Hi would anyone have any further information on the above airman he was posted missing 11th November 1943, in action North African coast near Cape Ivi, Algeria in, He 111H-11 Werknummer 110379 coded '1H+FL' flying with KG 26
Welcome, The Axis forces in Tunisia surrendered on 13/5/1945, the Allies landed in Sicily 10/7/1943, then on the mainland on 9/9/1943 and and after slow gains against German resistance, the progress was stopped in December of 1943 at the German defensive Gustav Line, south of Rome. All from Wiki. The bomber HE-111 came in many variants, although the description here of the H11 adds little: Luftwaffe Resource Center - Bombers - A Warbirds Resource Group Site Wiki indicates by late 1943 it was no longer used in the anti-shipping role: Heinkel He 111 operational history - Wikipedia Oddly the aircraft's loss is not shown on the usually useful: https://asn.flightsafety.org/asndb/type/H111/4 Another site states: From: Heinkel He 111's Ahh: Six other KG 26 HE-111 were lost on the mission. See: https://lwag.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-2609.html This is not a website I have seen before and the entries are from 2024. Online mapping shows Cap Ivi is to the east of Oran, Algeria KMS31 was a huge convoy: The Arnold Hague database for the KMS series of convoy: From: Gibraltar convoys of World War II - Wikipedia Details of the attack: UNTRUE (page 1) The HE-111 used torpedoes in their attack. There is more online and I have not researched the ships sunk. Hopefully this is enough!
If you are interested in the WW2 Luftwaffe you might enjoy this website - which I did cite - dedicated to researching the Luftwaffe, based on fifty international researchers. It looks very tempting, but not my interest. See: https://lwag.org/ Played with it just and I suspect you have to join to search.
Once again thanks, I try to register. It may well provide details of his crew who were also lost. Steve
listed are 25 crewmembers of KG 26 who fell 11.11.43: Verlustliste Kampfgeschwader 26 - 1943 If you exclude the pilots listed on lwag.org, this should narrow down the search somewhat
Hi davidbfpo and Itdan, after many failed attempts to register and then contact their admin team which also failed, it would appear that The Luftwaffe Archives & Records Reference Group is no longer in operation . Closer inspection of the forum shows the last activity was 30th Jan 2016, a sad loss of what appears to have been a great resource. Steve
A shame, but in my online research it did take me to the information cited. So, it remains accessible.
I tried to search the forum resulting in an error code 404 not found, the forums in general do not open, so I assume if you are a non member the info is not available
BlueLancer, I originally found this link online: https://lwag.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-2609.html and on closer examination just most of the entries are 2004, with updates in 2024. Richard T Eger started the thread and others added the 2024 updates. It appears he was the founder and has passed. I cannot identify what the search was that returned the site, probably "kg 26" + "HE 111".
I dare to doubt that you can still find out the exact crew without a lucky strike. However, I can contribute a little from my - unfortunately very sparse - background literature source: Harold Thiele - Luftwaffe Aerial Torpedo Aircraft and Operations in World War 2 You can see from this that there were almost always more aircraft available than crews for them. Pilot training was a real stepchild of the Luftwaffe. This was all the more true for the demanding blind flight training. The few crews then had to supplement their specific training in the respective units, which resulted in a constant shortage of flying personnel For torpedoes, however, the units were able to draw on the full range of resources: Between May ‘42 and October ’43, KG 26 used no less than 1356 torpedoes, of which about 300 hit, resulting in the sinking of 77 ships source: Chris Goss - Sea Eagles Volume Two, Luftwaffe Anti-Shipping Units 1942-45
That's great Itdan, would you have that info on the 7th Jan 1943 an attack on convoy KMS6 which Siegfried Abraham was also involved. His pilots log reports his sinking of SS Benalbanach
Unfortunately, I don't have anything else. THE source on the KG 26 in general is the book: “Die Spur des Löwen: Der Weg des Löwengeschwaders durch Europa” by Alexander Steenbeck, 2012 ISBN-10: 300038734X ISBN-13: 9783000387340 However, this book is only available in antiquarian bookshops for an indecent amount of money. - or with a bit of luck via interlibrary loan
