WORLD WAR TWO LUFTWAFFE
86 FLYPAST February 2018
Above
A He 115 of 1/KüFlGr
906, during the
summer of 1940. Note
the access ladders.Below
A Ju 88A practising
anti-shipping missions
in Danzig Bay, 1942.(1/KGr 126) began carrying out
operational trials. Three crews,
known as the Luft Torpedo Kette
(kette – literally ‘chain’) commanded
by Oblts Helmut Lorenz, Josef
Saumweber and Friedrich Müller
flew initially from Brest-Sud and
then from Nantes in western France.
Evidence of this comes from the
loss report of a ‘He 111H-4 Torpedo-
Fluzeug’ commanded by Lorenz on
November 9, 1940. This was shot
down off Brest by a Bristol Blenheim
of 236 Squadron, flown by Plt Off
Dugald Cameron, but Lorenz was
soon back in business. Up to this
point, attacks had been carried out
in the North Sea, so this indicated
to the RAF that the Luftwaffe was
changing its geographical focus.
The men of 1/KGr 126 had to wait
a long time for their first success. At
19:00hrs on November 26 Lorenz
was credited with a 7,000-ton ship
off Falmouth. He reported that, due
to the flak he encountered, it was
probably an auxiliary cruiser.
His victim was the former French
armed patrol coaster Medoc that
had just set sail from Devonport. It
was crewed mainly by Royal Navy
personnel with a Polish captain,
Roman Stankiewicz.
Lorenz hit the vessel with a single
torpedo, which exploded on the port
side near the boiler, enveloping it in
steam and smoke. The Medoc began
to sink and the crew abandoned it.
As it went down, its depth charges
exploded when they reached theirprescribed depth, causing more
casualties than the torpedo. Out of a
crew of 87, a total of 39 were killed,
including Stankiewicz.NEW EQUIPMENT
In December 1940, it was decreed
that II Gruppe of Kampfgeschwader
26 (KG 26) would switch to torpedo
missions. Under Major Helmut
Bertram, the Gruppe moved to the
Mediterranean in January 1941.
Bertram was soon shot down and
taken prisoner. He was replaced
by experienced maritime pilot and
Knights Cross holder, Major Robert
Kowalewski.
On the evening of March 16,
Kowalewski and Lt Karl-Heinz Bock
engaged a British naval force west of
Crete – both aircraft returned safely,
but no ships were hit.
This action heralded the true start
of Luftwaffe anti-shipping strikes.
Technical problems persisted,
resulting in a shortage of torpedoes. A
Torpedoschule (torpedo school) had
been formed at Grossenbrode, near
Kiel on the Baltic, but such operations
remained secondary to conventional
attacks on ships.
There was disagreement as to the
best type of torpedo-carrying aircraft.
On May 27, three crews from 3/
KüFlGr 506 picked up a trio of He
111H-4s from the Torpedoschule.
This staffel was about to convert from
He 115s to Junkers Ju 88s. During
the summer of 1941, trials of the four-
engined Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condorbegan, but were soon abandoned.
Off the British coast, the only units
apparently carrying out torpedo
attacks in 1941 were 1/KüFlGr
406 and ’906, both still using the
He 115 with minimal success. In
the Mediterranean, II/KG 26, now
commanded by Major Horst Beyling,
struggled to continue missions with
dwindling supplies.
This situation was not helped
by Oblt Horst Krupka’s 6/KG 26
together with Hptm Gerd Schäfer’s 1/
KG 28 (formerly 1/KGr 126) moving
to the Eastern Front, where successes
were few and far between. Krupka’s
unit claimed just 20,000 tons of
shipping sunk between October and
December 1941.
Kowalewski took a number of
torpedo-experienced crews to Athens
on August 26, 1941 to operate within
KG 26. Returning on September 28,
he formed a torpedo Kommando
(special detachment) at Lannion in
western France.
Many of the remaining torpedo
qualified crews of Hptm Franz Brey’s
9/KG 40 moved to Soesterburg
in Holland on October 13, and
remained there until January 15,- By that time, III Gruppe of KG
40 was mid-way through converting
from the He 111 to the Fw 200.
ARCTIC CONVOYS
In October 1941, a training school
(Kampfschülegeschwader 2 - KSG
2) was formed at Grosseto in Italy,
with the Grossenbrode Torpedoschule