| Prelude to
disaster The background to this story starts in 1942, and takes place in occupied Europe. This is the year where the German army dominated large parts of Europe, ranging from the sand banks of Calais in the west to the outskirts of Stalingrad in the east. The situation are grim and hopeless for Britain as the only Allied Country left in Europe. The invasion of the USSR, gives Britain a well needed break from German bombing and the decisive victory in the Battle of Britain. Most of the German army are now fighting in the east, including the majority of the Luftwaffe. The losses among the Luftwaffe crews during the Blitzkrieg, then during BoB and finally during the opening phases of Barbarossa, makes its toll. This forces the Luftwaffe to speed up the training of Pilots, and cut back on training, although not yet on a minimum basis like in the last war years. In Greifswald, the School unit, Grosse Kampffliegerschule 3 are stationed. This unit has a mixed airpark consisting of several different types as He111, Ju W34 and Ju88.[1] The unit has responsibility for last check out for training Pilots before being relegated to operational units. The training consists of bomb practice and other weapons system. These Planes have often been through hard battles, and have been written off for active duty, and given to School units. The Planes have been given a short overhaul at a factory and the armaments have been removed. The only identification of the new unit was painted back on the tail or where Ground crew felt for it. The factory code was often kept (in CF+VP's instance) The rest of the story are very unclear, and can only be told based on some few certain facts [2]. The date is late night/early morning on June 29th 1942.Willi Voss, a married man [4] and one of the students that are on guard at the school, discovers something. He sees light from one of the cockpit in a Ju88A-5 and goes for inspect it further. Inside the Plane he discovers a friend of his. This particular friend has earlier tried to get Willi to desert together with him for unknown reasons. The next things happens quick, he's threatened with a pistol and are set to fly the Plane to UK. [5]
Greifswald Airfield, unknown year. Today very little remains of the Airfield. Copyright : Luftwaffe Museum Gatow and Fliegerhorste.
The
alarm is sounded when the Plane takes off. We don't know what kind of
air defence Greifswald had, probably it had the standard mix of 20 mm
"Vierling" and 37 mm's, including MG's based on tripods
throughout the Airfield Perimeter. The surprise is probably complete,
since the flak crew's didn't get in any decsive hits on the Plane.
Copyright: Reichsluftminsterium.
Over the Baltic ocean there are thick fog and making navigation very difficult, one of the Students must have been through some blind navigation, since they managed a while to keep the right course. The bad weather continoues over Denmark. Staying only some few meters in search for landmarks, they're running a high risk flying into something. The reason why they steers north is probably to avoid crossing Northern Germany and Denmark because of the flak contested areas around Kiel and Wihelmshafen, and (unknown to them) using the blind holes of the German radar coverage around the Swedish coast.
Copyright:
"Signal" (1943) Back on the ground, german radar positions followed the deserters on the screens. The radar station, and center for several Night fighter units, in Grove (Karup), Denmark gives the order to either force the Plane to land, or shot it down before it reaches UK. But the bad weather forced the Germans to cease most of the Flights.
At 4:15 CF+VP was in vicinity of Skagen, north in Denmark. The Plane had been tracked from 2:30 to 2:50 over Seeland in Denmark. Order was given to shoot the Plane down, this order was given by Generalmajor Krueger back in Greifswald.[6] It's not certain who was flying the Plane, was it Willi Voss or was he tied to the seat? For unknown reasons,, the Plane changes course to Norway instead of UK. The Norwegian coast at Telemark is sighted. Both Pilots still believe that they had managed to get to UK safe. [7] When the Plane is over Kilsfjorden, the fuel situation is critical and the RPM of both the engines are decreasing. They begin a short turn over the fjord, and settles for a place not far from the mainland. The back canopy is released as standard procedure during crash landings.
They make a low pass over some houses at the beach before touching down on the water, almost crashing into some apple trees. The Pilot made a textbook example of a three point landing on the fjord, without damaging the Plane slightly [8]. The lifeboat is released back in the Plane, but today the big mystery, is what happened to the lifeboat, since none of the eyewitnesses saw this boat. Also a mystery is the existence of the german fighters over Kilsfjorden that day, did they intercept the Plane before the crash landing? [9] Aase Heibø and Liv Anna Haslum are
cleaning the cottage belonging to Dr. Krohn before the summer vacation.
Suddenly they hear a loud noise and looks out of the window. They sees a
Plane making a low round over the Fjord and finally ditches down on the
water. After the water had calmed down, Aase sees two guys climbing out
of the cockpit.
The women takes a small boat at the cottage [10], and rows as mad out to the Plane to rescue the Pilots. Willi Voss is easily rescued. The other one, who probably couldn't swim, drowns only few meters away from the hands of Aase. Back in the cottage, Willi gets dry clothes and warm soup. The Pilot suit is hanged out to dry out, this was to become a faithful decision. Willi get shocked when he hears that he have landed in Norway instead of UK. When the girls tells about the fate to the co-pilot, Willi only replies with something like that the dead has taken a step further, and he [Willi] is finished. The girls noticed that Willi carried with him a brown envolope, that they had also seen him with it, standing on the wing. This brown envelope was most probably thrown into the fireplace, was heated up to warm the wet aviators. At the same time Arne Sandaas from the neighboring cottage comes in. He has witnessed the whole incident. Arne has a longer conversation with Willi. Sandaas offer Willi to hide him until the war is over. Willi rejects this proposal and says he doesn't have a chance anyway. Later a group of german soldiers with an officer [11] discovers the cottage and Pilot's suit. Willi is arrested and Arne Sandaas gets notification about later questioning by the officer.
Arne Sandaas, as one of the prime
witnesses, was later called in for interrogation in Oslo. Sandaas and
Sturmbannführer Wegner
[12], the guard appointed, was called to Berlin. It was a long and
eventful trip for Sandaas [13], as a member
of the resistance he made a detailed report for London. When they
arrived at the Court Martial at January, 12. 1943,
they were quite surprised to know that Willi Voss had been executed
the previous day.
Even today the circumstances around this execution is very sketchy at best. Today we believe that the deceased was a spy for England [14] and had connections on the rocket base at Penemünde. Willi had also observed a briefcase which the Co-Pilot had brought with him. This particular briefcase was never found in the wreck, most probably the brief case was flushed away when the Plane sank. A map over the location where CF+VP ditched.
[1]
Barry Rosch, Luftwaffe Codes, Markings
and Units; 1939 - 1945, (Schiffer books, 1995) ISBN: 088740796X. Also from M. Holms execellent page about Luftwaffe.
-- 29.06.1942: "SN Ber. Kdo VIII meldet, dass im PQ 05 Ost 99164 ein Ju 88 abgesturzt ist. 1 Mann der Besatzung wurde von ein Boot der Flak gerettet." -- Also in "German radarstations in Denmark 1942-45" by M. Svejgaard (p. 36) There is a footnote about the tracking of a defecting German Plane in june 1942 by the Radarstation "Seehund" stationed in Zealand (Sjælland)
[4]
Willi Voss gave his marriage ring to one of the girls that saved him,
the fate of this ring is not known. He also told them that he was from
Cologne.
[5]
Why UK was the destination instead of neutral Sweden, which was much
closer and easier to navigate to, can explained to Sweden's policy to
repatriating deserters back to Germany. This was probably known by
Wehrmacht personnel from rumors and by showcases published by OKW to
discourage desertion. The policy of returning deserters was not changed
after the defeat at Stalingrad. Another reason could have been the
probability not have being able to contact British consulate authorities
in Sweden, thus jeopardizing the mission.
[6]
Information obtained from email correspondence with Douglas
Hinton, journalist in NASM.
[7]
The route of the Plane is not known exactly, but it must have been
flying over Zealand since it was detected by "Seehund". The Pilots have probably
navigated using landmarks on the swedish coast and then turned west in
Kattegat/Skagerrak, but this turn was probably too late since they believed the
Norwegian coast was Scotland. The question is if the Plane was tracked
by German radar's in Norway. But until this date, it's has not been
possible to find archive reports about tracking of the Plane. The only
interesting that have surfaced has come from the late Per Skaugstad. He
hfound
reports about a alarm made on the same evening on 29.06.42 : "21.30 Uhr Bereich Seekommandant Oslofjord Alarmstrufe Eins gem. Befehl.Terr.Befh. Sudnorwegen." --
If this alarm has any connections to the crash is not known. [8] The
Magazine Jet&Prop has a theory on this, based on that Willi Voss was degraded
before the desertion. They have given him the grade of a Flieger
(Private) Since he already had been through 2 1/2 years of training
including that Luftwaffe Pilots usually finished the school as
Fenrich/Leutnant. This would probably given enough experience to fly the
Plane in bad weather and perform a crash-landing on the sea, which was a
textbook example. [9]
According to Guttorm Fjeldstad, eyewitnesses have told about shooting
before the crash, this has yet to confirmed with surviving German
archives, if they still exist. The bullets found in the Plane can either
come from landbased MG's or from a airborne Fighter. [10] This
cottage still stands today. [11] The origin of these soldiers is not known. [12] Of
What we know about Wegner, that he was in his 40's, came from Stettin
and was a Police officer of profession. After the Voss case, he was
transfered to Ostmark (Austria) Nothing is known after this. [13] Sandaas was called to Victoria Terrasse to one Sandaas calls "Ortskommandant". Here he was informed that the case was to be held in Prague. Some days after, a new message came, moving the case to Berlin and the Reichkriegsgericht. He and Wegner flew to Berlin (Staachen) via Copenhagen with a Lufthansa Ju52 (This could have been the same "Herrman Stache" D-ADQV, that crashed two years later) On the trip back, Sandaas had to take the train through Sweden from Denmark to get back. [14] A similar case happened one year later in Norway. A german nightfighter pilot, Heinrich Schmitt, defected with a Ju88 and its crew (one was forced) on May 23rd 1943. The Ju88R-1 are now preserved at RAF Hendon. [15] The
webmaster has contacted the Volksbund regarding the possibility of the
existence of Voss's verlustmeldung, but have not got any reply from them
yet. Also a request to the Norwegian State Archive (Riksarkivet) was
sent in January (2004) regarding Arne Sandaas and the existence of any
police records about his connection with Willi Voss. Regretfully some of
the archives from Police department in Kragerø from 1931-47 were
missing, and nothing came forward. |
