19 VIII 1942 Dieppe - Royal Navy vs Luftwaffe

[crolick]

Hello,

for some time I'm trying to establish the number of planes downed by ships of Royal Navy during Dieppe Raid. As far as I know allied ships claimed at least 24 planes downed. Sadly I was able to identify only some of them, namely:
4 by Ślązak (Polish)
2 by LCF.6
1 by SGB.8 & SGB.9
but I'm missing all the other claims - maybe someone can help me with this one?


Completely other story is verification of those claims. To do that I've started to gather the data for German losses and British claims. After finishing my job I discovered that there are some discrepancies among the data which I would like to share with you and ask for help. What I have been able to identify one can find in this file - http://www.bartelski.pl/crolick/stuff/Dieppe.xls

In the 1979 edition of Greatest Air Battle: Dieppe, 19th August 1942 by Franks it is stated that Luftwaffe have lost 48 planes (23 fighters and 25 bombers) but I was able to figure out 24 or so fighters and only 18 bombers (for details see the file).

Also RAF fighters claims 96 destroyed planes but according to Tony Wood's list there are only 89 claims and the numbers of the different types of planes (like FW.190, Do.217 etc) do not match each other (one can easily compare it by downloading my file) - why is it so?

Furthermore in Frank's book it was stated that 97 British planes were lost while again from Tony's lists it appeared that at least 108 were lost!

I have found also information that 5 or 6 own planes were downed by allied ships. Apart of the one Blenheim which Steve59 attribute to Ślązak (BTW I do not agree that Ślązak claimed one enemy bomber way earlier then any Luftwaffe bomber was in the vicinity. The claim is from 09.52 CET while first claims of British fighters for Do.217 comes from 09.40 CET so it is possible that this was Do.217 likewise that it was Blenheim) what other planes were shot down by allied ships?!

I'm mostly interested in the planes lost over the sea or ones which crashed on land and reported damage from the naval AA fire.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Andrzej

[Steve49]

Andrzej

A post raid naval report (TNA ADM199/1079) list the following claims:

BLEASDALE: 1x Ju88
BERKELEY: 1x Ju88
BROCKLESBY: 1xFw190
SLAZAK: 1x Fw190
ALRESFORD: 1x Fw190
LOCUST: 1x Ju88
CH43: 1x Fw190
SGB8 + SGB9: Shared 1x Fw190
MGB312: 1x Fw190
MGB320: 1x Do17
ML292 + ML190: Shared 1x Do17
LCF6: 2x Ju88
LCT318: 1x Fw190

Obviously other reports give ships more claims (ie the four for Slazak). Additionally one landing craft crew (LCA285 from HMS Duke of Wellington) reported shooting down a Ju88 with a Lewis gun (the gunner AB N. Mitchinson had a MiD for it), the port wing was apparently 'shot off'.

In almost all of these cases it is impossible to determine which are genuine and which are for aircraft that had already been crippled in aerial combat or those that escaped with little or no damage. Additionally the first wave of smoke laying aircraft were heavilly engaged by the Allied naval force as well as the Dieppe defences, but again it is impossible to determine who caused what damage (In an early report Slazak claimed on 'twin-engined bomber' at 05.17-obviously an RAF light bomber-unfortunately at the moment I can't find the document I found this in).

The one case that I have been able to match up a loss with a claim is that made by SGB8/SGB9. Whilst operating to the west of Dieppe the ships were attacked 2x Fw190 from 10./JG2, a near missed temporailly disabled SGB9, but returned fire damaged both aircraft (flown by Fw Blase and Uffz Magarin- additonal details from C. Goss 'Luftwaffe fighter-bombers over Britain'), causing one (0272- Flown by Uffz Magarin) to crash land near Palvel with 20% damage. Obviously not the shotdown aircraft claimed by the gunboats and not the 'Cruiser' claimed by the pilot, but the area and times match up.

From my figures the days losses were as follows:

RAF/USAAC: 106 aircraft destroyed/written off (137+ damaged)

Spitfire Vb x 55 (61+ damaged)
Spitfire VI x 3 (1 damaged)
Spitfire IX x 7 (1 damaged)
Hurricane II x 21 (33+ damaged)
Typhoon IIb x 2
Mustang Ia x 10 (10 damaged)
Boston III x 6 (17 damaged)
Blenhiem IV x 2 (11 damaged)
B17 x 0 (3 damaged)

Luftaffe: 48 aircraft destroyed/written off (33+ damaged)

Bf109G x 4 (2 damaged)
Fw190A x 17 (13 damaged)
Me210A-1 x 0 (1 damaged)
He111 x 1 (1 damaged)
Ju88A x 6 (2 damaged)
Ju88D x 1 (1 damaged??)
Do217E x 19 (14 damaged)

Despite the desparity in aircraft losses more Luftwaffe aircrew were actually lost than RAF/USAAC. 78 killed/8 POW v 63 killed/21 POW; obviously a reflection on the terrible losses suffered by the poorly escorted bombers of Luftflotte 3, notably KG2.

Regards,

Steve

[crolick]

Hello Steve,

thank you fro your reply


So it seems that we have 15 claims reported after the battle but with time passing by in 1944 it has grown to 24 - interesting!


As for the losses:
I have only 9 Mustangs (AG146, AG375, AG418, AG463, AG536, AG584, AL977, AM134, AM151) - what is the last one?! I have also only 53 Spitfires Vb - had to missed two of them.

Bf109G x 4 - do you know which WrkNr for the Obfw Hermann Staege plane is correct: 14037 or 14064?
Fw190A x 17 - it seems that I have too many lost Fw.190 (19) out of which 16 are 100% losses, 2 are 65% and one for 50%
He111 x 1 - is this bomber from III/K.G.53?!. Do you have any more details?!
Ju88A x 6 - are all of those losses from I/K.G.77?!
Ju88D x 1 - is this plane from 1.(F)/123?!
Do217E x 19 - I have only 15 of those (1179, 1203, 1217, 4243, 4292, 5376, 5423, 5440, 5447, 5453, 5457, 5459, 5461, 5501, 5503) + Do.217 downed by Whirlwinds from 137 Sqr. Can you give any details for further 3 planes?!


Best regards,
Andrzej