Info on He-111 air loss

[Marc Garlasco]

Gents,
I have a grouping for an He-111 pilot lost and waonder if someone might know if there are any references that might help figure out how he was lost:

The pilot was MIA. His flight was a night flight on the night of August 21-morning August 22, 1944. He took off from CRAIL near Paris flying towards BERNAY on a supply mission for the troops at the front.

I know it is not much...
Marc

[Larry deZeng]

Gents,
I have a grouping for an He-111 pilot lost and waonder if someone might know if there are any references that might help figure out how he was lost:
The pilot was MIA. His flight was a night flight on the night of August 21-morning August 22, 1944. He took off from CRAIL near Paris flying towards BERNAY on a supply mission for the troops at the front.
I know it is not much...
Marc

The odds are that the pilot and He 111 belonged to Transportgruppe 30, although there are certainly several other possibilities:

TGr. 30 [extract]
...............
10 Jun 44: shortly after the Normandy invasion of 6 June, Stab, 1. and 2. Staffel were ordered to Metz-Diedenhofen and 3. Staffel to Trier to support Luftwaffe operations along the invasion front.
18 Jun 44: moved forward to Paris-Orly and flew supply container-dropping missions to German troops surrounded in Cherbourg and nearby isolated garrisons, such as at St-Malo and on Jersey in the Channel Islands.
Jul - Aug 44: after unacceptable losses to Allied night intruders around Paris and continued attacks on the airfields there, TGr. 30 was forced to pull back to Metz-Diedenhofen in early July, and then to Zellhausen in the Frankfurt/M. area in August as the Wehrmacht began retreating from France.
...............

It was the only full Gruppe of He 111s operating in that area at that time. Additionally, there were a few provisional Luftverkehrsgruppen and Luftverkehrsstaffeln doing supply drops over Normandy at the time, but they used mostly other types of aircraft. Although TGr. 30 pulled back to Germany in August, they still used the airfields around Paris (Orly, le Bourget, Creil - any airfield that had fuel and was serviceable for night operations) for staging and refueling purposes. They would fly in at dusk from Metz or Zellhausen, refuel, and then take off in the dark to drop their containers.

--BHS1956

[Marc Garlasco]

I have the Feldpost off his wound badge doc if you can check it: L52383A
Thanks for the info. This was him. Now in the German soldiers cemetary Fort-de-Malmaison.
Marc

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Marc, feldpost number 52383 is for:

(12.3.1943-7.9.1943) Stab Transport-Gruppe 30.




Cheers, Ade.

[Marc Garlasco]

There we go. Now, how do I find out what US units were in the area that day?
Thanks guys!
Marc

[jlava]

Might help...

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents.../ETOOB-TOC.htm

[JR.]

ID Tag from a HE 111

[Marc Garlasco]

Thanks guys, keep it coming. Any and all info is helpful. I have his black wound badge document, the letter to his family listing him as missing (quite long considering his boss must have been busy), and a letter from the grave service postwar letting the father know where his son is buried. A small grouping, but filled with raw emotion and so quite special to me.
Marc