Bodenwöhr Waldwerk - Mtt Bf 109 K-4 assembly lines 1944 - 1945

[Fliegerhorst]

I just dicussed Kompensierscheibe with my mother aged soon 73.
There was also a flak tower near Vockenrot. Vockenrot celebrated 70
years of becoming "suburb" of Wertheim several weeks ago.
People had pictures as "Flakhelfer".
will check.

[RolandF]

Fliegerhorst,

could you please check out how the Bf 109s found their way from the western mouth of Schlossberg tunnel to Wertheim airfield? Bf 109 fuselages could be towed on their undercarriages which is rather easy on flat ground or downhill, but from Schlossberg tunnel to the airfield there are about 200 meters difference in height. Too much to be towed, imo.

If there is no airfield railway in Wertheim - bigger Fliegerhorste had those railways - maybe an other airfield close to Wertheim was suited to make the birds airborne?

Obertraubling-Stauffen e.g. had such a railway for the Me 262. The Bf 109s were towed from Hagelstadt-Gauting on their own landing gears.

Regards

Roland

[Fliegerhorst]

Hallo Roland,

I tried to call the man, I should call on recommendation of the lady working for the furniture company.
I did not find traces of an assembly at the moment.
Repair and production of parts that´s for sure. "Spessart oak" is famous as You know. The location in Kreuzwertheim was at least supplier and repair.
Ok, the motors. The puzzle does not fit up to now.

See on google maps Neue Steige and Alte Steige. railway immpossible at all.
Wertheims partner runway in Dorndorf had a railway which disappeared.
15kms by air, 20by road, by train 28km to Miltenberg, then to Walldürn via
Amorbach and then airfield railway. should by minimum 60 kilometers.
Direction to Mannheim or Neckarelz.

Tomorrow I try to reach the collector.

[Fliegerhorst]

i just called a friend´s father, aged 75.
interesting. There was the so called Flumann-Halle, may be 20-40 m large. close to the furniture company. This meakes sense and as we see the factory cooperated
obviously with Flumann. The building was removed for building a new kindergarden may be in the sixties.
Company Kümmerling used the building after the war as I was told.

[Fliegerhorst]

the question is, new motors? From Neckarelz which would be withdrawal
from West to East through Odenwald?
Assembly planned?
New ones from Stuttgart?
Lauda is, had, big railway station, to Würzburg, to Wertheim, from/to Odenwald, to Stuttgart.
Wertheim was said to be good protected by Flak Tower "Turm" with stunning view over the Main/Tauber Valleys and the castle, also on Flumann factory

[masmar]

Hi together,
for today I planned to visit the Cham town archive to have a look on the collection on the Cham-Michelsdorf airfield. I called the archivist Bullemer in order to announce my visit. He already published articles on that topic and made some intesely research. Unfortunately he told me, it wont be worth a visit, when trying to find some closer information or even pictures. The collection mostly consists of some interviews with contemporary witnesses whose information Bullemer already published in his books like "Kriegsende in Cham". He told me, that a short time ago he recieved three more pictures with destroyed Bf 109 on them from a citizen. He published those pictures together with some further information in a larger collection of end-war-stories from the Cham area. I'll try to get that book from a local library. Apart from that, the track ends here again:-(

Fliegerhorst, what about your investigations? More luck with that collector?
You still owe us some pictures I think;-)

Best regards

Matthias

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Hello to all,

Sorry for the long silence, Fliegerhorst, but rather working on a 12 hours a day schedule currently, and thus no time to be back to you with all the new informations you gave us. Thanks for them. Any new pictures to add on the Wertheim Flumann GmbH issue?

Masmar,
Thanks for your report on your efforts regarding the Cham-Michelsdorf airfield. It would be great to have those three photos here for sharing what new informations they can shed on the Bodenwöhr production.

Not exactly in the same line as our topic but yet interesting, I rediscovered those picture of the Erla Leipzig production hall as found by the US Army in 1945;

http://images.google.com/hosted/life...d57ac0d0704948
http://images.google.com/hosted/life...59c07189da8c11
http://images.google.com/hosted/life...805de30e3c3d48


Though no K-4 models can be recognized, one can see Bf 109 G-10 fuselages among the wrecked hangar ceiling, again with only their lower engine bearers mounted; the upper ones, being part of the DB 605 D "power-egg" package as seen on the Wertheim Eichelsteg picture, are amiss as the engines (again engineless fuselages: another pointer for DB 605 D supply lines trouble?).

I'm still hopeful for some new informations to keep up the given impetus on all thse Waldwerke issues. Who knows: with Christmas time coming, maybe we'll have some extra free time to delve deeper in this fascinating subject....

Cheers
Marc

[masmar]

Hi guys, wish you all the best in 2010!

Seems that we reached the end of the information-line avaiable at the moment, but I think we really did a great job so far.
I think I will get the above mentioned book on the Michelsdorf airfield the next weeks and will post the three pics which could be found in it then.

The whole discussion inspired me to do some scale modelling, since I'm not able to do aircraft profiles Over the holidays I found some time to go about it and now I want to share the output with you.
Thats my interpretation of the Bodenwöhr K-4 pattern with RLM 81/83 76 finish and bare aluminium on the underside of the fuselage. Here no extension kits were used, all supplementary parts was build by my own except of the DB605 of course.
The other model is a fictitious K-4 finished with RLM76 snake and RLM 82 intead of 83.
All colors except the late-war-yellowish-RLM76 were mixed with the help of coloured relics, found on the areal of the Bodenwöhr Waldwerk !!!
By time I will finish the diorama bases for both models.

Hope you'll enjoy it

Greez
Matthias

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Hi there Masmar,

Thanks for your excellent model shots. Congrats for them, the Bodenwöhr snake pattern is really nicely represented. As a former modeller myself, I truely enjoy them. Looking forward to see more of them!

Cheers
Marc

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Hello there!

I am pondering since yesterday over this pic, found by ed:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=220535747152

I do have the strong impression it depicts the dumped Bf 109 K-4 fuselages at Vilseck-Heringnohe, the one pile also published by Hideki Noro in "LO*ST", pic. 139. Though lighting is adverse, I still can identify at least two Bf 109K-4 fuselages for sure; they are the ones sticking out of the pile against the sky. Note also the overturned Me 262 fuselage on the far right of the pile.

One wonders how many other pictures will surface...

Cheers
Marc