CHAPTER ELEVEN
Progressing in France after having landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944, Allied soldiers discovered many wrecks of captured planes on ex-German airfields nearly intact. Some of those aircraft/wrecks were Beuteflugzeuge (captured aircraft).
To counter the second landing launched on the southern coast of France, German forces were dispatched to Provence, including II./JG 77, whose mechanics were transported by ex-Italian transport planes. But the Wehrmacht could not counter the enemy, and all France was being slowly liberated. On Belgian airfields, in September, other foreign planes of the Luftwaffe were also liberated.
Advancing in Normandy, US soldiers will find at Rannes the wreck of an obsolete French Bloch 210 in German markings.
We do not know if it was a hack machine or a decoy placed on a fake airfield.
In August 1944, II./JG 77 left Italy for Southern France. The ground crews were transported in Italian Savoias.
Flight from Ghedi to Orange.
In spite of the German retreat, air fighting was still intense, and new Allied aircraft fell into German hands. One of the most renowned was the Mustang P-51 OP-K (44-14271) of USAAF 4th FG, one of the three planes of that type used by the German Airforce.
At Marseille-Marignane, US troops discovered ex-French LeO 451 bombers transformed into transport planes.
Inside a Marignane hangar.
On 13 October 1944, a few months before the end of the war, a pilot of the 15th Airforce ‘borrowed’ a recce P-38 Lightning to deliver it to a German-held airfield in North Italy. That man, a vehement anti-communist, wanted to help ‘the fight against Bolshevism’. It was probably the third or fourth Lightning which entered the Luftwaffe, and this rare plane was certainly transferred to ‘Zirkus Rosarius’.
At Chartres airfield, the wreck of a burned Potez 63-11 is examined by G.I.s.
Two captured B-17s destroyed in an allied bombing at Versailles-Buc. 42-30604 was a four-engine of 100th BG captured near Caen on 4 October 1942, while 42-39759 of 390th BG was lost at Vimy (Northern France) on 30 December 1943 (see photo before). These bombers may have been in too bad a state to be evacuated to Germany and remained at Buc as sources of spares for other captured Flying Fortresses.
Another B-17 wreck found at Buc.
Still in Versailles, two wrecks ‘liberated’: a Typhoon (JP 845 of No. 485 Sq. lost near Abbeville on 21 December 1943) and a Mosquito.
In Lyon (probably Bron airfield), at least two wrecks of Reggiane 2002 were found.
These ex-Italian planes operated in Sonderkommando Bongart, a special unit engaged against French partisans.
On Melsbroek airfield (near Brussels), a Canadian soldier poses in a Dewoitine 520, an ex-French machine used by Zielgeschwader II. Before leaving the area, German mechanics removed the wheels of the plane.
Another D.520 destroyed at Melsbroek. Victim of a bombardment or blown up by retreating Germans?
A G.I. in front of a dump in Belgium or Northern France. On the top of the pile are the remains of an Re. 2002. Perhaps an abandoned plane of Sonderkommando Bongart which could not reach Germany.
On 12 September 1944, Cpt Thomas E. Joyce of 4th FG landed his P-51 D near Bernau which was quickly seized and repainted. This fighter will be one of the three Mustangs used by 2./Versuchsverband, based at Göttingen.
A good snap shot of the Mustang.
The P-51 with a German P-47 (probably ‘Beetle’).
The P-51 T9+HK with SpitfireT9+EK.
One of the few P-38s used by the Luftwaffe. The machine here was probably delivered by a defector in Northern Italy.
This P-38 was photographed at Luckau while being demonstrated to fighter pilots of JG 4.
In its advance west, the Red Army will capture some planes, such as this ex-Italian Savoia, used in a transport unit.
Another transport plane, an SM.82, captured by Soviet troops.
An interesting (but certainly not complete) list written at the end of the war gives an idea of some of the US aircraft captured from August 1944 to March 1945. Here are the intact (or nearly intact) planes which were likely prepared to enter the Luftwaffe:
· B-17 F 230336: captured at Bad Vöslau on 28 August 1944. Nearly transferred to KG 200 but lost before.
What remains of a German B-17.
Other Allied planes fell nearly intact into German hands. This P-51 of 354th FG/356th FS belly-landed in Germany on 1 December 1944.
· P-51 D 413616: captured at Oberhaching with only 20 per cent damages on 11 September 1944. Loaded on a train to Prenzlau on 10 January 1945.
· P-51 4210358: landed on its wheels at Ödenburg on 9 December 1944.
A Lockheed Lightning T9+MK in the winter.
B-24 KO+XA was initially a pathfinder plane captured on 20 June 1944 after being forced to land near Stettin. Transferred to KG 200, this four-engine plane was used in some special missions (deploying agents). Evacuated ahead of the Allied advance, the bomber eventually crashed when taking off from Quedlinburg.
The crew tried to save the plane. As it was impossible to repair KO+XA, it was destroyed by fire.
Near Herne (Germany), G.I.s seized a train loaded with some captured Allied fighters (P-47s and Spitfires). Consequently, these planes never entered a Versuchsverband to be tested.
· P-51 41442: captured with 10 per cent damages on 6 October 1944 at Reureld (Note: probably 44-144442 of 55th FG).
· P-47 267324: captured with 10 per cent damages at Gross-Sachsenheim on 2 February 1945.
P-38 T9+MK after its ‘liberation’.
At Salzburg, the same fate befell B-24 ‘+KB’ which fell into German hands on 4 February 1944 after a landing in France. This bomber was based in Austria for some supply flights from the Balkans to the besieged island of Rhodes.
The wreck of a German P-47 as found by G.I.s.
P-47 T9+LK ‘liberated’ in a better condition on Göttingen airfield.
· P-51 D 4413905: landed on its wheels at Barmersdorf on 20 February 1945 (a single propeller blade being bent).
· P-51 D 411363: landed on its wheels on 2 March 1945 at Zerbst.
· B-24 441108: landed on its wheels on 24 March 1945. Two engines damaged. Delivered to KG 200.
This Thunderbolt seems to have been a plane of 301st FS/332nd FG (the ‘Tuskegee airmen’), captured on 29 May 1944 in Italy. Its pilot, disoriented, had landed on a German-held airfield.
This P-47 was probably partly destroyed by its last owners.
Three to five Thunderbolts were probably used by the special units of the Luftwaffe.
The remains of T9+RK, another Luftwaffe P-51.
Naturally, at that time, difficulties in communications largely hindered the transport of those planes and the majority of them could not be delivered as hoped to the German flying units.
Occupying a German airfield, men of the USAAF will discover some wrecks of American planes.
It is in their advances on German soil that Allied troops found the most numerous Beuteflugzeugen. Many were blown up by retreating mechanics, but nevertheless some ex-USAAF machines could be liberated.
Wreck of an SM.82 on a German airfield.
In May 1946, to commemorate the ‘Great Patriotic War’, German weapons were exhibited in a Moscow park. An SM.82 is seen in background.
At the same time, a Cant 1007 was part of an exhibition at Kiev.
