Operation Steinbock navigational aids - locations in NW Europe
 

I’m trying to put together a map showing Luftwaffe air bases and navigation aids used during Operation Steinbock, and there are a few things that I’d appreciate advice about.

For information about navigation aids, I’m using as my key sources the early 1944 ADI(K) interrogation reports. ADI(K) 91 contains a very helpful sketch map based on a document recovered from Do 217 M-1 U5+DK, which crashed in Cambridge on 23 February 1944. In addition, ADI(K)s 58, 78, 103, 114, 118, 122, 137, 144, 148, 159 and 184 all contain valuable details, with occasional references appearing in other reports too. In addition, I’m using the ‘Beacon Bible’ (originally in AIR 40/1343 and available at gyges.dk/Beacon-Bible.pdf), plus information from https://www.nonstopsystems.com/radio...knickebein.htm and the EW section of http://atlantikwall.info/radar/radar.htm . Some secondary sources are also helpful, e.g. Balke’s KG 2 history (especially the map on p.296, although I’m struggling to identify some of the beacons he includes there).

In addition to including main and forward operating air bases, I’m trying to include key navigation aids, as follows. Please note the questions raised below. Any clarification on these matters would be much appreciated.

Knickebein stations:

I'm including: Kn-3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11
(Others fall outside the area covered by the map)

Navigational searchlights:

I'm including:
Niete 1 & 2 – Terschelling
Sprungschanze – Den Helder
Niete 3 & 4 – Ijmuiden
Lampenschirm – Rotterdam ‘dome’
Hobel 1 & 2 – Ostend
Hobel 3 & 4 – Dunkirk
Hobel 5 & 6 – east of Calais
Gabel 13 – Calais
Hammer 7 & 8 – Boulogne
Messer 9 & 10 – Dieppe
Messer 11 & 12 - Fécamp
Zugspitze – Le Havre
Meissel – Caen-Carpiquet
Waldeslust – Cherbourg
Hufnagel – Cap de la Hague
Tafel – Granville
Besen – Brest
Natter – Nantes
Leiste – Laon
Searchlight ‘lane’ Melsbroek - Évreux

Questions:

Does this seem like a reasonable list? I might mention in the text box the existence of other searchlights at places like the Channel Islands, Brussels, ‘s-Hertogenbosch and Châteaudun, since these are mentioned by Steinbock prisoners on occasion. But I don’t want the map to become horrendously cluttered, so I have to draw the line somewhere. Still, if I have omitted something significant or made a mistake(s) in the list above, I’d be grateful if these failings are pointed out. Also, is it reasonable to suggest that all major airfields had searchlights that could be used to assist returning aircraft? Or is this an exaggeration (or just plain untrue)?

On one specific matter, does anybody know if the searchlights usually referred to as Messer 11 & 12 at Fécamp are the same as the searchlights referred to as Zange 11 & 12 by a KG 76 airman in ADI(K) 78? He said that Zange 11 & 12 were at St. Valery en Caux, and the map in ADI(K) 91 certainly shows searchlights there. But Fécamp is very near to St Valery and since the numbering of searchlights seems consecutive and 11 & 12 are already ‘allocated’ in most sources as ‘Messer’, I was wondering if Messer 11 & 12 and Zange 11 & 12 were actually the same searchlights, perhaps re-named at some point?

On another matter, reference is sometimes made to searchlight ‘domes’ – most frequently at Rotterdam but sometimes elsewhere. Is it correct to describe the searchlights operating at Le Havre in the same way?

Funkfeuer and Leuchtfeuer:

I was intending to include on the map:
1 Catrin – Callantsoog, Den Helder
2 Nora – Noordwijk
3 Cosima – Koksijde
4 Carola – Calais
5 Alma – Abbeville
7 Loni – Longueval
8 Thea – Théville
11 Camilla – Cambrai
12 Wilhelmine – north of Paris
13 Norma – Nogent le Rotrou

Questions:

In the list above, please can somebody confirm which ‘Longueval’ is meant for ‘Loni’? Is it the Longueval between Cabourg and Lisieux in the eastern part of Lower Normandy, or somewhere completely different?

I’d like also to include ‘6 Paula’, ‘Fanny’, ‘Leiste’ and possibly ‘Lisa’. Can anybody tell me where ‘Paula’ was, as I’m struggling to confirm that? I understand 'Fanny' was at Falaise, but was it allocated a number, and if so, what was it? Am I correct in thinking ‘Leiste’ was at Laon (seems likely if the searchlights there had the same codename), and does anybody know what number was allocated to it? Likewise, ‘Lisa’ appears to have been at or near Abbeville; is that correct, and does anybody know its allocated number?

Reference is also made in some sources to Radio Beacon A/2. Does anybody know where that was, and was it allocated a codename?

More generally, was it the case that Radio and Visual beacons were always co-located and ‘twinned’? ADI(K) 137 and plenty of other sources seem to indicate this was true. And when reference is made to Funkfeuer and Leuchtfeuer, is the latter the 12 bulbs on an octagonal, tiltable mounting that I’ve seen in some photographs, or a completely different type of equipment? I’m afraid I’ve got rather confused about this and would appreciate direction towards a source that can help me get these various kinds of visual navigational aids straight in my own head!

And finally (!), is it reasonable to suggest that all major airfields had their own radio and visual beacons for ‘local’ navigation purposes? Or again, is this a misunderstanding on my part?

I appreciate that there are lots of things here. But any advice on / response to any of my questions is much appreciated, as always. If it's easier to point me in the direction of a secondary source or website that clarifies these matters, rather than answer the questions directly, I will of course be most grateful.

Thanks.

Re: Operation Steinbock navigational aids - locations in NW Europe
 

The late Michaël Svejgaard's site is a very good source for information on the network of Luftwaffe navigation aids and radars: http://www.gyges.dk/the_luftnachrichten_dienst.htm

Re: Operation Steinbock navigational aids - locations in NW Europe
 

Thanks Nick, I used his Beacon Bible but I'll give the rest of the website a more careful read.

Simon

Re: Operation Steinbock navigational aids - locations in NW Europe
 

Dear Simon,

Your book really seems to becoming quite interesting...and your new approaches surely will be read with pleasure by some of us.

De Zeng's site do give information to which Flugplatz or aerodromes did have ZZ Lorenz Instrument (IFR) approach aids, so it can be of assistance > https://www.ww2.dk/lwairfields.html

I understand that the searchlights were only useful for directional purposes (some kind of an aid to Navigation) if the weather was good enough (a certain amount of ceiling and without too much dense clouds)...Flying inside a heavy thunderstorm (or 10/10 and full IMC), I doubt you will ever see it (particularly if you have electrical statistic, bolts, etc.; "the full of it")! And, of course, the searchlight is not an Instrument Approach Aid, for a "blind" (nowadays called IFR) approach and visual landing at "minimums".

Maybe some real experts on LW Flugplatz can tell us, if the searchlight we are talking about was a special device (60cm, 110cm or more) installed in the middle of the runways (I have never seen such a picture); for Navigational Aid (and purposes); or if we are talking of one of the searchlights of the field defences (Flak Abteilung) that COULD be switched, by an order from the Gefechsstand, to help pilots when the weather required it....Personally I would like to have read or translated a German (LW) order, informing which were the "Weather Minimums" to have the searchlights switched-ON...I have never read about that.

I also have never seen or read about the ZZ Lorenz instrument approach...It seems this was some kind of rather primitive ILS (Instrument Landing System) used nowadays for IFR approaches....However nowadays you do have, at each aerodrome, a pattern to be flown....How was it like in WW2 and foreign aerodromes? It was to "each individual pilot to make his own individual Instrument (IFR) approach" or there was some kind of Landing Chart available (I doubt and have never seen such)?

Basically, each pilot was trained to use the ZZ Lorenz and in moving from aerodrome to aerodrome, he had to familiarize himself with the obtstacles and surroundings, to not hit them whilst on an Instrument Approach in bad weather. This is, at least, what I guess was the "standard procedure" at the time...

Maybe someone else can add further or enhance us....

Keep going...it is becoming quite thrilling for us which are following the process of this book from outside...The results and full manuscript surely will be astonishing to read...

Adriano

Re: Operation Steinbock navigational aids - locations in NW Europe
 

'I used his Beacon Bible but I'll give the rest of the website a more careful read'


What do you mean by this ? Have you found a lot of errors in his website ?

Re: Operation Steinbock navigational aids - locations in NW Europe
 

Hello Carsten,

Ref. errors on the website - not at all - and in any case I would be ill-equipped to spot them as the things the website seem to be largely about are not areas that have especially concerned me during my ongoing research.

I came across the Beacon Bible through an internet search that brought it up as a hit with the link direct to that page (as identified in my original post). My first glance at the larger website did not seem to indicate that there was a huge amount there that was relevant to my rather specific interests and questions, so I didn't spend long there. But Nick's reply prompted me to do so. Unfortunately, having spent a couple of hours subsequently investigating it, it doesn't seem to add much in respect of my particular questions, which is by no means a criticism, simply an observation that it appears to be about rather different things.

One odd thing is that within the website I could find no link to the Beacon Bible that I originally encountered through my online search. I'm possibly not looking in the right places, but it has left me a bit perplexed as the existence of the Beacon Bible rather supports the idea that somewhere in the website there are indeed relevant things, but that I'm simply missing them. Rather odd. I'll keep trying.

Not that it matters a vast amount, but the only thing with reference to the website that I'd claim to know much about relates to the page concerned with pre-D-Day Allied air attacks on German radar sites. I have several intelligence documents that include material obtained from German prisoners who worked at a couple of the radar sites. According to them, their equipment was functioning during the night of 5-6 June and detected the approach of the invasion forces. Also, at least one of them claimed (I'd have to dig out the documents to remind myself of the details) that the radars at Arromanches were destroyed by their own personnel on D-Day, when the site was about to be overrun by British ground forces - which means that the photo of the set there at https://www.gyges.dk/pre_dday_attacks_on_the_german.htm possibly shows damage inflicted by the Germans themselves, not by pre-D-Day air attacks.

Hope this clarifies the meaning of my response.

Re: Operation Steinbock navigational aids - locations in NW Europe
 

And Adriano, thanks for your ongoing support and comments. The searchlights are often mentioned in the Steinbock documents, and were obviously visible on at least some operations. But I'm sure you're right that in the depths of winter, they were not always easy to detect! The same is true for the Lux buoys sometimes used to mark turning points in the North Sea. Another navigational aid - which I'll mention in the text box accompanying the map - were star shells fired in various patterns by flak guns along the coastline. These were indicated on the ADI(K) 91 map, although at the time the map was captured, the meaning of the symbols was unclear to British air intelligence. It was explained soon afterwards, however, in ADI(K) 118. The map will become too 'busy' if I try to include the symbols, but as I say, I will refer to this in the text.

Re: Operation Steinbock navigational aids - locations in NW Europe
 

Minor update, in case anybody is interested in these nav aids.

Funkfeuer / Leuchtfeuer 6 'Paula' appears to have been at Saint Valery en Caux.
Leuchtfeuer 'Lisa' was at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme. Not clear if there was an associated Funkfeuer, though that seems likely.
Leuchtfeuer 'Fanni' (sometimes 'Fanny') was at Falaise but still not confirmed if there was an associated Funkfeuer, though again it seems likely.

Since numbers 9 and 10 in the list of FF/LF combinations appear to be unallocated, I'm guessing 'Lisa' was one of these and 'Fanni' was the other. But I might be wrong. For example, I don't know the number of 'Tafel' at Granville (maybe 9, if one source is correct).

Searchlight at Chateaudun was 'Cicero'.
Searchlight at Lannion was 'Zeiger'.
Searchlight at Volkel was 'Finger'.
Searchlight at Brussels was 'Brett'.

Flak star shells fairly consistently listed at Cherbourg, Calais, Dieppe, Le Havre and Ijmuiden. Occasionally elsewhere (e.g. off Boulogne and Ostend)

Searchlights 'Schraube 1, 2, 3 and 4' identified in a KG 54 ADI(K) report might be another name for 'Niete 1, 2, 3 and 4' as they are referred to as pointing towards the British coast and so presumably were themselves on a coastline, presumably the Dutch one. But again, could easily be wrong, and I've no idea where 'Kelte 3 & 4' identified in the same report were.

Any corrections / additions appreciated.

Re: Operation Steinbock navigational aids - locations in NW Europe
 

Several examples there of the usual Luftwaffe alliterative codenames: Brett = Brüssel, Finger - Volkel, Camilla = Cambrai and so on. That might narrow down the locations of some others you can't currently locate.

Re: Operation Steinbock navigational aids - locations in NW Europe
 

Thanks Nick, good idea.

And the Beacon Bible link I couldn't find at first is near the bottom of the page at https://www.gyges.dk/Gebiets%20nachtjagd.htm for anyone who is interested.

I have also been looking at Chazette's book about EW facilities in Normandy and his larger 'Atlantikwall' volume, although they are not consistent with one another about the names and numbers of Y-Gerat (Benito) stations (presumably at some point the numbers were re-allocated as the network grew, and possibly some stations closed before Steinbock began). Also the RAF 80 (ECM) Wing History at AIR 41/46, which gives me a headache (serves me right for coming from a Humanities background when what I obviously need is some science degrees) but is still very helpful.

Just want to get the map right, or at least as right as possible!