Western Desert 1942

[bill norman]

Does anyone have any record of a Hurricane Mk II of No.73 Sqdn shooting down a Ju88 between Daba and Alexandria on the night of 31 August 1942? Any and all details welcome!

[Tom Semenza]

Bill,

In Fighters Over the Desert by Shores & Ring mention is made of the loss of a Ju 88 of II.(K)/LG 1 near Alexandia on this night. No reason for the loss is given. In his history of 73 Sqn., Don Minterne makes no mention of any claims by 73 Sqn. on this night. Unfortunately your mystery remains unsolved.

Regards,
Tom

[bill norman]

Tom, not quite unsolved: I am in contact with an ex-73 Sqdn pilot who claims to have shot down a Ju88 between Daba and Alexandria on the night of 31 August 1942. Does the book give any crew details?

Bill

[Frank Olynyk]

I have a Ju-88 shot down on Aug 31, 1942 at 0402 hours; the location is given as Amriya district. The pilot was S/L G.R.A.M. Johnston, in Hurricane IIc BE518 flash (I do not remember the meaning of "flash" as part of the serial number). Reference is the combat report, on microfilm, at CR: Air 27/638-234&234z (it is two pages, but only the first page is numbered, thus I added the z to indicate two pages).

Enjoy!

Frank.

[NoNo01]

Hello Gentleman,

regarding the excelent two-volume history of LG 1 from Peter Taghon this most probably is:
Ju 88 A-4; L1+FP; Wrknr.: 140739 from 6./LG 1 shot down at Abu Orgos (?) by nightfighter on 31.8.42 at 03:00 (German time),
with FF Hptm. Wolfgang Voigt KIA; BO Fw. Egon Wiele POW; BF Ofw. Richard Baumann POW; BS Uffz. Karl Gruber KIA.
There´s a short discription of this incident by surviving Fw. Wiele too.

Hope this helps a little

Schoene Gruesze

Norbert

[bill norman]

Thanks to all who have responded to date - much appreciated. It now seems that the Ju88 I am seeking may have crashed near Burg el Arab (between El Alamein and Alexandria) around midnight or just after. Can anyone help further? Also, am I correct in thinking that British 'North African' time was one hour behind German 'North African' time in August/September 1942?

Bill Norman
(website: www.billnorman.co.uk)

[NoNo01]

Hello Bill,

the plane i mentioned fits perfect to the one Frank describes, although this dont makes it necessarily the plane You are looking for.
Some additional info:II./LG 1 attacks airfields around Alexandria.
6. Staffel, or at least parts of it,take on Amriya.
Crew of Hptm. Voigt was attacked by nightfighter from behind and below with hits in the cockpit damaging the controls.
They tried to escape in direction El Alamein (means also in direction Burg el Arab) when the second attack set the port engine on fire.
So it was bail-out!

The area mentioned was Abu Ogos, not Abu Orgos (Typo in the books list), wich makes a lot more sense.
Abu Ogos is a group of landing strips around 10 kms south of Amriya, so perfectly where the fight took place.

Nice evening to all

Norbert

[Tom Semenza]

Thanks to Frank for the details on S/L Johnston's claim. Both Chris Shores in Aces High and Don Minterne in The History of 73 Squadron gave the date for this claim as 30 August rather than 31. The reference to "flash" after the serial number may refer to the unique squadron marking of the pre-war red and blue flash fore and aft of the fuselage roundel. Apparently at this time 73 Sqn. aircraft often did not carry any individual aircraft letters.

Tom