11th April 2017, 23:49
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Senior Member
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Join Date: May 2011
Location: Ontario, Canada
Posts: 308
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Re: Lt Babineck Wilfried NJG2 lost Malta 12/12/1941
The following is from Battle Over Malta: Aircraft Losses and Crash Sites 1940-1942 by Anthony Rogers p.97-8:
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Aircraft Ju 88
Crew Leutnant Wilfried Babinek (pilot), Gefreiter (or Obergefreiter)Heinrich Schwarz (Wireless Operator), Gefreiter (or Obergefreiter)Wilhelm Gutt (Airgunner)
Unit: 3 Nachtjagdgeschwader 2
Place: West perimeter of Hal Far aerodrome
Date/time: 28 December 1941/2030 hours
Soon after 1940 hours on Sunday 28 December a single Ju 88 began to circuit the Island before crossing the south coast and dropping its bombs on Qrendi landing strip. Searchlights caught and held the raider on three occasions, enabling both heavy and light AA to engage. The pilot, twenty-year-old Wilfried Babinek was undeterred and continued to harass those on the ground. The courage of this officer and crew, however admirable, was hardly appreciated by those on the receiving end of the bombs and bullets. Stanley Fraser , a Gunner in 4th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment Royal Artillery kept a diary throughout his war service which included two and a half years in Malta. Of this episode he wrote
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Mounting guard that night ... was a really cold and soaking wet business. The rain was pelting down on the guard room roof [when] we heard a bomber flying exceedingly low and its engines sounded like a Wellington ... We were soon disullusioned when half a dozen 'crumps' shook the place. The plane circled round and again flew over only a few hundred feet up. The sentry shouted to us as a searchlight caught the plane in its beam and the tracers began to stream towards it. We ran out into the rain just in time to see the display, but it was all over in about half a minute. The tracer went right into the plane and, circling sharply, it dived straight to earth, still held in the beam, until it crashed with a loud explosion and the flames leapt upward, illuminating the low clouds and the ground for quite a distance. Another one for our score!
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The Ju 88 (tentatively identified by the RAF as a modified A-5) came down between Il-Mizieb and Hal Far, smashing through stone boundary walls amd leaving wreckage spread across several fields as far as the western perimeter of the aerodrome. None of the crew survived
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