northern/Finnish front

[cpaige5@hotmail.com]

There were a number of shot down Luftwaffe personal that were recued from behind Russian lines with a small float plane. Does anyone know how many were recued?

[Brian Bines]

Luftwaffe Im Focus magazine no.15 has an article on Lt. Josef Berendes who flew an Arado 196 on rescue missions, which might be of interest to you,

regards
Brian Bines

[Larry deZeng]

This was a "seasonal" Luftwaffe unit variously called:

Sumpfnotkommando Nord d.Lw.
Hilfssumpfnotkommando Nord d.Lw.
Hilfsseenotkommando Nord

It came into being on 18 August 1942 and belonged to Seenotbereichskdo. IX at Kirkenes and 10. Seenotstaffel.

It used Ar 196s and Fw 58s, and later had at least one Ar 199.

Still in business on 10 September 1944.

Larry

[Larry deZeng]

cpaige5 -

The main source for this unit and it's activities is in Jet & Prop magazine, issues 1/1995 page 6 and 3/1995 page 8. The Kdo. was set up to rescue downed aircrew from the tundra swamps in North Finland and the aircraft operated mainly from Kemi and Alakurtti. There was no mention in the source of how many men were rescued. Perhaps some of our Finnish and Norwegian members have that information.

Larry

[markjsheppard]

Hi cpaige5

Going on the Berendes reports and the article in Luftwaffe im Focus (which did not cover all of his rescue flights), these pilots were using Fi-156, Ar99, Ar-196 were pretty busy.

regards

Mark

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, all

I think the best answer you will get with regards to numbers is 'several' or 'quite a few'.

A specific or approximate number of rescued personnel would require extensive research into a topic with I fear limited interest in the community, and with few records available.

Regards, Andreas B