Me. 110 damaged in operation Weserübung (The attack on Vaerloese airfield, Denmark)

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

I now believe that there were only two damaged a/c in this incident:

1) Falck's a/c, probably 2N+GB, took a flak hit from ground fire, with the results as reported in the translation from his autobiography above. Name of his gunner, not yet determined.

2) A second 1./ZG1 Bf110C-1, 2N+HH, was also damaged by fire from the ground (or suffered engine problems as stated on the website below?) and made a forced landing at Skejby Mark, near Aarhus, Denmark. An excellent photo of this a/c appears on the "Airwar Over Norway" Website, confirming it as 2N+HH. This would have been the StaKap, Oblt. Martin Lutz, who led the unit from 6.9.39 to 1.7.40. Our EOE Luft loss DB report about Uffz. "Arthur" Schön is now corrected to Uffz. Anton Schön, as pointed out by Robert Szoltyk, and noted by John Vasco in a direct email to me. This is how the name appears in the NVM. John points out that Anton Schön was the regular gunner for StaKap Martin Lutz, followed him to 1./ErprGr 210, and continuing as his gunner when he took over the unit on 5.9.40. Both were killed together on 27.9.40 in an attack on England that day. So the report of the plane at Skejby/Aarhus and the landing of the plane back at Barth with Schön WIA are certainly one and the same a/c, and the pilot of this a/c was Oblt. Martin Lutz, who would have been leading 1 Staffel that day.

Evgeny is correct about the normal a/c of Falck. Where does the info come from that his a/c on 9.4.40 was 2N+AB?

So, we now have only two Bf110C a/c incidents on this mission. The things needing yet to be pinned down are the name of the gunner for Falck that day (Junker, do you know?), and the nature of the problems causing Lutz to make a forced-landing at Skejby for temporary repairs. If Schön was slightly WIA, this probably means that the engine problem was due to minor flak damage. We know the probable a/c codes for Falck's a/c: 2N+GB, and certainly (from a photo) for that of Lutz/Schön, 2N+HH.

We're close to wrapping this one up from the German side. I wonder if either Lutz or Schön left any account of their experiences on this mission, or if any other eye-witness accounts for the German side exist? We'll certainly have to document thoroughly the Danish side of the events that day at Vaerlöse, which I hope our Danish researchers can help with, including any good photos that were taken that day.

Regards,

[Orla Kragh Jensen]

Hi Larry.

"Wrapping this one up" seems to be to little regarding the time and research spendon this very quick summarize of the post. It really clears the picture for me and ads the needed documentation for the input to my book.
Later, I would like to ask your permission to contact you directly to get the documentation and credit’s right for the input, as I also would like to have someone looking over the written text regarding this input, just to be on the safe side regarding the correct information (no timeframe available ;o).

The attack on April 9th. 1940 on Vaerloese Airfield was executed by Stab I and 1./ZG-1 as documented in Einsatzbefehl for I/ZG 1 for Weserübung . The number of Messerschmitt Bf. 110 C was 10 to 12 planes (Junker).

2N+AB info:
Oberleutnant Wolfgang Falck, Gruppen Kommandeur of 1./ZG1, flying 2N+AB, a Bf110C-1, (According to a caption of two photos on page 94 of "Messerschmitt Bf110 Vol. 1 - C,D,E variants" by M.Lebl & P.Tomancak [Revi, 2009] in late July 1940, Falck's Bf110C should have been coded 2N+AB but actually wore the code 2N+GB. The letter “G” was Falck's favorite letter, it was not only the 7th. letter of the alphabet, it was also the initial of his girlfriend “Gerta”(Peter D Evans/LEMB)).

Light flak:
Defending Vaerloese Airfield was 12 pcs. of 8mm. Madsen machineguns in temporary positions placed around two of the four hangars, each machinegun had only 10 magazines, with each holding 30 rounds (every 8th. round being a tracer), light flak, indeed.


Thank you to all who has participated in documenting this incident in history.


Regards

Orla Kragh Jensen

[Larry Hickey]

Orla,

Glad to help out as we needed to resolve this info for our own project as well. Your inputs caused us to add an entry for Falck's damaged Bf110 to our data base, and for this I thank you. It also allowed us to put a pilot's name and plane code and fix the Schön entry. So we all benefited from this discussion. I'll be glad to help you with your text checking. I'll send you a PM for my direct email contact. I hope that you and Junker can help us tell the story in our account of this mission for our eventual publication of the "EOE" volume involving this attack (Vol II), still at least three years away. Can you provide me with any photo material from the Danish side, such as photos of the AA emplacements, or other photos related to this attack and the occupation of Vaeleröse AF by the Germans?

Regards,

[Orla Kragh Jensen]

Finally, I remembered this picture from a Danish book, "Angrebet på Værløse Flyveplads den 9. april 1940" by Hans. A. Schrøder (Flyvevåbnets Bibliotek).


The picture are supposed to have been taken from the area around Jonstrup Seminarium, showing a Messerschmitt Bf. 110 under the attack and pupils watching from the fence around the airfield.

The original origin og the picture is uncertain, but it was common thesse days that the local population took pictures of and around the airfield as there was not that many aircraft flying around these days.

Regards.

orla Kragh Jensen

[Orla Kragh Jensen]

Hi Larry.

There are a lot of "eye witness" documentations from diaries etc, and from the official Army reports from the attach, plus a lot of pictures showing damaged and burned out Danish planes og which almost every detail is documented. I have spend 6+ month at the National Archive in Copenhagen every weekend to collect information and what ever could be found, so please, just ask.

Quick question. Do you (or enyone) have any documentation regarding "ferry units" operating in Denmark in the time from August 1943 to mid 1944. FlÜG 1/Nord is what I have.

Orla

[Larry Hickey]

Orla,

That lies outside the time area of research for the EOE project, so I don't have anything relating to it.

Regards,

[Kari Lumppio]

Originally Posted by Orla Kragh Jensen

Light flak:
Defending Vaerloese Airfield was 12 pcs. of 8mm. Madsen machineguns in temporary positions placed around two of the four hangars, each machinegun had only 10 magazines, with each holding 30 rounds (every 8th. round being a tracer), light flak, indeed.

Hej Orla!

How are you? Long time no see. I have not anything new about the Fokker CVs as have not really done any research on NSGr 11 during last years.

My comment is about the Madsen guns. Finns used the 20 mm Madsen on naval vessels, coastal defences and also in railway cars as AA guns. It appears Madsen had good armor piercing ammunition as was quick to point and change direction making it good weapon against Soviet Il-2s for the Railway AA. (Oh well, I see you wrote 8 mm machine guns. Let this be off-topic then).


Anyway. Happy New Year and all the best,
Kari

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

Was just going over the material again on the Vaerlöse attack, and I note that Junker says that three a/c were damaged in this incident. For some reason my brain had concluded that the 2N+HH photo showed a StaKap a/c, which is not a valid conclusion. This could have been an entirely different a/c and crew altogether, as you would have expected the Lutz/Schön crew to have been flying 2N+AH. So, there may possibly have been three different a/c damaged in this attack, as Junker says. If he would clarify his comments on that and provide his source, it might clear this up.

Sorry to have jumped to conclusions here.

Regards,

[Dean M. Wick]

Greetings: According to Jerry Crandall's book "The Happy Falcon", Falck's Bordfunker on this mission, as on all but one, was Ofw. Alfred Walz. Dean.

[Larry Hickey]

Dean,

Thanks. I have that book, but just didn't have time to research it for this post. I appreciate your doing this and passing on the info.

Regards,