounov of 46 IAP as Flight Commander in a MiG-3"

I still maintain what I once wrote, except that this lt. Schounov pilot was on the I-16 type 5, and not on the MiG-3. The MiG-3 fighters did not enter service with the 46 IAP, i.e. April 1941, a new type, still unreliable, with various technical and design problems.

As I remember correctly, the pilot even fired a short series of one Ju 86 engine, the other engine was turned off by the crew and had to lower the flight trying to reach its territory at low altitude and make an emergency landing there. Here I might be wrong. The crew had previously been intercepted and landed on the Soviet side.


R.
mirekw

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

A few corrections and additions



On April 15, 1941, about 10 kilometers south of Równo, the Ju 86 P-2 crashed at about 4:20 pm. The Soviet WNOS posts spotted around 4 p.m. a twin-engine plane flying from the east through Szepietówka towards Łuck. The Russians sent to intercept an unknown intruder, an inspector following the pilot technique of senior lieutenant P.M. Szałunow in I-16 type 5 (old version, not new one like type 24 or 27, or 29 ) from the 46th IAP from the 14th SAD. This fighter regiment stood at Dubno airfield in Kiev Special Military District.



The German crew had to turn off the right engine on their Ju 86 due to a malfunction. The Germans tried to reach their own area at low altitude. They ran out of luck. At an altitude of about 500 meters, Szałunow intercepted the intruder and forced the crew to make an emergency landing around 16.20-16.30 Moscow time.



After the outbreak of the war, the Germans were miraculously not shot in the Równo (Rivne) prison and managed to free and return on 25 June 1941. This crew was very, very lucky. After June 22, 1941, NKVD prison units killed all political prisoners, conspirators, and other hostile elements in their all prisons and pre-trial detention centers. In the short perion (23-30 June) there were killed about, at least 10 000 prisoners. Probably this figure is a little bit higher then 10 000 killed?



R.
mirekw

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hello Mirek!
Thank you very much for your reply, very interesting information. I would like to further clarify how Szałunow forced the Ju 86 crew to land. Simply by flying next to it and signalling by hand? This alone may have been enough to the crew of the Junkers that flew with only one engine running and was still about 150 km from the German-controlled area. In that situation, the appearance of a Russian fighter on the wing may well be enough to show that their situation was hopeless. Or just firing warning bursts or even firing at the only working engine?

TIA
Juha

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

The pilot was supposed to fire a short burst into the left, working engine - that is, it would be shot down. A long time ago, I read this information somewhere and that is how I remembered it.


It is very interesting to keep two Germans in the prison in Rivne for over 2 months. The Russians developed some of the photos from the camera, which was not damaged. They knew that these were "they were not cadets from the aviation school in Krakow", who accidentally got lost while flying their "Ju 88" - this was supposed to be, according to the Germans, the version of the plane with a crew of four. Two members of the crew "Ukrainian and Russian earlier parachuted".

This version was given by the Germans to the Russians who questioned them. The Russians, however, did not send the spies back to Moscow, but kept them in a prison in Równo until June 25, from where they "miraculously" escaped. The Germans entered Równo on June 28, 1941. Three days later.

A very interesting story. It seems that one of the Germans was then recruited by the NKVD's shallow intelligence to work for the Russians, and both were intentionally left behind to facilitate their return to their own. Prisoners from Równo were evacuated to the east before the Germans entered on June 28, 1941. An interesting spy game is emerging? I emphasize that this is pure speculation!

The Russians probably recruit at least one German and attempt to use it for their own intelligence purposes? I wonder what the counterintelligence work of the Germans looked like?


R.
mirekw

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

Hello Mirek
Thanks a lot for the information!

There were at lest some cases of recruitment attempts of captured pilots of JG 5 up north, but in the known cases "spies" reported their "commitments" to their superiors immediately after their returns to their units. They were transferred to other fronts.

There was also at least one case in which a Finnish fighter pilot was recruited, but he also reported his "commitment" immediately to his superior and was transferred to the Home Front.

Juha

Re: Ju 86 P loss(es) on 15 April 1941 in Ukraine
 

There were many such cases during the Second World War. In the summer of 1941, one of the Hungarian pilots taken prisoner turned over to the Russians, who then transferred him to Hungary and died there in a fight with Hungarian gendarmes.



The Germans recruited Russians en masse and then transferred them to the Soviet side. The Russians recruited similarly massively civilians, incl. Poles (before June 22, 1941) or later, to later transfer them to the enemy's side. It was similar with the German soldiers, whom the Russians recruited and then fought on their side. Normal espionage war on both sides. The Russians won and the Germans unconditionally capitulated with the burnt and destroyed Berlin.


An absolutely interesting case of those two Germans who, three days before the capture of Równe (Rivne), are miraculously released from prison, despite the fact that the Russians know that they are German air spies, and this is also happening after June 22, when the war in full in progress. There are no such cases, unless NKVD intelligence intervenes?
R
mirekw