Luft Flak Wehrpass

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Hi guys,

I found this Wehrpass recently. This is my first Luft Flak Wehrpass, so I don't quite understand the regiment, abteilung, etc association.
I can kind of read his training, and I think it is Scheinwerfer, but please correct me if I'm wrong. This is something I would like help on.

An interesting note, it looks like he was assigned to duties in Normandie in September 1944.

All opinions welcome.

Thanks!

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Truppe assignments and training

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Theaters of operation

[Hank C.]

It's written he was involved in the west front ops including Normandy from 6 June to 2 Sep 44. (roughly "street fighting in order to protect the march routes to the westfront and Normandy")

Nice looking wehrpass. I'd be wondering about those entries from 6 June on, somebody with more knowledge of the units might be able to help out. According to what's written, he was involved in the area of the Battle of the Bulge a month or two beforehand (Mayen, Kaisersesch, Polch), then protection of the East Train Station in Mayen, then th e march routes to the Western Border and Malmedy, and the last entry has him with 39 battle days total, which is a tad odd (to me) to be listed there...

Looking forward to hearing what others with greater knowledge have to say!

best
Hank

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Thanks Hank, that's good info. It's funny how it's not until someone else translates something, can I see what is going on. I guess I need to practice my military german vocab a bit more.

[Jochen1000]

I find his units a bit stange. Maybe I am wrong … but ok, lets go …

He changes from a Flakscheinwerferabteilung into Feld-Flakart. Schule 31 . It
is not uncommon to have these changes from home-based searchlight units to front units (it even seems that a lot of young guys made these transfers
then), so everything good.
According to the usual sources for flak units (www.ww2.dk and the lexikon of
course) this school at Chartres had 6 batteries mobilized for combat duties
when the invasion started.

So my first question, should he not have some entries for training at a gun? A school at this time was not possibly equiped with MG 151/20, was it?

Maybe ok but then this WP says that these former school units were renamed
into leichte Flak Abt. 308. Did this unit even exist? And by coincidence it is
again a unit with a 308 in its Name which would enentually be converted into
lei. Flakabt. 935 (an unit which was originally exactly his old Scheinwerferabt.
308)?
So to cut a long story short, I would say that these unit entries would make
sense if only the Flak-school was not mentioned. But I don’t like them the way
they are now. I would really Like to see other WP of these units.

It is not easy to explain but please compare these entries with the sources on
the internet (which are not always correct of course).
I simply don’t like the renaming of the school-units into lei. Flak Abt. 308 it
makes no sense to me (even though the entries look good).
But I could be wrong of course.

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Jochen, I appreciate the help. As mentioned, I am not familiar with the Flak Luftwaffe Wehrpasses, so if anything, this is great information that has pointed me in a direction to do further research.

Now, if anything in my Heer Wehrpass and Soldbuch research has showed me, sometimes, unit transfers just don't make sense. I had a Soldbuch once that in the middle of unit transfers, there was some unexplained units, etc.

So, given the transfer in the middle of engagements, and that he was only in the Flak Abt. 308 for a short period, I fall back to the anomaly factor and believe that not everything was documented correctly. As mentioned, I am not familiar with Luft entries, but with Heer entries, I have seen cases where some unusual unit entry precedes a unit entry that makes sense.

As much as we would like to believe that their system was flawless, I feel that sometimes, info fell through the cracks. I find it very frustrating when things don't line up, because I like a story to go from beginning to middle to end, but I often have to say, not everything may have been documented accurately or unit info post-war.

As mentioned, I appreciate your help and you have given me some good info on what to do more research on. Thanks man.

[Jochen1000]

Hi Chad,

sure, we see many wrong entries in these documents. But I am usually a bit more cautious
when these entries concern the most interesting part of the career of a soldier – like in this
case with entries like Normandy or Malmedy in Mid-December 1944.

Look, I am not saying that it is faked or something … but you asked for
opinions so I pointed at the things that look strange to me.

By Mid-July 44 Scheinwerferabt. 308 was somewhere around Vieux-Rouen
apparently. So
Given the fact that FAS 31 was somewhere not too far from that point chances
are that
These two units were merged somewhere.

Anyway, I won’t go on here. It is just that I, like you, prefer a story to go on
from beginning to the end.

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Jochen,

Please don't take my comments as a misunderstanding. I absolutely appreciate all comments, good/bad about items that I post. I encourage it, because I do not like fakes, nor want them in my collection. So I wasn't attacking (and I hope I didn't come off that way), I was just offering a rationale, that's all.

[Jochen1000]

No offence taken at all and I surely did not feel attacked :-)

I just like a thorough exchange of opinion!

[JeremyJ]

Wp

Actually it would be interesting to see the other entries in this Wehrpas.

Cheers

Jeremy

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Sounds good Jeremy, I'll take more pictures this week and post them soon.