He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Hello!

At night 3/4.Apr.1944 Soviet AAA shot down a He111, fell 7km west of Luga (SSW Leningrad).
WNr 4531 (or maybe 4581, poor copy), mot.No 17541 (2nd motor apparently burned out).

Any info about this aircraft (unit, crew, etc.)?

Best regards,
Andrey

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

As the plane was shot down by AA armored train at night near railway station, most probably it was 14.(Eis)/KG55's plane.

Nevertheless, all questions remain.

Best regards,
Andrey

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Are you sure about the date? I have a couple of damaged He 111s from 2. & 5./KG55 on 3-Apr-44 via Balss, Deutsche LW Losses & Claims, V.31-1 (1 - 15-Apr-44) & BAMA RL 10/120, KTB I./KG 55, but nothing shot down. (There are other KG55 KTBs out there, but don't have the BAMA RL ref numbers to hand at the moment. There are no other He 111 losses that fit those dates (yet). (Also have WNr.4531 still flying with KG4 in 1945, but nothing for WNr.4581.)

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

A thought. 4xxx-series He 111 Werk-Nummern were assigned to H-5s & H-6s delivered by EHF during 1940/41. The chance of one of them still being used operationally by a Luftwaffe unit in 1944 is probably vanishingly small.
The greater likelihood is this was an H-16, either 8531 or 8581 (coming from an EHF batch seemingly of 70 H-16s spanning WNr. 8521 - 8590).
Per Holm, at this date 14.(Eis)/KG55 was based at Jakobstadt (Jēkabpils) and that Staffel reported two H-16s lost to enemy action during April 1944.
Perhaps Jim can tell us more?

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

14.(Eis)/KG55 reported 2 He 111 missing. 6. april and 8. april 1944.
Junker

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Volker Koos claims the H-16 batch only went to WNr 8556 (WNr 8456 - 8556)

What is your evidence the batch went all the way to 8590?

Cheers
Stig

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Friends!

Thank you for your efforts!
I'm so sorry. It was a Ju88. The report from which I took this info was written a few days after the downing of the plane. Now I have checked everything that can be found quickly about this episode.
It was a raid of two fours of Ju88 on the Luga railway station at 22:15-22:33 msk (21:15-21:33 DSZ) 4.Apr.44, so it was at night 4/5.Apr.44, not 3/4.Apr.

Interestingly, the same staff, which later wrote about the He111, wrote about Ju88 in the first report, as well as all other sources.
Apparently He111 is just a strange typo. But WNr of the plane and motor are mentioned only in this report.

I am somewhat justified in saying that so far I have never seen an error in the type of aircraft in such reports when WNr is given.

The question about the unit and the crew remains.

Best regards,
Andrey

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Ju88A-14 WNr.144531 (6./KG3) got 15% damage on 7.Jul.43, maybe this one made his last sortie on 4.Apr44.

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

LOL
For Stig:
"Volker Koos claims the H-16 batch only went to WNr 8556 (WNr 8456 - 8556)" the answer is nothing in the way of individual identities. So Volker could be absolutely right.
This is a Griehl block, hence my inclusion of the word seemingly.

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Andrey,

A-4 WNr. 4531 18.12.43 100% loss
A-4 WNr. 4581 22.01.43 100% loss
A-4 WNr. 144531 07.07.42 15% damage and repaired afterwards at Kiew
A-4 WNr. 144581 05.05.43 75% damage

The only remaining possibility is WNr. 144531.
The unit was most probably 5.(F)/122 from Mitau.

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Thanks
I think Griehl did some guesswork on his own when lacking proof. If I have a choice I usually
go with Volker's conclusions.
Cheers
Stig

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Re. your #11. Yes, Volker is definitely the safer bet, Stig. (I hadn't looked at this piece in years.) However - going a little off-piste - I have a bunch of He 111 H identities immediately before this Volker block. Those start at 8356, and there are enough to reconstruct the full Stkz. sequences up to around 8437 with some credibility. These place the sub-type change from H-11 to H-16 that Volker has put at 8456, rather earlier at around 8412. (More data will resolve that, I'm sure.)

I'm curious though as to the source where you found the 8456-8555 block of H-16s. In his ADL digital article (heinkel-he-111-serienbau-bis-1945-luftwaffe-bomber), all that Volker has to say on the H-16 is: "Ab Dezember 1942 begann die Auslieferung der He 111 H-16, die im Dezember des Folgejahres endete. Die Zahl der gelieferten Maschinen lag in der Größenordnung von etwa 1100 bis 1200 Stück. Die Werknummern gehörten in die Blöcke 8156-8355 und weitere sechsstellige Nummern mit den Anfangsziffern 160, 161 und 162."
That is, he appears to directly contradict what he wrote on the H-11 in the paragraph just before. ("Deren Werknummern lagen in den Blöcken 7955-8155, 8356-8455.")
Curious, but none of us are quite perfect yet. However, when and where did he correct this please?

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

I send you a PM since by now this thread has changed to be about Ju 88s

Cheers
Stig

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Many thanks, Stig. I have though to add a PS to my post #12.
The identification of WNr. 8433 as a He 111 H-16 comes from the text of War Prizes.220 & photos Midland, plus LwCamo&Markg PhotoArchive#1.74.
The difference between the H-11 and the H-16 was that the whole bomb load of the H-16 was carried internally, whereas on the H-11 the whole load was carried on external racks. The Lynn Ware photo of 8433 at Freeman Field clearly shows an array of external bomb racks fitted underneath the centre section of this aircraft.
Ergo, the books are in error and this aircraft was actually a He 111 H-11. That points to 8456 as the correct point at which H-16 production commenced.

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Hello Merlin,

07.07.43.
Yes, I also assumed it above.

It is known that at the beginning of 1943 even FW189s were used as bombers in the Caucasus. But for the Germans it was a desperate time of the Stalingrad airlift.

But could 5.(F)/122 have been used for group night raids in April 1944? Maybe No144531 remained in KG3?

Best regards,
Andrey

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Andrey,

during april 1944 the Ju 88 elements of KG 3 were based at Terespol and Biala Podlaska in Poland, that was too fare away from Luga. The only possibilities were 5.(F)/122 and Wekusta 1 from Mitau. The 3.(F)/Nacht at Riga did not operate the Ju 88 and those Ju 88 elements around KG 102 at Riga performed only training flights for torpedo dropping.

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Hello Merlin,

To me, a KG3 (or other bomber unit) raid using a forward airfield seems more likely than raid of 8 recce Ju88. But I don't know much about this period except for the Lfl4 area. Are there any logbooks of KG3 or 5.(F)/122 crew members survived that might clarify the situation?

Best regards,
Andrey

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Would their aircraft have had bomb sights?

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Hello Nick,

As recce planes often combined recce missions with bombing, they had to have sights. I found myself thinking that I had never thought about it.

Best regards,
Andrey

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Hi!

It is seldom I can be of help, but this seems to be case now.

Luftflotte 1 Luftlagemeldungen for early 1944 survive among the Heeresgruppe Nord material up to 29 April 1944 in form way.

Could find my digiphoto copy (of the microfilms) and from there:

Luftlagemeldung 4./5.4.44 (nachts)

"Nachteinsatz der Kampfflugzeuge: 8
4 Flgzge. Eisenbahnkämpfung, Angriff auf Bahnhof Luga, 2 Brände (Öl)
4 " Eisenbahnkämpfung Strecke Leningrad-Tschudowo-Bologoje, 20 Wagen nichtet (Öl oder Benzin) 2 mittlere Explozionen mit Brand."

No reported losses, no "Nachmeldung" for the night 4./5.4 in later reports.

I would say 14.(Eis)/KG 55.


Edit
I looked through whole April. The only He 111 loss recorded in the Meldungen is for night 10./11.4.44.

Interestingly for 3.4.44 (tags) there is recorded one Me 110 loss. Would WNr 4531 make any sense with that?

Cheers,
Kari

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

14.(Eis)/KG 55 had no aircraft or personel losses on the date mentioned.
Junkert

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Kari,

thank you a lot!

Tagesmeldungen of Lfl1 are also on the germandocsinrussia.org among "Materialien des deutschen Verbindungsoffiziers bei der finnischen Luftwaffe", but the night 4/5.4.44 is absent.

2x4 planes may have actually been two runs of 4 planes.
And maybe the report that the downed plane was the He111 is correct.But there are still questions about WNr (typo in the report?). Is it possible to draw any conclusions from the motor's WNr?

Most probably not

Cheers,
Andrey

Re: He111 WNr4531 or 4581, mot.No 17541 3/4.Apr.1944
 

Hello Junkert,

What a tangled story!

Is your info from Summarische Verlustmeldungen?

Best regards,
Andrey