Blohm & Voss victory claims

[Martin Gleeson]

Regarding that first claim on 24 January 1941, are there any more specific details about it ? Especially time and location ?

The Hudson that was force-landed in neutral Ireland that day was P5123 ‘ZS-W’ of 233 Squadron. P5273 was a Fairey Battle which was sent to Australia in June 1941.

The crew of P5123 took-off at 9.20 a.m. and belly-landed it at approximately 5.00 p.m. in County Sligo. The crew stated to the Irish Authorities that they had become lost during the sortie and the aircraft ran out of fuel. To date, neither I or Dennis Burke on his excellent website have found a hint of any combat on this mission in British or Irish primary source documents. Dennis has an extensive page on this aircraft, well worth viewing. The Irish officers who reported on the state of the aircraft after the landing recorded nothing about possible damage. The Irish Air Corps recovered the Hudson and it was bought by the Irish government from the UK in 1942 and - after repair - was put into Irish service as ‘91’.

However, to confuse matters, I have come across an account from a passenger on board ‘91’ in August 1942 stating he was shown several small patches on the port fuselage side and was told that this was damage from combat at some time during its RAF service. If indeed these were bullet holes it is not clear if these were as a result of the 24 January 1941 flight or earlier.

I am not aware of BV 138s operating off north-west Ireland in early 1941 or ever doing so. It would be great if someone can prove they did – or did not. To the best of my knowledge this general area was the preserve of the FW 200 Condors.

The crew of P5123 were detailed to escort convoy HG 50, but were unable to locate it. Convoy HG 50 was proceeding from Gibraltar to Liverpool, losing two ships en route to the FW 200s. From the locations of the ships sunk it is clear the convoy was travelling north and well west of Ireland before rounding it to gain entry into the Irish Sea and then to Liverpool on January 26th . The SS ‘Kapetan Stratis’ was a straggler from the convoy and was sunk on 22 January 1941 about 85 miles WNW of Belmullet in County Mayo. Next day the SS ‘Mostyn’ was lost some 200 miles WNW of Belmullet. Among other sources used for these losses were ‘WORLD WAR II SEA WAR, Vol. 3’ (p. 224) by Donald A. Bertke, Don Kindell and Gordon Smith, the late Arnold Hague’s online convoy database and Google Earth.

I would certainly be interested to learn more about any possible BV 138 connection to this incident if there is one. I am aware of the two BV 138s from 2./906 lost during November 1940, one off the south-west coast of Ireland and one in the Atlantic ‘off Ireland’.

Regards,

Martin Gleeson.