[Simon Trew]

A few forum users may be interested in the following.

Working my way through transcripts of secretly monitored conversations between Luftwaffe prisoners, I came across this information about the loss of the aircraft mentioned above. The details differ somewhat from ADI(K) 91 (contents reproduced in Parker LCA 11 pp.1314-15) and Mackay & Parry ‘The Last Blitz’ p.167.

Source is AIR 40/3093, SRA 5018, information received 24 February 1944 (i.e. within a few hours of the plane’s loss).

The plane’s fate is interesting (and I think quite well-known) as it is one of those rare occasions (I think there were two Luftwaffe cases in the UK in WWII?) where a plane was abandoned by its crew but then made a crash-landing that left it largely intact.

According to the observer, Unteroffizier Rosendahl, the aircraft was caught in searchlights. It dived to try to evade but the attempt failed and the plane was under heavy AA fire. “The front of the cockpit was smashed [confirmed by photographic evidence that shows at least two smashed panels – something that could have happened during the landing but other panels remained intact, so Rosendahl is probably correct – and he would not have known when his conversation was recorded that his aircraft had survived]; there was nothing more to be done about it.”

“I baled out at twenty minutes to eleven. The heavy AA was firing at us. As we were baling out they scored another good hit and only then did the aircraft start to swerve. By that time the WT operator had already baled out and we baled out after him.”

Rosendahl says he baled out at about 2800 metres; those who followed did so at about 2000 metres.

He adds “our port engine had also been hit and it kept varying from 2300 to 1700 rpm.”