Possible Staffel or Schwarm insignia on rudders of some 3./KG55 He111Ps during the Polish Campaign?

[steve sheridan]

Hi Larry, also Ian and John.
I have W.Nr 2145 as G1+CL 3/KG55 forced landing nr Langemark with damage from flak, during sortie to attack roads west of Ypres 10.45am on the 27.5.40. Uffz Kaufhold as Chris mentions in his post, was part of this crew.

Best regs,
Steve.

[Larry Hickey]

Steve,

You've provided me with a very important clue that I want to follow up on. It sounds like Chris Goss also has further photos from Uffz Kaufhold's collection, which perhaps is even the collection being sold on eBay. Where did you get the info that G1+CL was W.Nr. 2145? We presently don't carry it with a W.Nr. in the EoE Luft Loss DB:

"May 27, 1940: 3./KG55 Heinkel He111P-2. Forced-landed near Langemark starboard engine damaged by AA fire during sortie to attack roads between Ypres and Dunkirk 10.45 a.m. BO Oberfw Erich Botzki, FF Fw Heinrich Schmidt, BF Uffz Hans Kaufhold, BM Uffz Fritz Wicklein, and BS Gefr Walter Schwinn all captured unhurt – later released. Aircraft G1+CL 100% write-off."

For it to have been lost with 7 Staffel in 1941, it must have been recovered, repaired and put back into service. In searching the EoE Photo DB, I don't find anything I can ID as a photo of this a/c FL. None appears with that loss in Peter Cornwell's TBoFrT&N. Have photos appeared on eBay or been published before of this a/c FL? I'm very curious whether W.Nr. 2145 still carried that insignia when it FL on May 27th, or if this was one of the temporary markings applied in 1939, and later washed off or painted over. Important info for profiling purposes. Perhaps if it still was on the a/c when it FL, I've seen a photo of it on eBay with this on the tail, but didn't realize the connection with KG55.

The plot thickens, as they say.

Thanx for taking the time to help

[steve sheridan]

Hi Larry, great to be able to add any information where possible.

You may see from the link below that i looked at this quite closely at the time. Forum member and Heinkel111 expert Dave Ransome provided the clue to W.Nr2145 identity on these very pages!
Any further information would be most welcome from anybody else.


He 111 Wk Nr 2149 ( 1 2)

Best regs,
Steve.

[Larry Hickey]

Steve,

Thanks for the reference back to the 2007 TOCH posts. Now we'll have to see if Peter Cornwell will pick up in our DB Dave Ransom's info on the 27.05.40 FL being W.Nr.2145. Now the question is, where did Dave get his info correlating W.Nr.2145 with the code G1+CL and the FL during May, 1940. He never clarified that in his posts.

Regards,

[Maciej Góralczyk]

Steve, we were talking about one of the planes featured in this album last year!
http://cdn01.trixum.de/upload2/33800...2dc6d8dd09.jpg
This is W.Nr.2149 G1+JL, of which the above photo together with another two were all published in 'Wings of the Black Cross 6'.

Best regs,
Maciej

[ianatheling]

Thanks Steve for this additional information. It seems quite incredible that an aircraft suffered three losses of 100%, 40% and 70% and was each occasion repaired and then converted to end its day’s as a trainer. All we need is confirmation of the codes to complete the story.


Cheers
Ian

[Larry Hickey]

Hello Maciej,

Tried to find my copy of "Wings of the Black Cross 6," but it isn't on the shelf where it should be. Would someone who owns another copy of this Jerry Crandall publication look and see what photos of these 3./KG55 aircraft are in there and if they are the same images as in the photo album that I started this post about? If they're the same, then I don't need to pursue this further. If they're not, I've got to find my missing copy of the publication. THis may well be where I remember seeing images of this artwork.

Thanx,

[Maciej Góralczyk]

Hello Larry,
The book includes only one photo from the ebay album, which I've pointed in my previous post, and further two of the same plane. The Heinkel is captioned as G1+JU, but in my opinion the last letter of the code can't be U -see the scan of the photo in the ebay album. On another photo of this machine published in the book the W.Nr.2149 is visible on the fin, but the last code letter is obscured by the people standing in front of the plane.
No other 3./KG 55 aircraft are pictured in the book.

[Larry Hickey]

Maciej,

I agree that W.Nr. 2149 is G1+JL and any attribution as G1+JU is certainly wrong. I've now seen a photo of the artwork being applied to the tail of this a/c which someone else sent me directly. If there are two additional photos of G1+JL in the publication, I'll have to find my copy to see what they show.

Thanx so much for following up on this for me.

Regards,

[steve sheridan]

Hi Larry, glad to to be able to kick start this thread into motion!
I sincerley hope you can confirm the correlation of G1+CL with the W.Nr 2145 with either Peter Cornwell or Dave Ransome. Also ties in G1+JL also seen in the album, and confirmation of that W.Nr too.

Hi Maciej, yes i remember well our chats and suspicions of W.Nr 2149 being G1+JL and not G1+JU as described in " Wings of the Black Cross"
Great to see these images again brought to us by Larry.
Hope your well Maciej?

Best regs,
Steve.