Fw 58 or He 59 - 11 August 1940

[Chris Goss]

...and this sounds like the He 59 destroyed by 604 Sqn. 601 claimed no He 59s and "off Cherbourg" is way out of 610 Sqn's operating area

[Peter Cook]

Thanks for the input, Nick, 'Seaplanes', and Chris,

The main part of my request concerned the action involving 610 Squadron, which made its He 59 claims over the Channel, '3 miles off Calais' according to F/L Smith's combat report, many miles from Cherbourg. The He 59s attacked by 610 Squadron were presumaby from Seenotflugkdo 3, based at Boulogne, which reported no losses.

There is still the question of the Fw 58 and Uffz Ferdinand Decker – which unit did he belong to, and how could Smith have confused a Fw 58 with a He 59?

In a recent emial exchange with Brian Cull he remembered that Chris has posted the following on the Key-Aero forum:

Curiously, Uffz Ferdinand Decker, a groundcrewman from 5./JG 54, was wounded by two British fighters while flying in a twin-engined Focke-Wulf Fw 58 Weihe monoplane. This had taken off at 1100hrs to help drop a dinghy to two survivors of a Blenheim of 53 Squadron shot down earlier. Decker was wounded in the leg for his troubles by Flt Lt Edward Smith of 610 Squadron off Calais; Smith had claimed to have damaged a Heinkel He 59 biplane.

Peter

[Chris Goss]

……fog of war I would say

[Seaplanes]

The FW58 joined the Seenotdienst during the summer of 1940. They were stationed with fighter units along the coast all the way from Norway to France, and eventually they became the "Hilfsseenotdienst (Luft)". These planes could drop small life-boats (probably a rubber dinghy) and other stuff to fighter pilots in distress, much quicker than the He 59.
A couple of the early ones arrived in Norderney for Seenotdienst on 9 August 1940. They were:
FW 58 RG+NN W.Nr. 58076 and KB+HP W.Nr. 58023.

I have used the Werk-Nummern and Stammkennzeichen as written in the KTB of Seenotzentrale Nord (Luft).