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Re: FW200 in Fligierhorst Wormditt?
Robcio -
III./KG 40
West - Reorganization; Anti-Shipping Ops; Glide Bomb Training. (Nov 43 - Jul 44)
Plans to gradually convert III./KG 40 to the Heinkel 177 were cancelled around October 1943 and in November 8.Staffel, still at Fassberg with He 177As, was renamed 2./KG 40 while 2./KG 40 at Bordeaux-Merignac with Fw 200s became 8./KG 40. At approximately the same time, the end of October/beginning of November, the Gruppe was ordered to move to Cognac and thus free Merignac for the incoming He 177s of II./KG 40. Beginning in December, the Gruppe was no longer responsible for flying routine reconnaissance missions over the Atlantic, as Fernaufklärungsgruppe 5 had arrived in western France to take over this duty with Junkers Ju 290s and was now fully operational at Mont de Marsan. There followed several months of relative inactivity, with only a few small-scale missions being flown against convoys in the Atlantic. While most of the ground staff remained behind at Cognac, the flying element of III./KG 40 moved to Lechfeld in S Germany at the beginning of March 1944 to rest and refit. In mid-May, the crews were sent from Lechfeld to Wormditt in East Prussia to carry out practice flights over the Baltic, and then to Swinemünde and Garz on 5 June where several of the Fw 200s were outfitted with the special purpose radar used to guide the Henschel Hs 293 glide bomb. After more practice flights over the Baltic, those Fw 200s equipped with the glide bomb returned to Cognac from where a few missions were flown against convoys. One of the last of these was on 3 July 1944, when several Condors staged a Hs 293 glide bomb attack on a convoy located in the Northern Approaches to the north of Ireland. No hits are believed to have been scored and the FW 200s returned safely to Cognac.
Sources for the above are mainly ULTRA decrypts and ADI(K) POW interrogation reports.
L.
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