Luftwaffe losses. Rhubarb 22/05/1941.

[Juha]

Hello Andreas
I admit that the two I mentioned are long shots but
In their way to a debriefing leader and wingman had usually opportunity to talk. Here in Finland there was a case when a professional W/O made his appr 33rd kill, a Boston. After landing the wingman congratulated his boss for his Boston kill but the W/O sharply replied that the victim was a flying boat and that he knew very well how Boston looks but the victim wasn't a Boston but a twin engined flying boat (he was probably thinking of GST/Catalina). Both agreed that it would be odd if the leader gave his victim as a flying boat and the wingman confirmed the victory was over a Boston. So the wingman gave in and the victory was marked down as a flying boat. In reality it was a Boston from 15 ORAP, KBF. So it maybe not so odd that also in this case both pilots claimed that the plane was a Ju 52 but as I wrote it's a bit far fetched to think that they misidentified a Ju 88 as a Ju 52 but at least the area is right.

Juha

[Andy Saunders]

Plenty of He 113's shot down in the Battle of Britain, too!

Some of them were possibly Hurricanes.

[Franek Grabowski]

The aircraft was encountered just NW of St. Omer, so this rather excludes mentioned Ju 88 and He 59. The damage may have been caused by ground fire, not claimed, friendly fire or the date is wrong.
PS Andreas, I will merge replies.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, Juha

Nice story! And which kind of underlines the points I have made previously with regards to the human brain and stressful situations... you should think that these guys would have seen the same thing, and even even directly after the landing they had 'seen' something quite different.

As I am currently including mapping functionality in the database system I will use this date as a first test, and provide the link during the weekend, so we can see what we come up with

From the allied side - anyone got further claims for this date?

Regards,
Andreas B

[Franek Grabowski]

No more FC claims, at least according to Tony Wood summaries.

[Juha]

Franek
Caen-Carpiquet was the base of K.Gr 806. So if the crew thought that the plane wasn’t too badly damaged they might have thought that it would have been best thing to do to fly to their permanent base. So for ex some damage on landing gear might then cause massive damage during the landing. Just a possibility.

Juha

[Franek Grabowski]

There is quite a distance between St. Omer and Caen, and the aircraft was obviously heavily damaged, therefore I doubt if it was a result of the action. I suppose that the Ju 52 just got damaged but landed in one piece and was later repaired, the paperwork being lost since.

[Juha]

Franek
IMHO we don't know how badly the Ju 52 or what ever was damaged, we only know what Ogilvie and Malczewski reported. The Ju 88 theory isn't very probable but still a possibility. Your theory is another possibility, IMHO more probable but still only one of possible explanations.

Juha

[Franek Grabowski]

Juha, we talk about distance of about 250 km in straight line...
Likely, we will never know what actually happened.

[Juha]

Hello Franek
Yes, I know the distance but I still can see some reasons why a crew would like to flew to their permanent base where their repair shop probably was if they thought that they could make it.

Juha