23rd December 1944 - raid on Koln/Cologne - VC for plane shot down

[RodM]

I have bolded the entries in post # 9 of the details I've cited directly from German documents. The un-bolded entries originate from work done by Herr Gebhard Aders in Köln archives a few decades ago.

I also have details of the air combat claims by heavy bombers, recognised/awarded by Headquarters Bomber Command:

Day 23 December.

8 Group Lancaster "T" of 582 Squadron, 5053N 0703E, 1255 hrs. 17,500 ft. sighted 15 Me.109s and 4 FW.190s ahead and above. 2 Me.109s attacked, one of which received hits from the R/G. Another Me.109 attacked, followed by a FW.190 which was fired on by the M/U/G and burst into flames. 3 further Me.109s attacked, one of which was damaged, followed by 2 Me.109s which finally broke away. 1 FW.190 claimed destroyed and 2 Me.109s damaged.

8 Group Lancaster "R" of 582 Squadron damaged FW.190.

Among the other documents that would be useful to you is the Bomber Command Interception Tactics Report for 23 December 1944 (I don't have a copy, sorry), which will be in AIR 14/3744 (Interception and Tactics Vol VII) at The National Archives, Kew. The Interception Tactics Report will provide a very good overview of the Luftwaffe air attacks, and RAF repsonse.

Cheers

Rod

[Cofian]

Thanks. I need some assistance understanding the lingo. Before that, the following:

The problem (in disguise??) is that Palmer's Lanc wasn't the leadplane. The point here is (which clearly follows out of the Combat Reports of the 65 squadron) that at the 'rendez vous' point the fighters only found 2 bomber-groups. The third group wasn't there. At that location, when the real leadplane took a view of the weather, the decision had fallen to step off the planned attack mode and switch over on bombing on sight rather then on automatic. This the two remaining groups did.

The third group, with Palmer in the lead, appeared to not have waited for the other groups AND the escort at the rendez-vous but had moved on independently. This was noticed when they saw a group planes way ahead of them. It then was decide that the 65 squadron would fly ahead to try and pick up the stray group, the other two fighter squadrons remained as protection of the remaining 2 bomber groups.

We now switch over to the 'lead'group with Palmer in the 'lead'plane. With them being where they were, Palmer ofcourse had not picked up the order of the real leadplane to change tactics and attack on sight. Palmer and his group thus pressed on to go on the 'auto' system, which required the planes to drop 'on the lead plane dropping' and also required the bomb-run to be a straight approach. This with a clear sky was ofcourse much more dangerous with flak and German fighters being able to simply 'home-in'.

The 65 squadron was able to catch the stray Palmer group at the time they were about to be attacked by the 26 JG which apparently had by chance run into them.

What does the above (according to me) mean for the footage? With the 65 squadron footage one can thus conclude that the Lanc's you see can ONLY be the Palmer group Lanc's, non of the other Lanc's. The 190 that was shot down was the one attacking the (what also the Germans thought to be) 'lead'group.

If we are able to (maybe??) single out which plane belonged to which of the 3 bomber groups we might then also be able to further pinpoint (by way of determining which plane was where) which Lanc we see hit here.

That is where I have to look at you guys again to 'translate' what precisely you have passed on.

[Cofian]

L.S.,

Obtained the ORB’s for the 582. Understand from these that there were some 5 planes did not return. One mentioned in the ORB’s and not in the other lists sofar has been the 899. The both planes that crashed are not mentioned in the list, nor is 523. The latter are assumed to be non-582 planes.

Another conclusion is that there is a distinct difference in time-over-target notations: 4 are 12:54-55, remaining 7 planes are generally 12:58-59, with one 12:57.30. From one there is no recorded time-over-target.
According to the 582-ORB thus 13 planes survived, 5 were lost.

If I then home in on the 12:54-55 planes as well as the non-‘time-over-target’ plane, I can more or less safely conclude that nearly all of these planes had NOT heard any order to bomb ‘visual’. These all bombed ‘on leader on OBOE’. The odd one out is the plane which bombed at 12:55. He reports to have heard instructions, but still followed ‘the leader’.

From the TOT 12:58-59 planes, including the 12:57:30 one, nearly all HAD received instructions to go visual. Only 2 out of these 7 planes ‘followed the leader’.

I had hoped to determine a sort-off ‘flight’ order, but these are not in the ORB. I do think however based on this info that:
- The 12:54-55 planes bombed together with Palmer: first on site and following the leader (mostly) not having heard the instructions. These are in total (including Palmer) then 5 planes.
- The other planes were in the groups lagging behind.

From the data of RodM it seems therefore that 523 was not a 582 plane.

Plane ‘T’ (must 130-T mentioned in the ORB) which reported on the fighters and ‘R’ (must be 267) who claimed to have damaged a FW.190 seem to belong to the first group (the ‘early bids’ with Palmer?). Interesting also is that according to the ORB’s nearly all of the 13 surviving planes reported ‘flak-holes’, only 3 did not report damage. There is NO report of any plane with a burning pot inner engine…

Based on that we at least can officially ‘forget’ all the surviving planes, including the above ‘T’ and ‘R’ planes doing the fighter claims, as being the plane in the footage. That plane (with a burning port inner engine) thus more or less for sure has gone down. Plane 558 apparently crashed in France, so also that one is not in the footage. The ones remaining are thus the 120, the 141 and the plane of Palmer (371). With ‘kommandeur’ Hackle (claiming) shooting down what he thought to be the leadplane at around the arrival of Palmers group over target and Werner being shot down at around the same time, the footage could well be the Palmer plane.

Could someone point me in the right direction to see the footage that is being discussed in this thread - I am looking into the action of Squadron Leader Palmer and would like to see for myself the points being discussed

Thanks
Andrew