Quote:
Originally Posted by James Farrimond
I know that Ju 88s from KG 54 and KG 77 were involved but I imagine as a torpedo was the culprit it might have been dropped by an He 111 from 6/KG 26?
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Hello James,
The only frontline Luftwaffe torpedo-bomber units in the area as of 10 August were Stab I./K.G. 26 – 4 aircraft and 3 crews assigned to torpedo training at Grosetto and 6./K.G. 26 – 10 aircraft in the same location. The successes are usually assigned to 6./K.G. 26, perhaps by default, rather than based on a specific report.
As the following thread on the Marinearchiv forum from 2010 shows, it is difficult to disentangle whether some of the torpedo-bombers were in fact on the strength of I./K.S.G. 2, the torpedo school:
http://www.forum-marinearchiv.de/smf...topic=12859.15
Another thread on the same forum, a recent one from autumn of last year, is highly interesting. A relative of the 6./K.G. 26 pilot who was killed in the attack on the
Pedestal convoy wrote that the pilot was assigned to the school, while the unit history reports that the aircraft had a
double unit assignment -
III./K.G. 26 (I./K.S.G. 2)
It is also mentioned there that a thrid edition of the KG 26 unit history by Alexander Steenbeck may be forthcoming, at an unknown date: "Geplant war noch eine 3. Auflage, Zeitpunkt ungewiß, wenn überhaupt."
http://www.forum-marinearchiv.de/smf...?topic=27199.0
The consensus appears to be that 6./K.G. 26 was the unit involved, see an Italian-language discussion from 2007:
http://it.cultura.storia.militare.na...l-mediterraneo
Francesco Mattesini, the Italian naval historian, wrote that 6./K.G. 26 operated together with aircraft of the torpedo school, but the issue remains unresolved:
http://www.feldgrau.net/forum/viewto...21511&start=30
Warm regards,
Paul