Re: Fw 200 Irish Sea Reconn Operation
For interest fellas - here's an extract from Adolf Hohnbaum's account. He was IG+AL's wireless operator :
'On April 1st a report was registered by a Focke-Wülf Condor (FW200) that a British escorted convoy was heading from the west towards Cardiff. We were ordered to attack this convoy. I took off with a flight crew commanded by Pilot Corporal Nicolay III Staffel KG27. We were also accompanied by another Heinkel. After a few flying hours we sighted about 30 merchant ships and escorts in the entrance to the Bristol Channel. Our Flight Commander set up to attack one of the bigger freighters, and put us into a steep dive and at about 50 metres dropped our 12 50kg blast bombs in succession. We didn’t make a direct hit, but as we overflew we shot up the ship with our machine guns. The defensive Flak from the convoy escorts roared all around us. Then we suddenly heard the crack of a direct hit, and it became clear the cooling system of our starboard engine had been damaged. We could smell the grey white glycol as it streamed away behind us. Nicolay shut the damaged engine down and compensated by trimming the aircraft accordingly.'
Would be nice to confirm details of that Condor.. anyone else got anyfink ? I think there were possibly three operating from Rennes at the time. Was one of them F8+AB ?? Remember operational date would have to be around 1.3.41. Go on, take a look - you know you wanna solve this one !
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