A couple of Narvik groups

[Simon O.]

In a thread on one of the other forums i said that collecting is rather like waiting for a bus you wait ages for one then several come along at once. So it was for these two small groups which popped up at a dealers site at the same time.

The first group of four is to a sailor from the destroyer 'Diether von Roeder' which was scuttled at Narvik on the 13th of April 1940 after sustaining crippling damage in action against British destroyers.

One of the destroyers in the harbour at Narvik, quite possibly the D.v.Roeder. A photo from my collection.


Narvik shield doc, with the usual Dietl sig.


Woundbadge in black doc, signed by Narvik RKT Fritz Hans Berger. Note the unit, Marineregiments Narvik, The sailors from the scuttled destroyers were employed as ad-hoc infantry for the 2 month campaign kitted out with a strange mixture of German and Norwegian equipment. He was wounded on the 12th of April, records show that an air attack by Swordfish aircraft flying from HMS Furious caused casualties amongst the destroyer's crew ashore (Roeder was being stripped at the time) , perhaps our man was one of those casualties.


EKII doc, signed by Fregattenkaptitän Hans-Joachim Gadow.


Gadow's promotion to Fregattenkapitän, which is also in my collection


1.Okt.1938 medal doc. signed by Heinrich Ruhfus who has the unfortunate distinction of losing two ships under his command. The sailtraining ship 'Niobe' and the cruiser 'Königsberg' which was sunk in Bergen during the Norwegian invasion. Still, his last posting as commandant of the Sea defences of the French Riviera couldn't have been too harsh




cont....

[Simon O.]

Now for the next group, or rather pair.

Unfortunately the original owner decided to proudly display his award documents and thought it would be a good idea to glue them to some hardboard for framing, hence the stains and fading

Anyway, this pair is potentially quite interesting and is worthy of some research.

The Narvik shield doc. Note the unit, SeeFliegerHorst Kompanie Travemünde. It was from here that some of the pre-production and prototype seaplanes flew on resupply mission to Narvik. Namely two Dornier Do24's and i think the Do26's too.


Nice early EKII doc, note the date.


The Narvik campaign was still in full swing at the time and the possible missions for which Blinkmann was awarded his medal are limited to say the very least. With a bit of research and luck i might well be able to pin it down but i'm rather hoping he was grabbed (or volunteered) to act as a gunner aboard a Do24, which had hastily been fitted out with extra machineguns (hence his not being in a flying unit), perhaps he was an armourer who fitted them? It would be nice to think he was on this mission:

When on April 9th 1940 the Germans invaded Denmark and Norway the Luftwaffe had some stiff opposition at Narvik in the northwest of Norway and was in need of seaworthy flying boats capable of bringing supplies to the German troops at Narvik, because there was no other way in to the city. April 12th A. Mlodoch, pilot of the E-Stelle Travemünde, was ordered to take the Do-24 V1 TJ+HR and three Bv-138's to Narvik as part of KGzbV 108-See (Kampfgeschwader zum besondere Verwendung 108-See). Hastily both open gun positions of the Do-24 V1 were fitted with a removable MG 15 machine gun, the B-Stand (middle position) was already fitted with a Rheinmetall-Borsig MG 204. The three Bv-138's proved unable to take off due to the weather so the Do-24 V1 was the only one to go to Narvik despite the bad weather reports. On the way to Narvik the plane was shot upon by English ships but remained unharmed. At 21:18 hours a landing was made due to the coming darkness in a fjord, also to be able to make out the position of the aircraft. In the haste no maps were taken along and the only map available was a school atlas. The next day at 13:24 hours the Do-24 V1 reached Narvik and came under fire from English torpedo boats. The plane was anchored on a buoy between the many shipwrecks in the harbor and was thus covered from enemy fire. With a speedboat the crew was brought to land and heard that the harbor could be evacuated at any moment. Mlodoch and his crew fled to an empty house and watched the battle and his Dornier. As the battle raged they decided to look for a machine gun nest so if they had to they could shoot their own plane to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. He didn't have to wait long as the English tried to tow the Do-24 V1 out of the harbor with a small boat. One well aimed salvo persuaded the English to break the lines and leave the aircraft where it was. Thus the Do-24 V1 was floating around in the harbor and was oddly enough relatively unharmed as the battle went on. Despite the damage the crew wanted to return to Travemünde as soon as possible. During the night of April 16th, under heavy enemy fire, at 03:28 hours the Do-24 V1 took off. Besides the crew there were three passengers, two wounded German naval officers and a English POW, who later turned out to be the nephew of Winston Churchill. The first goal was to get diesel for the engines, they were in luck and when passing Denmark they spotted a German tanker unit and were able to take on enough fuel for the remaining trip. At 15:49 hours the Do-24 V1 landed safely on the waters of the Potenitzer Wiek near Travemünde. April 19th a second transport flight was ordered to Narvik with as main cargo 2000 kg of dynamite.This time the Do-24 V2 was to be used with the military registration DP+DH, because the Do-24 V1 was still in repair. After a 27 minute test flight with the Do-24 V2 Mlodoch decided to take the Do-24 V1. That same night the Do-24 V1 was ready and the next day the flight was made without any problems. After this both prototypes were active in the battle for Norway.

enjoy

Simon