Trying to ID He59 D-A+SA?, its history and fate

[Larry Hickey]

Paul, Hans & Ian,

Thanks for your inputs. Yes, that's the a/c and the specific photo image that I'm working with. I'm convinced that it is indeed, D-A+SAM. We carry this in the EoE Luft Loss DB as:

"July 1, 1940: July 1, 1940: Seenotflugkdo. 3 Heinkel He59 (1994). Damaged in attacks by Blue Section of No.72 Squadron (F/L E. Graham, F/O E.J. Wilcox, and F/Sgt H. Steere) during search mission for He115 of 3/KüFlGr.106 and landed at sea 8 miles off Hartlepool 6.15 a.m. BO Lt Hans-Joachim Fehske, BF Obergefr Erich Philipp, and FF Uffz Ernst-Otto Nielsen captured unhurt, BM Uffz Fritz Struckmann captured badly wounded - all took to dinghy and rescued by cruiser’s long-boat. Aircraft D-ASAM 100% write-off.
Despite recognising that this was extremely hazardous undertaking due to proximity to the English coast, a rescue sortie was nonetheless ordered by 9 Fliegerdivision and take-off from Norderney followed at 3.05 a.m. The crew protested strongly at the deliberate violation of Article 9 of the 1929 Geneva Agreement pertaining to Red Cross humanitarian aid. The aircraft was later beached and closely examined for any armament and mine racks."

This a/c is not to be confused with the better known D-A+SUO that force-landed on the Goodwin Sands, of the coast of Deal, Kent, on July 9th, and led to the change in rules about Luftwaffe rescue operations off the British coast.

I just got some additional info on this a/c from Gerhard Stemmer, which is somewhat contradictory as to whether this a/c was assigned to SNFlKdo 1 or 3 at the time of this incident: "After the modification the He 59 WNr.1884 (sic--clearly a typo for 1994) D-ASAM was delivered to Seenotflugkommando 1 Norderney on 26.Apr.40. It was lost due to British fighters on 2.Jul.40 (sic-we have 1 July 40 in our DB) still with the same unit but based as part of a small detachment at Schellingwoude in Holland."

Any further comment on the unit of assignment and Ian's "C-2" subtype source would be appreciated.

Regards,

Larry Hickey
EoE Project Coordinator