What incident would you nominate? And why? Please provide a synopsis of story, especially if it is obscure…
"Guttentag mein fuhrer. I bring good news for the Luftwaffe. We now have a powerful new fighter to throw against the Allies! The Me-262. It is a pioneering jet fighter faster than any Allied escort and packing firepower to decimate bomber formations. We will be unstoppable all we need from you is…
“Hey, that’s great! Make it a bomber.”"
… “Sir? A bomber? But…”
“Yes. A bomber.”
“…”
There is the loss of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the author of “The Little Prince”.
Saint-Exupery was a notoriuosly poor pilot and was ground for 8 months after one accident. With that and his growing depression he would have been grounded forever if not for the popularity of his book and intervention of General Ira Eaker. Nobody will know for sure some say that he probably fell asleep while flying his F-5a (P-38 photo recon version)and crashed into the sea near Toulon on July 31, 1944. Or with his continuing depression dove to committ suicide into the sea. Although, two German pilots claim to have shot him down near there, neither reported the combat at the time and only into the early 1980’s made their questionable claims. His bracelet was found in 1998 by a fisherman near Marseille. The remains of a P-38 were found on the sea floor near where the bracelet was recovered. A second P-38 was shot down in the same vicinity the day after he ws lost flown by American pilot Gene Meredith.
He is considered a French national hero, although DeGaulle banned his books during the war for personal slight (thus having his books banned in both occupied and unoccupied France simultaneously).
Mike T.
I’m not sure if it is really an unresolved mystery or not. It seems to me to be more of a conspiracy theory, but while doing some research I was fascinated by the supposed Bordeaux to New York and return flight of a Junkers Ju 390.
The story is that a few pieces of intelligence pointed to a flight by a prototype Ju 390 that got within 19 km of New York City. This is seemingly corroborated by some other dubious sources.
I have seen several calculations about fuel consumption and capacities of the airframe that seem to hint at the impossibility of the flight mechanically. The evidence seems to debunk it fairly well, but we are still looking for Bigfoot aren’t we?
Glenn Miller’s disappearance over the channel.
I don’t know the details because it’s an unsolved mystery.
I did read a story that Glen Miller’s pilot was a risk taker and knew all of these “shortcuts”.
The late Fred Shaw was the navigator of a Lancaster (serial number NF973) based in Methwold. On the day Miller’s plane disappeared, 138 Lancaster bombers – one of them Shaw’s – were returning from an aborted bombing raid on Siegen in Germany because their fighter escorts had failed to get off the ground. Because the squadron could not possibly land with their staggering bomb load5, their combined total of 100,000 incendiary bombs had to be jettisoned. The bomb jettison zone was known as the South Jettison Area (a ten-mile circle 50 miles south of Beachy Head over the English Channel), and was officially dangerous grounds to be avoided by all aeroplanes and ships.
When the bombs were jettisoned from a safety height of 4000 feet, Shaw, who had never seen a bombing before, was driven by curiosity to look out the window. As the bombs exploded several feet above the surface of the sea, he saw a plane 2500 feet below, flying south. Years later he would say: ‘It was obvious to me that the aeroplane below was in trouble, so I watched intently. Then, just before it went out of sight under the leading edge of the wing, I saw it flick over to port in what looked like an incipient spin. And eventually I saw it disappear into the English Channel.’ The bomb aimer had reported the same sighting a moment before; now a rear gunner called over the intercom that ‘there’s a kite6 just gone in down under’.
There are other stories as well including Miller dieing in a bordello, but I alwyas liked this one.
Mike T.
I remember reading a story about a B-17, towards the end of the war. It came in under power, at a shallow angle, and landed itself in a field in Belgium. It came to rest on a berm, with one sides engines still running.
It just so happened a group of Tommies were in that same field. They waited for the “crew” to shut down and get out. No one did, so they went on board and cut the engines. No one was on board,… though 11 parachutes were found and there was no battle damage recorded. The crew was never acccounted for.
What about the death of Leslie Howard? From Wikepedia:
Howard died in 1943 when flying to Bristol, UK, from Lisbon, Portugal, on KLM Royal Dutch Airlines/BOAC Flight 777. The aircraft, “G-AGBB” a Douglas DC-3, was shot down by Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88C6 maritime fighter aircraft over the Bay of Biscay.[20] Howard was among the 17 fatalities, including four ex-KLM flight crew.[21][22]
The BOAC DC-3 Ibis had been operating on a scheduled Lisbon–Whitchurch route throughout 1942–1943 that did not pass over what would commonly be referred to as a war zone. By 1942, however, the Germans considered the region an “extremely sensitive war zone.”[23] On two occasions, 15 November 1942, and 19 April 1943, the camouflaged airliner had been attacked by Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighters (a single aircraft and six Bf 110s, respectively) while en route; each time, the pilots escaped via evasive tactics.[24] On 1 June 1943, “G-AGBB” again came under attack by a schwarm of eight V/KG40 Ju 88C6 maritime fighters. The DC-3’s last radio message indicated it was being fired upon at longitude 09.37 West, latitude 46.54 North.[21]
According to German documents, the DC-3 was shot down at longitude 10.15 West, latitude 46.07 North, some 500 miles (800 km) from Bordeaux, France, and 200 miles (320 km) northwest of A Coruña, Spain. Luftwaffe records indicate that the Ju 88 maritime fighters were operating beyond its normal patrol area to intercept and shoot down the aircraft.[14]Bloody Biscay: The Story of the Luftwaffe’s Only Long Range Maritime Fighter Unit, V Gruppe/Kampfgeschwader 40, and Its Adversaries 1942-1944 (Chris Goss, 2001) quotes First Oberleutnant Herbert Hintze, Staffel Führer of 14 Staffeln and based in Bordeaux, that his Staffel shot down the DC-3 because it was recognised as an enemy aircraft, unaware that it was an unarmed civilian airliner. Hintze further states that his pilots were angry that the Luftwaffe leaders had not informed them of a scheduled flight between Lisbon and the UK, and that had they known, they could easily have escorted the DC-3 to Bordeaux and captured it and all aboard. The German pilots photographed the wreckage floating in the Bay of Biscay and after the war, copies of these captured photographs were sent to Howard’s family.[20]
The following day, a search of the Bay of Biscay was undertaken by “N/461”, a Short Sunderland flying boat from No. 461 RAAF Squadron. Near the same coordinates where the DC-3 was shot down the Sunderland was attacked by eight Ju 88s and after a furious battle, managed to shoot down three of the attackers, scoring an additional three “possibles,” before crash-landing at Penzance. In the aftermath of these two actions, all BOAC flights from Lisbon were subsequently re-routed and operated only under the cover of darkness.[25]
The news of Howard’s death was published in the same issue of The Times that reported the “death” of Major William Martin, the red herring used for the ruse involved in Operation Mincemeat.[26]
[edit] Theories
A long-standing hypothesis states that the Germans believed that UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had been in Algiers, was on board the flight.[27] Churchill himself can be blamed for the spread of the theory; in his autobiography, he expresses sorrow that a mistake about his activities might have cost Howard his life.[28] In the BBC television series Churchill‘s Bodyguard (original broadcast 2006), it is suggested that (Abwehr) German intelligence agents were in contact with members of the merchant navy in Britain and had been informed of Churchill’s departure and route. German spies watching the airfields of neutral countries may have mistaken Howard and his manager, as they boarded their aircraft, for Churchill and his bodyguard. Howard’s manager Alfred Chenhalls physically resembled Churchill, while Howard was tall and thin, like Churchill’s bodyguard, Detective Inspector Walter H. Thompson. Churchill’s Bodyguard noted that Thompson had written that Churchill at times seemed clairvoyant about suspected threats to his safety and, acting on a premonition, he changed his departure to the following day. The crux of the theory posited that Churchill had asked one of his men to tamper with an engine on his aircraft, giving him an excuse not to travel at that time. Speculation by historians has also centred on whether the British code breakers had decrypted several top secret Enigma messages that detailed the assassination plan. Churchill wanted to protect any information that had been uncovered by the code breakers so that the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht would not suspect that their Enigma machines were compromised. Although the overwhelming majority of published documentation of the case, repudiates this theory, it remains a possibility. Coincidentally, the timing of Howard’s takeoff and the flight path was similar to Churchill’s, making it easy for the Germans to mistake the two flights.[29]
Two books focusing on the final flight, Flight 777 (Ian Colvin, 1957), and In Search of My Father: A Portrait of Leslie Howard (Ronald Howard, 1984), concluded that the Germans shot down Howard’s DC-3 for the specific purpose of killing him.[14] Howard had been travelling through Spain and Portugal, ostensibly lecturing on film, but also meeting with local propagandists and shoring up support for the Allied cause. The Germans in all probability suspected even more surreptitious activities since German agents were active throughout Spain and Portugal, which, like Switzerland, was a crossroads for persons from both sides, but even more accessible to Allied citizens. James Oglethorpe, a British historian specialising in the Second World War, has investigated Howard’s connection to the secret services.[30] Ronald Howard’s book explores in great detail written German orders to the Ju 88 Staffel based in France, assigned to intercept the aircraft, as well as communiqués on the British side that verify intelligence reports of the time indicating a deliberate attack on Howard. These accounts also indicate that the Germans were aware of Churchill’s whereabouts at the time and were not so naïve as to believe he would be travelling alone on board an unescorted and unarmed civilian aircraft, which Churchill also acknowledged as improbable. Howard and Chenhalls were not originally booked on the flight, and used their priority status to have passengers removed from the fully booked airliner.
Most of the 13 passengers were either British executives with corporate ties to Portugal, or lower-ranking British government civil servants. There were also two or three children of British military personnel.[14] The bumped passengers were the teenage sons of Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt: George and William Cecil, who had been recalled to London from their Swiss boarding school. Being bumped by Howard saved their lives. William Cecil is best associated with his ownership and preservation of his grandfather George Washington Vanderbilt’s Biltmore estate in North Carolina. William Cecil described a story after several months back in London in which he met a woman who said she had secret war information and used his mother’s phone to put in a call to the British Air Ministry. She told them that she had a message from Leslie Howard.[31]
While ostensibly on “entertainer goodwill” tours at the behest of the British Council, Howard’s intelligence-gathering activities had attracted German interest. The chance to demoralise Britain with the loss of one of its most outspokenly patriotic figures may have motivated the Luftwaffe attack.[32] Ronald Howard was convinced the order to shoot down Howard’s airliner came directly from Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany, who had been ridiculed in one of Howard’s films and who believed Howard to be the most dangerous British propagandist.[14] The British Film Yearbook for 1945 described his work as “one of the most valuable facets of British propaganda”.[33] A 2008 book by Spanish writer José Rey Ximena [34] claims that Howard was on a top-secret mission for Churchill to dissuade Francisco Franco, Spain’s authoritarian dictator and head of state, from joining the Axis powers.[35] Via an old girlfriend, Conchita Montenegro,[35] Howard had contacts with Ricardo Giménez-Arnau, a young diplomat in the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Further circumstantial background evidence is revealed in Jimmy Burns’s 2009 biography of his father, spymaster Tom Burns.[36] According to author William Stevenson in A Man called Intrepid, his biography of Sir William Samuel Stephenson (no relation), the senior representative of British Intelligence for the western hemisphere during the Second World War,[37] Stephenson postulated that the Germans knew about Howard’s mission and ordered the aircraft shot down. Stephenson further claimed that Churchill knew in advance of the German intention to shoot down the aircraft, but decided to allow it to proceed to protect the fact that the British had broken the German Enigma code.[38]
The 2010 biography by Estel Eforgan, Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor, examines currently available evidence and concludes that Howard was not a specific target,[39] corroborating the claims by German sources that the shootdown was “an error in judgement”.[25]There is a monument in San Andrés de Teixido, Spain, dedicated to the victims of the crash. Howard’s aircraft was shot down over the sea north of this village.[40]
panzerpilot that would be the Ghost bomber of November 23, 1944. The log of the aircraft shows it returning to its base. Nobody knows who took the aircraft out.
There was another aircraft a B-26
“In the fall of 1944, possibly on 9 Sept 44, a B-26 ran out of gas and crashed at Poperinge, Belgium.
The plane came in from the East and crashed on the west side of town. No crew members were in the plane when it came down.”
This aircraft couldn’t be recorded as being lost by any units operating in the 9th Air Force at the time. Especially, since no B-26 units flew missions that day. I wonder if it was used by KG 200 possibly as they used Allied aircraft for various covert missions. They did have a B-17 and a B-24.
Mike T.
Joe Kennedy.
World War II service
During World War II, Kennedy left before his final year of law school to begin officer training and flight training in the U.S. Navy. He earned his wings as a Naval Aviator in May 1942 and was sent to Britain in September 1943. He piloted land-based PB4Y Liberator patrol bombers on anti-submarine details during two tours of duty in the winter of 1943–1944. Kennedy had completed 25 combat missions and was eligible to return home. He instead volunteered for an Operation Aphrodite mission.
[edit] Operation Aphrodite
Memorial for Joseph Kennedy Jr. inside the fortress of Mimoyecques (France)
Operation Aphrodite made use of unmanned, explosive–laden Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bombers, that were deliberately crashed into their targets under radio control. These aircraft could not take-off safely on their own, so a crew of two would take-off and fly to 2,000 feet (610 m) before activating the remote control system, arming the detonators and parachuting from the aircraft.
After U.S. Army Air Forces Operation missions were drawn up on July 23, 1944, Kennedy and Lieutenant Wilford John Willy were designated as the first Navy flight crew. Willy had pulled rank over Ensign “FNU” Simpson (who was Kennedy’s regular co-pilot) to be on the mission. They flew a BQ-8 “robot” aircraft (a converted B-24 Liberator) for the U.S. Navy’s first Aphrodite mission. Two Lockheed Ventura mother planes and a navigation plane took off from RAF Fersfield. Next, the BQ-8 aircraft loaded with 21,170 lb (9,600 kg) of Torpex took off. It was to be used against the Fortress of Mimoyecques and its V-3 cannons, northern France.[2]
Following 300 ft (91 m) behind them in a de Havilland Mosquito to film the mission was Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, son of U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Kennedy and Willy were aboard as the BQ-8 completed its first remote-control turn. Two minutes later and ten minutes before the planned crew bailout, the Torpex detonated prematurely and destroyed the Liberator, vaporizing Kennedy and Willy. Wreckage landed near the village of Blythburgh in Suffolk, England.
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ATTEMPTED FIRST APHRODITE ATTACK TWELVE AUGUST WITH ROBOT TAKING OFF FROM FERSFIELD AT ONE EIGHT ZERO FIVE HOURS PD ROBOT EXPLODED IN THE AIR AT APPROXIMATELY TWO THOUSAND FEET EIGHT MILES SOUTHEAST OF HALESWORTH AT ONE EIGHT TWO ZERO HOURS PD WILFORD J. WILLY CMA SR GRADE LIEUTENANT AND JOSEPH P. KENNEDY SR GRADE LIEUTENANT CMA BOTH USNR CMA WERE KILLED PD COMMANDER SMITH CMA IN COMMAND OF THIS UNIT CMA IS MAKING FULL REPORT TO US NAVAL OPERATIONS PD A MORE DETAILED REPORT WILL BE FORWARDED TO YOU WHEN INTERROGATION IS COMPLETED
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Roosevelt’s damaged Mosquito was able to limp home, the crewmen injured. A total of 59 buildings were damaged in a nearby coastal town. The Navy’s informal board of review rejected the possibility of the pilot erroneously arming the circuitry early and suspected jamming or a stray signal could have armed and detonated the explosives. An electronics officer had warned Kennedy of this possibility the day before the mission.[3] Kennedy was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal. His Navy Cross citation reads:
For extraordinary heroism and courage in aerial flight as pilot of a United States Liberator bomber on August 12, 1944. Well knowing the extreme dangers involved and totally unconcerned for his own safety, Kennedy unhesitatingly volunteered to conduct an exceptionally hazardous and special operational mission.
Intrepid and daring in his tactics and with unwavering confidence in the vital importance of his task, he willingly risked his life in the supreme measure of service and, by his great personal valor and fortitude in carrying out a perilous undertaking, sustained and enhanced the finest traditions of the United States Naval Service.[4]
Willy was also posthumously awarded the Navy Cross. The names of both men are listed on the Tablets of the Missing at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial, a cemetery and chapel near the village of Madingley in Cambridgeshire, Britain, that commemorates American servicemen who died in World War II.
[edit]
That sounds like a Twilight Zone episode.
I would have to say it was my first successful solo landing…but that was a few years after WWII!
[;)]
What about “Wongo Wongo”???
Amelia Earhart. Was she on a recon mission for the U.S.? She dissapeared, along with Fred Noonan, on July 2, 1937. A few days later Japan invaded China. The theary persists that she was shot down by the Japanese near the Mariannas.
That’s funny. [:D]
It actually is very odd considering the Germans already had an excellent jet bomber in the Arado AR 234
Not really…the 262 was developed much earlier than the Arado 234…
I was going to say the same thing.
Bill
It’s also funny that the 262 was a fighter that was forced to be a bomber, but the 234 was a bomber that was forced to be a recon platform.
I didn’t realize the ME262 was that far ahead of the AR234. I guess without the whole bomber fiasco they could have really gotten it out early.
Especially when you consider that the 262 was faster. With no guns and just cameras, it could have been the SR-71 of the day.
The whole Me262 turned into a bomber because of Hitler and that’s why they lost the war is overblown…the 262 WAS used primarily as a interceptor/fighter…
Ironic thing is that what most folks don’'t get is that air-to-air combat and kills, while romantic and made for good propaganda, didn’t win wars. Attacking ground targets did…the US and USSR got this and if the Germans would have followed their first instincts (ala the Hs129 and Ju87) they [we] might have made better use of their [our] air force…