help deciphering hand writing

[Adam]

Can someone decipher what the name of the Kanal is mentioned in the attachment? If it helps any, this was written on the back of a picture of 3./706 He 59

TIA

Adam

[Chris Goss]

Possibly a misspelling of Wimereux north of Boulogne?

[obdl3945]

Hi...

I believe this may be a modernised version of Suetterlinschrift, and that there are seven characters here, most likely: W?inere.

The word 'flugzeug' above it has a curved accent above the third and seventh charachters, denoting a 'u'. 'N's looked similar, so were denoted by a straight bar above them, hence I think the fourth character in this placename is an 'n'. The second character is smudged, but possibly was a vowel, perhaps an 'a' or 'e'...? There is an outside chance, however, that the dot above the second and third characters relates to the second, in which case it would be an 'i' and possibly leaving he third character as a 'c', although I think this is a long shot.

So, it could be either 'Wainere/Weinere' or I think less likely 'Wicnere', and quite possibly as mentioned before by Chris, a misspelling or a German verson of a particular placename.

And finally, yes, I know... I've mentioned it before, but it really is worth repeating, that the following is an excellent link for understanding Suetterlin, and you can try your hand with the exercises, then set about deciphering all the previously undeciphered writing on the back of photos...

http://www.suetterlinschrift.de/

Regards...

Paul

[byron-]

"Wasserflugzeug bei Winiere Kanal"

This is not a Sütterlin Schrift, it is a very normal german writing

[Adam]

Many thanks for the help. It was the place name I was stuck on. The next question is, were is this kanal? I did a quick google search and came up empty.

[ChrisS]

Hi Adam

Because the word 'Kanal' is below the others I believe this could refer to the English Channel.

Regards

Chris

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Adam

Many thanks for the help. It was the place name I was stuck on. The next question is, were is this kanal? I did a quick google search and came up empty.

The English Channel.

To the Germans it's the «Ärmelkanal» or «Kanal» for short. («Ärmel» = "sleeve" which I guess is a reference to its shape).

The next question is whether there's any such place as Winière or Wimère or even Wissère (if it's a French/Belgian name then you'd expect the accent on the first "e"). Google Maps doesn't give a hit on any of those, so either we're misinterpreting or the original is misspelled.

[ChrisS]

A slight spanner in the works is that according to Holm, 3./Ku.Fl.Gr. 706 redesignated on 22.10.39 to 1./Ku.Fl.Gr. 906 so could not have been anywhere near the English Channel. Therefore the 'Wasserflugzeug bei Winiere Kanal' must be somewhere in Germany. Back to square one.

Cheers

Chris

[Adam]

Originally Posted by ChrisS

A slight spanner in the works is that according to Holm, 3./Ku.Fl.Gr. 706 redesignated on 22.10.39 to 1./Ku.Fl.Gr. 906 so could not have been anywhere near the English Channel. Therefore the 'Wasserflugzeug bei Winiere Kanal' must be somewhere in Germany. Back to square one.

Cheers

Chris

Further issues to all this:

I took "IX/31" to note 'September 31' [as in 31st September] but September doesn't have 31 days... so maybe it means IX/39, as in September 1939. In either case, it has to be KFlGr 706 because KFlGr 906 was activated until late October '39. This means 3./706 is the only candidate and during September 1939 the unit was based at Norderney until it's redesignation as 3./906 on 22.10.39. So the English Channel is still a candidate, but looking at the picture it looks like a channel coastline. The attached is the second version of the notation. Next picture will be a cropped version of the coastline


[edit] for some reason I can't upload a refined picture of the coastline so only the eBay pic will do: http://cgi.ebay.de/FOTO-FLUGZEUG-WAS...item5637ad2354

[udf_00]

... not IX but XI