[Brian]

Thanks guys

Ed: I have the Osprey title but as suggested it's not very useful.

Col: The De Zeng/Stankey title is new to me so will have to check it out. I will also check specific dates and come back.

Peter: Thanks for the movement details. In the absence of operational facts, I tend to think that the Ju87s were not able to reach the ships while at sea, and that eyewitnesses were mistaken.

First example:

Convoy PQ-4 the British SS Dan-Y-Bryn was allegedly attacked by Stukas (admittedly not StG.5) on 22 November 1941, according to diary of eyewitness:

(Quote) "Stukas dive-bombed the convoy. The flutes under the wings gave a banshee wail and every seventh shell was a tracer so when one of the gunners on the port wing Oerlikon was hit by a tracer shell, it cauterized the wound and he survived the rough handling when the skipper ordered “that corpse off the bridge”. I put him in the shelter of the wheelhouse, which was reinforced with concrete slabs, and took over the gun for a few exciting seconds. We were in the vicinity of Jan Mayen Island at the extremity of the Stukas' range so it was a short-lived raid. They lost two planes and the crews were dead when picked up [sic]. Temperature 40 below."

Highly unlikely! 'Stukas' may have meant dive-bombing Ju88s (apparently some merchant seamen referred to most bombers at Stukas). But the, I have no record of losses of Ju88s or any other candidates, let alone crew fatalities. Perhaps the date is wrong, though I can't find a similar action/losses.

I'll look for further examples.

Stukas were mentioned on at least three occasions in the diary of an American sailor during Convoy PQ-16 (on May 27)

And during PQ-18, the gunnery officer aboard one vessel wrote:

September 14: "A lone Stuka, breaking out from the cloud ... aims a serious of aggressive passes at HMS Avenger ... the Stuka, now well alight, begins to corkscrew out of the sky (it crashed into the sea nearby) ... there is no sign of the pilot in the blackened cockpit as the fuselage rolls over ..."


Cheers
Brian