Luftwaffe salvages

[vinnie]

Hi folks,

I would like to know more about the salvage of aircraft by the Luftwaffe in the 1943-1944 timeframe. For example: a German plane crashes in a lake. The location of the crash is known. What did the Germans do in such a situation: did they salvage the whole aircraft, parts from the aircraft or did they leave it as is?
And are there any reports/files that could give me more information about specific aircraft and their possible salvage?

Thank you all for your help!

[vinnie]

It seems that after 1941 the Luftwaffe recovered less wrecks than before. Also, Bergungs Truppe were responsible for these activities. The Germans also salvaged allied wrecks. That's about all I know.... Could anyone tell me more regarding my example and questions? Any bit of information would be appreciated!

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi.

There was a whole industry involved in this.

I have a few examples from different parts of the chain, also overviews of allied aircraft salvaged.

Regards,
Andreas B

[DB601E]

Hi Vinni,

like Andreas already answered, there was awhole industrie involved.
>>"a German plane crashes in a lake. The location of the crash is known".
Depending on the available salvage units and the conditions (depth, access), they tried to salvage the wreck.

I was in contact with a former Luftwaffe pilot and salvage diver (He died last year) he provide me some info. He was salvaging many aircrafts in wartime, but specially also after war with his own company.

And that's the problem today for example concerning my POI Bavaria: We have some information about location of sunken AC, but nobody knows, which AC was salvaged in wartime and in the fifties. It took me about 8 years, to get an almost complete overview about.


Greetings

Lino

[vinnie]

Thanks Lino and Andreas!
That is some nice information. I assume they tried to recover for instance the engine.
I have been researching several wrecks, and it seems that in this lake at least 3 Luftwaffe fighter planes (Me-109) weren't salvaged (all must have crashed in the shallow lake in 1943 or later in the war); two of them were recovered in the early 1960's by the Dutch airforce and number 3 was not salvaged as far as I know, since the pilot is still missing (though that alone does not guarantee that the plane is still in the water). Therefore I assumed that the aircraft I'm focussing on wasn't recovered. But if I understand correct there is very little information about what planes were recovered and which aircraft were not? And is there a way to find out what Bergungs-unit operated in the Netherlands? Maybe there are archives that could be researched to find out if the planes I'm looking for were removed from the water or not.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi.

You assume correct with regards to the lack of information - there are anly a few small scraps with regards to documents left from the units carrying out this work.

What these give us is of course an insight into what was documented.

Regards,
Andreas B

[ArtieBob]

There is an entire CIOS report devoted to rebuild and repair organization and operation in the LW. Sorry, I can't put my hands on the report number right now.

Artie Bob

[vinnie]

Thanks for the help, guys! Too bad there aren't any detailed records in existence to find out what happened to specific aircraft.

[DB601E]

To be sure about your AC you will have to dive :-)

If you would like to do so, i don't want to corrupt your motivation, but I was diving severall 100 times in the lakes around munich to find one of the known sunken aircrafts almost without any success. So i wasn't very surprised, when i visited the salvage diver in 2009, watching all the salvaged ACs in his photo collection: These have been all the wrecks i was looking for so long.

Best greetings from bavaria

Lino

[vinnie]

Originally Posted by DB601E

To be sure about your AC you will have to dive :-)

If you would like to do so, i don't want to corrupt your motivation, but I was diving severall 100 times in the lakes around munich to find one of the known sunken aircrafts almost without any success. So i wasn't very surprised, when i visited the salvage diver in 2009, watching all the salvaged ACs in his photo collection: These have been all the wrecks i was looking for so long.

Best greetings from bavaria

Lino

I understand that's quite discouraging! Too bad they were already recovered, Lino.
Well, I'll look what I can do this summer But mostly wrecks are found by coincidence, so... At least it's a nice dream to have