"Stalk" plane over Yugoslavia, summer 1944

[tegbridges]

I am writing a book about my father's WWII and want to fill in a small gap. My father was an escaped POW in Yugoslavia, west of Belgrade, during the summer of 1944. A Brit who was with him has told me that they sometimes had to scramble to safety when a "Stalk" plane appeared. The Brit said it was a two- or three-seater, was a "spotter" plane and dropped small anti-personnel bombs and machine-gunned them. No one in my father's group was harmed because they also took cover in the trees.


I'd like to have a more accurate description of the aircraft. Can anyone help me?

Thanks, Tyler Bridges

[Andy Fletcher]

Hi Tyler,

Check out this link, it is probably what you are talking about.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieseler_Fi_156

Best Regards

Andy Fletcher

[Schenck]

Probably He 46 or He 126 of NSGr.7 with usual load of SD2s or SD50s.
BTW, is it possible to have the name of your father and the unit?

[Larry deZeng]

In summer of 1944, NSGr. 7 was operating He 46s and Cr 42s. The Hs 126s were with Nahaufklärungsstaffel Kroatien. The NDH Air Force at Sarajevo-Rajlovac was also full of 1-, 2- and 3-seaters, both mono-planes and biplanes. There were a variety of single-engine hacks at Zemun (Semlin) and Pancevo, also. So the "stalker" could have been just about anything.

[tegbridges]

Thank you for the replies. By HE 46, you mean Heinkel, right?

I have a 1946 book of a British officer who served with the Partisans in the same area where my father was sheltered by them. The British officer described the planes as "a two-seater Henschel, which used to fly about and drop leaflets and open up with its machine-gun on anyone who was silly enough to stand and stare up at it, or else ladle out pocketfuls of anti-personnel bombs, zooming a few hundred feet above the ground, fired at by everything our chaps could bring to bear."
My father was Richard W. Bridges. He was in the 44th Bomb Group, 66th Squadron, when he was shot down in October 1943 over Wiener Neustadt, Austria.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by tegbridges

… a "Stalk" plane appeared.

If it wasn't clear from the earlier answers, what your father probably meant was a "Storch" (=Stork) the German name for the Fi 156. These planes were certainly used as spotters (and were present in Yugoslavia) but an attack with bombs and machine-guns probably came from one of the other types mentioned above.

If you had an exact date (too much to hope for, I guess!) there might even be a deciphered report of the day's operations, like this. My suspicion is that almost any group of people on the ground in the countryside could look like "partisans" to the airmen and was liable to attack.

[Larry deZeng]

The Heinkel He 46 and the Henschel Hs 126 were both two-seaters with a 7.9-mm swivel mounted machine gun in the rear position. The Henschel was a bit larger than the Heinkel and they both had the high, strut-supported V-niched wing and storck-legs type undercarriage. They looked a lot alike at a distance from the ground.

L.

[RT]

Look so similar that wonder if Henschel dont use the drawings of the He46, the same for the Ar66/Go145 nd He72/Fw44

...


Rémi

[Graham Boak]

If it was using a machine gun and small bombs, it was very unlikely to the the Fi156 Storch. The British officer's identification as the Henschel would seem to be a better bet, although it is possible that he may not have known about the He46 and thus identified the type from those he did know.

However, it doesn't take a very long look to distinguish between the two from photos: the design origins are very different. As with the other types mentioned, a quick comparison of sizes and appearance is enough to distinguish them.