IWM Air Historical Branch microfilms

[Richard T Eger]

From 12 O'Clock High!:

Sergio Luis dos Santos
Luftwaffe air attacks against allied armour Ardennes 1944
Sat Aug 25 01:35:58 2001


Hello to all!
A friend of mine is building a diorama to show a Sherman tank under attack during the offensive through Ardennes in 1944. He asked me whether the Luftwaffe had "anti-tank" units there. To my knowledge no. I think the best option would to use a Focke-Wulf Fw-190 (A, F or G) from a fighter unit, like JG 26. Maybe I´m wrong and special units, like SG were in action there. Can someone point me a positive identification from any Luftwaffe unit and the best aircraft to be used in the scene? Did any special weapon like rockets were used ?
TIA !

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

Dick Powers
Re: Luftwaffe air attacks against allied armour Ardennes 194
Sat Aug 25 07:10:56 2001


In "To Win the Winter Sky", Danny Parker mentions normal Jagdwaffe units making attacks against allied armor columns using 21 cm rockets, and also use of Ju87 and Ju 88 as night attack aricraft. I don't recall his mentioning SG units being used as tank busters.

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

Nick Beale
Anti-tank ops, Ardennes
Sun Aug 26 11:40:22 2001


War diary No. 5 of III./SG 4 (period 1 Nov 44 to 19 Jan 45) is on Reel 8 of the "AHB 6" microfilms at the Imperial War Museum. This says that the Gruppe was using guns and 8cm Panzerblitz rockets only (i.e. no bombs) so I guess tanks were a potential target. On 1 January 1945, 12 of III./SG 4's opeerational aircraft took off: 5 carried out their mission and the rest turned back. Three aircraft went missing: Ofw. Schneider, Fw. Heinz and Fw. Fye. Fw. Rischbieter's a/c had severe Flak damage.

I recall that the wreck investigation reports for this period include a 190F-8 with 8cm pB rockets.

NSG 20 by contrast used only guns and bombs. They did attack armour but usually tank assemblies or road traffic (which may have included tanks) and almost always by night. I don't know of their engaging tanks that were themsleves in action but anything's possible.

[Richard T Eger]

From TOCH!:

Sergio Luis dos Santos
Great info Nick, Thanks !!! n/t
Sun Aug 26 19:02:32 2001

[Richard T Eger]

The following is taken from within a thread on 12 O'Clock High!:

Steve Coates
Steven.Coates1@btinternet.com
Slightly off my original point, but ...
Tue Aug 28 20:04:24 2001


Artie Bob,

I'll answer your query as best I am able from what I understand. The manufacturing material (the Speer Collection and the Milch Documents) ended up at the IWM as part of the FD (Foreign Documents) Collection. This was quite heavily used by David Irving for 'The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe' but has now been largely restituted to the BA-MA and can be accessed via RL 3, although the IWM retained microfilmed copies and has an index of sorts to this material. Certain items remain at the IWM such as the 1943 and 1944 Henschel Year Books.

Other technical material, emanating from individual companies, can be found in the GDC (German Document Centre) collection. There are a number of good index books to this material.

Equally, a number of weaponry related documents, principally those amongst the hoard found at Unterluess are also retained by the IWM as part of the HEC (Halstead Exploitation Centre) collection. Again, the IWM has a useful index to this material. I have a representative list of files but this is far from complete.

The operational material went to the AHB (Air Historical Branch) but as far as I am aware has now all been restituted to the BA-MA. AHB translated portions of this material and these translations can now be accessed at the PRO under AIR 20 / 7700 upwards. This material appears to be an exact duplicate of the material available at the AWM.

Equally, AHB microfilmed a number of 8th Abteilung documents and these are available at the IWM in various grubby boxes. There's some interesting material here. I have a catalogue of these if you're interested. Please feel free to contact me off board.

[Richard T Eger]

For reference to Erhard Milch's papers at the NARA and IWM (microfilm), the reader is referred to the "References & Reference Materials" forum, "Books on Nicolas von Below, Hitler's Luftwaffe Adjutant" topic.

Regards,
Richard