Aalborg, August 13th, 1940

[Jochen Prien]

Gentlemen,

yet another request for help concerning the activities of II./JG 77 over Denmark in the summer of 1940:

A lot has been written about the RAF attack on Aalborg-West a/f on August 13th, 1940, yet the picture isn't entirely clear to me. This begins with the number of Blenheims actually deployed on this attack; from what I can see the German side reported two formations totalling 23 Blenheims.

One Squadron active on this day was of course 82 Sqn. RAF which set out with 12 Blenheims, of which one had to return early, while the others were all lost to the German defences.

But which units formed the second formation ? Or was there a second formation at all ? Chris Shores in his Fledgling Eagles, p. 353, is a bit vague about the identitiy of the second formation although I take it from his account that there were in fact 23 out of initially 24 Blenheims taking part in the attack.

There can be no doubt that there was overclaiming on the German side, but the question is, to what degree - initially there were 16 claims by fighters and four by Flak, later reduced to 15 in total with exactly that number of confirmations for the participating fighters from 5./JG 77.

The second formation - if there was one - seems to have escaped without any loss, although Chris Shores states that German fighters made claims for five Blenheims from that second formation. However, in the loss reports I havve seen so far I can only find the 11 victims from 82 Sqn. and none from another unit.

So, what was going on ecaxtly ? Many thanks in advance and

regards

Jochen Prien

[Nick Beale]

Hallo Jochen,

Do you have After the Battle issue 72?

This has an article on the Aalborg raid which includes a diagram of the RAF formation, consisting of A and B flights of No. 82 Squadron. Six aircraft in each flight but one from B flight turned back with a fuel problem. The author also quotes a Danish newspaper report of the raid, printed the day after, which speaks of an attack by "12 English bombers" of which 11 were shot down.

[ju55dk]

A lot of rubbish have been written about this attack. It was only 82 who was dispatched to attack Aalborg, as I allready have told you about the time of your JG 77 book.
The confusion migt arise from the fact that 82 split up in two formations. The formation was tracked by the Luftwaffe Flugmeldedienst, who correctly predicted Aalborg as the likely target.
A danish policeman Ole Rønnest have done a magnificent research/book on this attack.
There is not a shred of evidence from RAF-archives that a second unit was send out to attack Denmark on this day. All Blenheim that fell on danish ground came from 82 Squadron.

Junker

[Thor1968]

I agree. 12 Blenheims in A and B flight. One Blenheim returns. 11 Blenheims shot down by flak and Messersmiths.

Se a short resumé in english from the book by Ole Rønnest:
http://www.airmen.dk/a107017.htm

Here is a list of places where the 11 planes have crashed.
http://www.flensted.eu.com/194014.shtml
My late father saw the plane over Restrup enge beeing shot down. He was just 6 years old at that time. I have heard a lot of this raid from him.

Further more I saw a Danish dokumentary of this raid.
"Den dømte ekskadrille" (The doomed squadron). Same worktitle as Ole Rønnest book. This dokumentary also stated that 12 Blenheims were outbound from England and 11 shot down.

Regards
Torben Christensen
Denmark

[Jochen Prien]

Gentlemen,

many thanks for your kind and helpful replies - it looks like that again the German side couldn't count correctly, seing 23 instead of only 11 Blenheims, just like on December 18th, 1939, when they counted 44 or even 52 instead of just 22 Wellingtons.

It's odd still that on August 13th, 1940, the Luftwaffe confirmed 15 fighter claims out of 23 attacking a/c and thus left out a very good propaganda coup since the actually achieved total destruction of an attacking force - 11 out of 11 - simply coulndn't be bettered, whereas 15 ( or 16 ) out of 23 meant that some of the intruders got away. Be this as it may, as for the Aalborg raid I'm satisfied that there were just the 11 Blenheims of 82 Sqn. and no second formation.

Many thanks again, and Jörn Junker, please apologise that I didn't remember the letter you wrote in 1992 when JG 77 / I first appeared. I'll try better next time.

Regards

Jochen Prien