Some Photographs - Crashed Aircraft etc.

Diane,

Photo No 95 appears to be a chalk drawing made I think by a soldier who had a few spare moments of time.

Appears to say; Es Leben die
Front
Soldaten

Literal translation. She lives for the soldier at the front.

Perhaps meaning the soldiers sweetheart that is waiting for his return from the front.

Nicely scripted and would have taken some time to draw.

Regards

Tom

 

Diane,

You could be right. I looked at several ways of interpreting and went for the Mächen interpretation, thinking that is what a soldier would be thinking about!

Regards
Tom

 

Diane,

Photo 94, ' I'm a little tea cup ' appears to be an NCO with a new iron cross second class decoration.
Probably pressured by his friends into having his picture taken, judging by his stance!

Regards
Tom

 

Es Leben die Front Soldaten

literal translation: the front soldiers live

better translation: long live the front soldiers

reminds me of the hold out slogans painted on dutch barns and houses during the last year of the fighting....but this one is a bit more artistic - where was it taken? any info on that?

 

#4..Me109 tail section. Hand painted camo.

 

What are we looking at?

1



Aufkl. Gr.156 Sixteen Fieseler fi156. Aircraft destroyed or abandoned after landing troops around Nives and Witry between 4.35 and 7.00am. Two crewman killed, two wounded and one missing. Aircraft all write-offs.

This audacious airborne assault, code named Operation 'Niwi', landed troops behind allied lines to ease the advance of Gruppe Von Kleist through the Ardennes east of Neufchateau. 100 Storch aircraft took part, each carrying two men of Infanterie-Regiment 'Grossdeutschland', and making two round trips from bases at Dockendorf and Putzhohe.

Taken from 'The Battle of France Then and Now'.

Does anyone know what the aircraft are in pic's 2 and 3 ?

 

Those are indeed, very interesting pics.

 

Perhaps this site help you in your Investigations: This is link is dead (In german units)

Actualized group of links: Wehrmacht unit emblems and tactical markings









Jan.

 

10 and 11 are particularly interesting. Colonial troops if I'm not mistaken. Was the French Army integrated in 1940?

Gerard, did you ever get an answer? Were the French army intergrated? Thanks

 

...seeing as my 1940 book collection has slighty increased since I first posted on this thread. Apologies if some have already been answered in later threads as I'm starting from the begining and working my way through them.

No.1 Additional info I don't think posted: Aufkl.Gr.156 Sixteen Fieseler Fil56. Aircraft destroyed or abandoned after landing troops around Nives and Witry between 4.35 and 7.00 am. Two crewman killed, two wounded and one missing. Info from ATB Battle of France. Edit: I see I had already posted the above in post 192.

No.2 is GAO 518 Breguet 270 (64). Crashed on take off at Bray-sur-Seine. Cause not stated. Cmdt Montaudie and Adjt Penclaud unhurt. Crashed on 14th Sept 1939. Info from ATB Battle of France.

No.3 is a Potez 63-11. There were around 163 of these aircraft lost during the campaign with the Morane-Saulnier 406 being the only French aircraft to suffer higher losses.

No.8 to No.11 Are a mixture of French and French Colonial PoW's. Gerard, I think this may answer your question- There was around 63,300 West Africans estimated to have fought in France during 1940 and made up eight RTS units (Senegalese Infantry Regiments) and eight RICMS units (Mixed Senegalese Colonial Infantry Regiments). Which answers a bit more on No.10 and No.11. Definately West African not North African IMO.

No.50 I've seen before- I'll come back to that one.

No.53 and No.54 I thought more of the Maginot Line than Belgium or Albert Canal as Adam mentioned. Maginot isn't an area I've really looked at though.

No.55 Is Germans training IMO - They are wearing the White training demins already mentioned and a trainee German soldier appears to be stagging on near the bunker.

No.70 The soldier is buried North West of Reims but am I right in thinking he was killed at Montcornet which is directly North of Reims. Either way he would have been part of Group Von Kleist and would have been fighting 2'eme Arm'ee of the French Army. The only problem I have is the Germans hadn't reached Montcornet yet on the 15th May from what I can make out they were still around 70 kms away.

No.73 is a appears to be a French soldiers grave.

Post 82 and No.75 I will come back to later as No.70 took me over an hour to find that info.

No.76 The Germans entered Paris on 14th June and held a victory parade 16th June. IMO if it was taken in 1940 which I think it was I would say it was the 16th June as they look like they are going to be part of the parade or watching the march past.


Shame you run out of pictures Di.

Regards
Andy

 

Hi Diane

I found this page in Mai 1940 tonight. I thought it may be of interest. Sorry I can't help with the translation.

 

Hi Diane

I found this page in Mai 1940 tonight. I thought it may be of interest. Sorry I can't help with the translation.

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

Hi Diane & Drew5223, I use this resource Free Online OCR - convert scanned PDF and images to Word, JPEG to Word and obtain these OCR text for it helps.

4 Les atterrissages sur le ca-nal Albert n'étaient pas les seules opérations spectaculai-res dont nous gratifiaient les Allemands en mai 1940. La façon dont procéda le 3e ba-taillon du régiment Gross Deutschland. entre Nives et Witry. était tout à fait inha-bituelle. Les 400 soldats qui acompagnaicnt l'Oberstlt. Garski atterrirent au moyen d'une centaine de Fiescler. Storch. Cc type d'avion par-ticulièrement maniable n'avait besoin que d'une pis-te d'atterrissage relativement courte. Mais il ne pouvait transporter plus de deux sol-dats à la fois, si bien qu'il fallut deux vols pour amener sur place toute cette unité d'élite. Une épave déchique-tée, le long de la grand-rou-te, à Petite-Rosière, nous rappelle l'atterrissage du groupe des Leutnante Ober-mcier. et von Blankcnburg. Assez étrangement, les signes de reconnaissance dc l'appa-reil n'ont pas été repeints: la croix gammée, la croix noire allemande et le code (VA) sont bien là. Le chiffre blanc 16, à la queue de l'appareil, était celui des L'arche (cigo-gnes) qui prirent part à l'opération NIWI (Nives-Witry). (Photo Bundesarchia 382/250/43) 5 Le 13 mai, c'est l'Aufi<I. Abt. 23 qui atteignit la Se-mois, à Mouzaive. Quelques cavaliers du Reiterschwadron sont en train de franchir la rivière. A leur droite, des prisonniers de guerre français consolident un pont de se-cours. Peut-être s'agit-il d'hommes du Ile Cuiras-siers, qui fut surpris par l'avance allemande dans la nuit du 12 au 13 mai. De l'autre côté de la Semois, un canot nous rappelle l'époque insouciante où l'on pouvait encore faire du sport sur la rivière. (Photo Bundesarchiv 84/68/25a) 6 A Motizaive, des camions allemands, dont deux Borg-%yard de 3 tonnes, se risquent à passer la Semois sur un pont de secours rudimentai-re. Une cuisine roulante a déjà atteint l'autre rive. Deux voitures, qui avaient essayé de traverser la rivière à gué, y sont restées bloquées.

Possibly, with a petit retouch, could will be readable at 100% and then translatable.




Jan.

 

You ae wellcome, Diane!

Note, that this aircraft is an Fieseler Fi 156 Storch (in English "Stork"), as you possibly known a very famous model, not as are transcripted via OCR



Jan,

 

"The airlandings on the Albert Canal were not the only spectacular operation that the Germans demonstrated in May 1940. III Battalion Gross-Deutschland Regiment carried out an equally unusual action between Nives and Witry.

The 400 troops who accompanied Oberst. Garski actually landed there with a hundred-odd Fiesler Storch. This exceptionally agile aircraft needed only a relatively short landing strip.

The disadvantage of the aircraft was that it couldn't carry more than two soldiers at once, so that two flights were needed to transport the entire unit.

A crumpled wreck alongside the 'Grand Route' in Rosière-la-Petite is a reminder of the landing of Lt. Obermaier and Lt. von Blankenburg's group.

Strangely enough, for this operation the identification markings were not overpainted. The swastika, cross and code (VA) were left untouched. The white cipher '16' on the tail of the aircraft was carried by the 'Störche' (storks) which took part in the NIWI ('Nives-Witry') operation."

I've cheated a bit as I have the Dutch language edition. The translation is not quite verbatim.

The mention of overpainting the markings is a reference to the tactic used for the gliders and aircraft which attacked Eben Emael and the Albert Canal bridges - They were painted out and not recognised immediately as enemy aircraft.