Dornier 17 aircraft in channel

[Dave H]

 

 

The Dornier was replaced as its bomb load was quite light and its gunnery was quite light too. The thing it did best was low level bombing which may have worked in Poland but not here and they suffered huge losses. Today the ex pilots although I saw on the news only 1 left said it was the easiest bomber to fly while the 111 was the worst but bomb load could have had something to do with that.

 

Sorry to hear about your dad chesters . In every war quite often (apart from the 1st world war as even if you survived the Flu pendamic got you) there are more losses after the war than in it. Vietnham Vets being the worst of all.

 

It's a true statistic that more Americans in Afganistan take their own lives than are killed by the enemy today

[chesters1]

 

The Dornier was replaced as its bomb load was quite light and its gunnery was quite light too. The thing it did best was low level bombing which may have worked in Poland but not here and they suffered huge losses. Today the ex pilots although I saw on the news only 1 left said it was the easiest bomber to fly while the 111 was the worst but bomb load could have had something to do with that.

 

Sorry to hear about your dad chesters . In every war quite often (apart from the 1st world war as even if you survived the Flu pendamic got you) there are more lossesen after the war than in it. Vietnham Vets being the worst of all.

 

It's a true statistic that more Americans in Afganistan take their own lives than are killed by the enemy today

Grandad,never knew the chap as the family split up before i was born ,had his good points i guess at least i had him mentioned on a website for all his faults e,the two small cuttings i have probably seen him as a child but there was a lot of grief in the parting he kept custody of 3 of my mums brothers and sisters my gran had my mum ,all this was never mentioned all the time my mum was alive it all came out after her death ,we suspected but it was never confirmed , {link removed} to been in contact with relatives i never new existed

Strangely i cannot paste the link it sticks the url bit in the wrong place can someone fix it its difficult on this tablet it has a mind of its own

 

{Chesters - I got the link working but when I tried it, my browser lit up with a red screen and a warning that the site now contains some rather nasty malware and that the site owner has been notified it needs cleaning before it is safe to use again. Newt}

[Dave H]

Grandad,never knew the chap as the family split up before i was born ,had his good points i guess at least i had him mentioned on a website for all his faults e,the two small cuttings i have probably seen him as a child but there was a lot of grief in the parting he kept custody of 3 of my mums brothers and sisters my gran had my mum ,all this was never mentioned all the time my mum was alive it all came out after her death ,we suspected but it was never confirmed. {link removed} been in contact with relatives i never new existed

Strangely i cannot paste the link it sticks the url bit in the wrong place can someone fix it its difficult on this tablet it has a mind of its own

Sorry mate for getting the family tree member wrong...Apologies..

[Andy_1984]

Chesters, her eya go

 

{Sorry Andy - the site is now infected so I'm removing all traces of that link. Newt}

Edited May 30, 2013 by Newt

[chesters1]

Chesters, her eya go

Cheers mate ,its the two small press cuttings .he obviously liked his running ,i did a lot at school because i wasnt picked to do anything else!

[Now there's a right un.]

Personally, I believe that this aircraft should remain where it lay.

 

There were four main bombers employed by the Luftwaffe throughout the first 2 years of conflict with the UK.

 

The He111, Do17, Ju87 and the Ju88. Far the most numerous was the He111. My Gran had for many years several photographs of German He111's that flew over her house in early 1944 on a raid. The aircraft flew that low, obviously to avoid radar, that you could clearly see the occupants of the cockpits.

It has to be noted that not one civilian was machine gunned from the air.

The Focke Wolf Condor was a much better choice of aircraft but the lack of foresight of the German high command relegated this splendid aircraft to the role of spotter plane for the Kriegsmarine.

 

The bomb loads of all the active Luftwaffe bomber formations were tiny when compared to the Allied aircraft and they lacked any defence capability.

This conrtibuted to the high losses and low morale of the aircrews who flew them.

 

The Luftwaffe of the period only failed in its task to destroy the RAF simply because Goering changed strategy at a time when the UK was all but on its knees. Had the Luftwaffe continued its attacks on Radar installations and Airfields then the planned Wehrmacht invasion would have taken place with great success.

[Dave H]

That's a well know conception but high ranking officials say that is not really true. They really relied on the look outs posted across kent and other areas. Switching their targets to London worked better. Also a very big factor was Hitler insisting that their fighters assist their bombers protecting them this made it much easier for the RAF to track them but for a very short time and on the way back they could not engage the RAF or they would fail to make the channel. Many german fighters dipped into the sea more than were shot down over it. Bombing London also came within the so called 'Big Wing' group of fighters from the north and with fighters being picked off in Kent and no bombers with protection they were sitting ducks...

Hitler screwed up again disagreeing against the luftwaffe who insisted on bombing the airfields. Hitler was also fooled by dummy aircraft on the air fields thinking we had more aircraft than he thought although the luftwaffe disagreed.

[JV44]

The Germans never had a heavy bomber as there whole military thinking early doors was based around tactical medium bombers for Army support along the the blitzkreig thinking and after there early success in the low countries and with it looking like they were going to steamroller Russia quick smart who could blame them .....new aircarft development was put on the back burner for a while thinking what they had was good enough and set up for mass production.

Then those naughty Russians mooved there factorys lock stock and barrel behind the Ural mountains and out of range of the medium bombers and Goring had no heavy to hit them with....of course he had no long effective long range escort fighter either and you need them as a pair if going in daylight and you want some bombers to get back .

The dornier was state of the art but such is the pace of develpment during wartime or the threat of the RAF had ditched the old Gladiator and hawker biplane fighters for 2 modern ones and the pacy German bomber was suddenly out of it`s depth .

262 a war winner?? well maybe if they

[1] had access to the high temp alloys for the engines which they didnt an average on lasting just 10 hours or so

[2] there best pilots were shot out of the sky in vast numbers from late 43 onwards facing odds of 15 or 20 to 1 on the western front and a similar pattern on the eastern front as they flew to killed and hence training of new pilots was not as good ie experienced aces passing on there hard earned.

[3] they had little fuel stocks towards the end

 

Even the fabled JV44 stafel my username with a whos who of the greatest fighter pilots of the war were unable to make much impact due to fighters picking them off when vunerable around airfield coming into land and sheer numbers they faced

 

262 was years ahead of its time but not without faults...there is one flying the air show circuits although a rebuilt replica that even today doesnt look like a 60 year old design .

Fw condors had a nasty habit of falling out of the sky due to air frame failing but yes were very long legged .

The jerrys lost ultimaely coz the took on both the USA and Russia with there vast manufacturing ability without ways of hitting back[heavy bombers]whilst there own factorys were reduced to rubble and Hitler refusing the chance to fight defence battles at the right places on the eastern front instead of fight and die no step back which may have left time to develop a bigger V2 rocket with range to hit US citys .

Invading Russia and declaring war on America after Pearl harbour ultimately condemed his Reich to defeat with no effective heavy to hit back

[Dave H]

 

 

Nice post.

 

More 262's crashed on take offs and landings than shot down. The Germans did have great engineers though. Their war machines were far superior to what we had. In the end it was just sheer numbers of inferior weapons that defeated them.

 

I remember someone like Patton saying that a Tiger tank may take out 5 of our Sherman’s but we will keep coming.

 

It's quite ironic that a general of the North Vietnam fighting force copied that same speech and fired it back at the Americans...

[poledark]

I think they may have lifted that plane. Saw the platform being towed away about 2pm today.

 

Den