The Eagles Over Europe Project

[RT]

"Vélizy-Villacoublay Airfield, France," or "Vélizy Airfield, Villacoublay, France?"


City is Vélizy name of airfield Villacoublay, like Chicago-O'Hare , Braunschweig-Waggum, Oslo-Fprnebu ... Boulder-Municipal airport

Rémi

[jvmasset]

There where two distinctly separate airfields in Villacoublay: "Villacoublay" south of the N12 road (also known as Villacoublay Süd by the Germans); this is the one where the original photo was taken.
The second airfield was situated on the North of the road and was known as the Villacoublay-Morane airfield. It was initially a privately owned airfield, and the location of the Morane Saulnier flying school.
Villacoublay-Morane (known as Villacoublay Nord) was used by the Germans especially in 1943 (JG105) and 1944 (JG26); for the very keen eye some of the dispersal taxways can still be guessed near the urbanization to the north of the field in the woods.
Look at the 1949 photos in Geoportail (those of Villacoublay Sud are no longer accessible due to military base status...yes, even in 1949!)

JVM

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

We have just revised our EoE Loss entry for this incident:

"7 December 1939 Home Front Amend: 3./KüFlGr.906 Heinkel He59 (0840). Crashed on third attempt to take-off from Norderney on night mine-laying sortie when port float hit a wave 7.30 p.m. BO Oberlt zur See Klaus Toball (Staffel Ia), [...] Coenen, BF Uffz Kurt Mommertz, and [..] Sobotta all unhurt. Aircraft 8L+UL 60% damaged but repairable."

Can anyone supply the first names and crew positions of Coenen and Sobotta. I presume that one of these was the pilot? Our information source is the unit KTB, which we've just translated.

We have the same problem with the first name of the BM Fw [...] Burzlaff of 8L+OL, WNr.2603, whose He59 from the same unit overturned at Norderney on 8 December.

Also, does anyone know of any photos of these incidents, or photos of these a/c at times other than the loss/damage events? This includes a 50% damaged 8L+SL, W.Nr. 2595, of the same unit that was also damaged by hitting a sandbank on 08.12.39 at Norderney. No crew info for this a/c is known.

Thanx for any assistance.

[Matti Salonen]

Olt Werner Coenen, Flugzeugführer
Fw Franz Sobotta, Bordmechaniker

Matti

[Larry Hickey]

Matti,

Thanx. Will revise our entry.

Nothing on first name of Fw Burzlaff?

[Seaplanes]

The W.Nr. of 8L+UL was 1840. It was an Arado-built He 59D that was received by Walther Bachmann Flugzeugwerke in Ribnitz on 13.01.1940 for conversion to full He 59N ASR configuration. This work took about seven months.

[Larry Hickey]

Seaplanes,

Thanx. I'll make sure that Peter C. picks this up.

Do you know of photos of any of these planes?

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

For profile purposes I need the first name of Uffz Schulte, the BF on crew of 2./ZG76 Bf110 pilot Ofw Leo Schuhmacher circa mid-August, 1940. Does anyone have this?

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

In our efforts to acquire photos to document every German and Allied a/c shot down during the Phoney War/Sitzkrieg/drole de guerre, our EoE team recently acquired these scans from items offered on a French auction site. This series, showing burning wreckage, is captioned as a German plane crashed in the Ardennes on April 30, 1940 This would be a Phoney War crash, but it just doesn't seem to match any German loss on April 30th or near that time. I'm not even sure that it matches the description of the Bloch 174 from the FAF that crashed that day. Since the wreckage is still smoking you would think that the date would be reliable, and not something that happened previously. I note, however, that one of the photo backs may have 20-4-40 written on the back, with a possible location. Could we be interpreting the handwriting incorrectly and looking on the wrong day? There were Luftwaffe a/c shot down on the 20th that could be our crash. Is anyone familiar with this crash site and incident, perhaps from other photos that exist from it?

http://ihra.smugmug.com/photos/i-Cwn...-CwnS5j5-L.jpg

http://ihra.smugmug.com/photos/i-PKK...-PKKppPM-L.jpg

http://ihra.smugmug.com/photos/i-ppj...-ppjDgXg-L.jpg

http://ihra.smugmug.com/photos/i-W5j...-W5jJZqD-L.jpg

http://ihra.smugmug.com/photos/i-jx4...-jx4hdss-L.jpg

At about the same time we acquired this photo, which may not be related to the photos above, but could be. Is this crash familiar to anyone? It is probably also a Phoney War crash in France.

http://ihra.smugmug.com/photos/i-5nP...-5nPnNWG-L.jpg

I know that these "smoking wreckage" photos are very difficult to ID precisely, but I'm hoping that other photos exist with accurate captions, or someone has found French unit records that ID this incident.

Once again, I'd like to appeal to anyone who has photos of Allied or German crashes lost during the Phoney War to make me aware of them. We have all the most well known aircraft photos, but there are bound to be others that are from personal, local or regional sources that we don't have or know about.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Frans A]

Larry,
I have 2 crashes on 40-04-20
Lt. Helmut Hoch KIA 2./JG 54 Crashed at Belfort, buried in Andilly
Lt. Fritz Sievers KIA 7./JG 53 Crashed at Thionville, buried in Niederbronn-les-Bains
Frans A