SG-5 & Gliders

[hucks216]

Good evening all. I have a Wehrpass to a fully qualified military glider pilot (qualified April 1943 for the DFS-230 having been in training since February 1942). I am trying to unravel where he went and what he did but what seems strange is that after he qualified as a glider pilot he was assigned to Erg.Staffel/StG-5 and then 3./StG-5 for a year and was with them when they relocated to Dno under 3.Flieger-Division as SG-5.

In Dive Bomber & Ground Attack Units of the Luftwaffe vol 2 (Larry de Zeng & Douglas Stankey) it does state that I/SG-5 acquired 14 DFS gliders but they were off the books, having been left behind by LLG-1 but the date given in the book is 21st October 1943 while this glider pilot joined StG-5 in May 1943.
Does anyone have other examples of a glider pilot being assigned to a non-glider unit and if this pilot had been assigned to SG-5 because of these gliders, is there any information of their use while the unit was operating from Dno as it seems strange that a specialist glider pilot would be sent to a ground attack unit for 12 months?
After SG-5 he was assigned to FFS-A 61 for 2 months and then assigned to 6./KG-200 for 2 months late in 1944.

[Larry deZeng]

Hmmm.......................
While it was normal for a Stuka unit to have a few off-the-books gliders that were towed behind the Ju 87's and used to move the unit's Tross (baggage, spare parts and such) from airfield to airfield, I can't say with certainty that this was the case here. There are more than a few wartime photos of this and even narrative accounts in the Holger Nauroth history of St.G.2, the Peter C. Smith history of St.G. 77 and the Georg Schlaug history of the Luftwaffe glider branch.

L.

[hucks216]

Thank you for the reply. I suppose even with using gliders as a means to move spare parts etc they would still have required someone to maintain and land them.

[Adriano Baumgartner]

Hucks,

To tow gliders one need to be a certified glider pilot himself.

Am not sure if this rule applies to the frame of time we are mentioning here: Luftwaffe in WW2. But maybe StG 5 flew some of those towing sorties and needed previously formed glider pilots to fly them.

I remember Martin Drewes saying to me that he flew some glider towing flights with a former Morane Saulnier MS-230, but am not sure if he qualified as A, B or C Glider pilot previously. This is the sole (from memory) airman that I remember saying he towed gliders in WW2.

Very nice thread indeed. Hope someone with a similar Wherpass can confirm or deny this information that Tug Pilots needed to be qualified previously as Glider pilots.

Most humbly yours,
Adriano S. Baumgartner

[Adriano Baumgartner]

OBS: Am not familiar with special missions undertaken by StG 5, StG 2 or StG 77; but is there glider towing missions (to re-suplly troops or surrounded troops) not related to their own spare parts, ever recorded?

Just for curiosity.