He 111 lost 8th August 1942 near Isle of Wight

[Brian Bines]

The Home Office Key Points reports w/e 0900hrs 12-8-1942 show attacks by day :-

5th - Yeovil attacked slight damage to Westland Aircraft Ltd

6th - Truro lightly attacked

7th - Bodmin - some damage reported

8th - Slough attacked without effect, other incidents in Hampshire, Dorset Essex and Northumberland (KG2 book shows a Do217 on an early morning Recon. but no losses )

11th - Deal attacked considerable damage to railway station and slight damage to railway at Salisbury.

'Luftwaffe Fighter Bombers over Britain' by Chris Goss details some of these attacks.

KG54 lost a Ju88 on the 8th targeted to Southend on Sea but this is likely to have fallen to 29 Sqd. at 2240hrs. A Me210 of 16/KG6 is reported as fallen to Flak off the East Coast on the 9th both crewmen missing. The Luft. QM's returns does not offer a ready loss to link to the claim by AA ( unless there is a late entry for an aircraft that returned damaged) and as far as I know no POW's taken to indicate a loss on the 8th.

The III/KG53 lost severel He111's in night attacks against the UK from 29th July to 9th.August. Is there a chance one of their aircraft was on a bad-weather daylight attack on the 8th (see KG53 book page 203), was engaged by AA but got back safe.

[Larry]

Thanks very much Brian for the additional info. I'm working on the basis that the E/A was most likely damaged.

Now where would I check if any Luftwaffe personnel had been taken prisoner on 8th August 1942 in the UK?

[Chris Goss]

If any aircrew had been taken POW, this would have been noted either in the German Quartermaster General's Returns, Namentliche Verlustemeldung or RAF 'K' Reports. I believe that if anyone had been taken POW, this would have been passed to you already. If an aircraft was damaged, it should have been noted in the Returns; I believe that none were recorded. Another case of over-zealous claiming? I wonder if there was the likelihood of friendly fire?