Aircrew dozing/sleeping on sorties

[Tony Kearns]

During a short period of correspondence with Ofw.Rudi Hengst 3./KG27, he mentioned in one of his letters that two crewmen arrived in the Curragh Internment Camp in May 1941. Their aircraft a Heinkel H-5 V4+DK W.Nr. 4063 III./KG40 had crashed during an anti shipping sortie in the Irish Sea in the early hours of 6 May 1941. Rudi Hengst passed away after a number of letters had passed between us, but not before his unpublished memoirs arrived to me, I had been able to supply details of some incidents he was involved in from the British side and more or less completed his story.
A later letter explained more. In the camp, understandably, it took some time for the story of events to emerge. Apparently the drone of the engines flying on auto pilot induced doziness and sleepiness and it was when one of the crew suddenly noticed that they were so near the sea he called the pilot. The pilot reacted by pulling back on the controls but the tail wheel struck the water and in they went. Two crewmen were lost.

Has anyone ever come across this or a like incident before?
Many thanks
Regards
Tony K

[Nick Beale]

I hadn't read of similar incidents (and thanks for posting it) but aircrew were issued with Pervitin to guard against them dozing off, so I guess the danger was recognised.

[Tony Kearns]

Thanks Nick, I too had not heard of this before and that crash was always attributed to anti aircraft fire.

[Bruce Dennis]

I recall a memoir of a US pilot in the Pacific including a description of the danger of dozing off. He tells of being jerked awake by 'the chatter of his wingmans guns': quite a wake-up call.

Bruce

[Nordpol54]

Dear Gang,

years ago i've read somewhere in the book "Kampfflieger zwischen Eismeer und Sahara" by Peter W. Stahl (FF of KG 30) a similar story. the difference is that it ended lucky for him and his crew.

Best Regards
Norbert

P.S.: Unfortunately this book is buried somewhere in a removal box of mine, so i can't dig it out for a review at this time.

[schnellmeyer]

I hope I can add a little to this topic . I was also in contact with Ofw. Rudi Hengst since the mid 1990's and like Tony I also have a complete copy of his life story . While Rudi did a wonderful job writing down his story he has made some mistakes and I believe his account of the crash of "V4+DK" is not correct . My reason for saying this is that the pilot of this plane is still alive and I have contact with him and he has given his account of events which differ from Rudi's .

[Tony Kearns]

Originally Posted by schnellmeyer

I hope I can add a little to this topic . I was also in contact with Ofw. Rudi Hengst since the mid 1990's and like Tony I also have a complete copy of his life story . While Rudi did a wonderful job writing down his story he has made some mistakes and I believe his account of the crash of "V4+DK" is not correct . My reason for saying this is that the pilot of this plane is still alive and I have contact with him and he has given his account of events which differ from Rudi's .

If you are adding to the topic then perhaps you would supply the pilot's version, who would be age 96 now?

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Tony Kearns

If you are adding to the topic then supply the pilot's version, who would be age 96 now.

I hope that was meant more amicably than it reads. Some words missing, maybe?

[ArtieBob]

Nordpol,

I have "Kampfflieger zwischen Eismeer und Sahara" on the top of a stack right now, if you can point me to a time period, I will look for the reference.

Best regards,

ArtieBob

[schnellmeyer]

I am sorry to all if I did not post up a detail account of the crash of "V4+DK" of KG40 . I have contact with the pilot Walther Hollborn and also his daughter Ursula who has been most helpful with material from her father . Sadly at present Walther is very ill as he is in his mid 90's . As the material supplied by the Hollborn family will be use in a book I cannot post details of the crash but the crash was not due to the crew falling asleep. Again sorry I could not go into more detail and thanks for being understanding.