Oblt ??? of ZG26 Battle of Britain

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

In the hopes of furthering the identification of this dramatic incident, I'm posting here five photos from the Oct 1, 1940 edition of "Signaal" (the Dutch edition of "Signal" Magazine). There are a total of 17 photos in this sequence, from the Bf110C appearing in the distance (photo #1) with smoke trailing behind it and a Spitfire circling overhead. The plane gets lower and lower and finally ditches (Photo #2) in a huge spray of water. The crew is then seen struggling to get out of the cockpit as the tail raises (Photo #3) in the air above the two men. The plane then sinks with the tail almost coming down on top of the two men struggling in the water (Photo #4) then disappears from sight. Then an He59 a/c from the Seenotflugkommando (Code NE+??) comes into view, circles, lands near the two men and taxies to them (Photo #5). The two men then swim to the back of the aircraft where a crewmen comes down the rear ladder and helps them aboard. I've only attached highlight photos with the rest filling in the story between these.

After careful study of this account, I'm almost certain that this rescue is described by the van Ishoven account I posted above. This has to be after the SNFlKdo a/c were camouflaged in late July/early August, and before the Bf110Cs of I./ZG26 were painted with white noses around the beginning of September, 1940. The date of publication is consistent with an August, 1940, event. If the incident is the same, we know that the a/c is either U8+GH or U8+GL of 1 or 3./ZG26 (white I./ZG26 rear fuselage band and white or yellow "G.") The plane carried 2 victory bars and the pilot was probably the unidentified Oblt of the van Ishoven account. The aircraft was obviously a 100% loss, but there is no known incident in late July or August to the beginning of Sept., 1940, that fits all the evidence for this incident. There are probably no more than four Oblt., including possibly two StaKap , serving at this time in 1 or 3./ZG26. The two victory bars would probably ID the pilot if we had complete records for victory claims by pilots of those two squadrons, which we do not. Note that Kogler was a Hptm, so that seems to eliminate him; might have been his temporary replacement though. So who can solve this mystery?

I'd also certainly like to find a source for better quality images of these photos for publication in the EOE Vol 4 (Vol I for the BoB), if anyone knows a source for these.

Regards,

[cbe2009]

Hello!
In John Weals book "Me 110 Zerstörer aces of ww2" it says that the pilot of the pictures above is Fw. Jakob Birndorfer from 6./ZG 76. Whether it is true or not i don´t know.

Best wishes

Christian