Jump to content

Luftwaffe planes in Sheffield?


Recommended Posts

Great story Dr GN

(I re-linked, above, to the photo, which wasn't working for me.)

As you say, completely baffling as to what was going on in the newspaper story.

I would add, for anybody who hasn't noticed, that the story continues on page 14

Cheers Vox, yes that's the picture. The link was from the pilot's Grandaughter's e-mail to me. Maybe it got cut short during copy/paste?

There is someone in Canada I know who is investigating the story to try and get to the bottom of what happened. Personally I think it's someone who took Schulte's name as a cover.

Thanks again,

Dr_GN.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By email from Ron Clayton

-------------

I can add little more save that the 109 was a fighter and that the first four 'kills' of the Hardy Kreuger look alike pilot were French machines.It is of course the Grand Hotel [anyone remember the Buccaneer Bar?] but what about the strange uniforms of the men around the plane? Not RAF- some sort of recovery crew/unit or Fire Brigade? 109's were in still in use by the Spanish until 1965 and borrowed for that fine movie 'The Battle of Britain][1968]. Surprising what comes out of a picture -however well known.

Chocks Away

Ron

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By email from Ron Clayton

-------------

I can add little more save that the 109 was a fighter and that the first four 'kills' of the Hardy Kreuger look alike pilot were French machines.It is of course the Grand Hotel [anyone remember the Buccaneer Bar?] but what about the strange uniforms of the men around the plane? Not RAF- some sort of recovery crew/unit or Fire Brigade? 109's were in still in use by the Spanish until 1965 and borrowed for that fine movie 'The Battle of Britain][1968]. Surprising what comes out of a picture -however well known.

Chocks Away

Ron

Vox, Ron,

I posted a full list of Schulte's claimed kills in post #4. According to his grandaughter, he claimed a total of 8 kills, with 7 being officially confirmed - all by the age of 22!

My Dad seemed to think that the people in uniform were maybe from the City Hall?

Contrary to popular belief, there were no airworthy Messerschmitt 109's in the film "Battle of Britain". The aircraft were in fact Hispano HA-1112 "Bouchons", The Bouchon was a license-built Spanish copy of the Bf109. Ironically, these aircraft used Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, and are easily identifiable by the different nose shape required to accomodate the upright Merlin V-12 as opposed to the Messerschmitt's Daimler-Bens inverted V12. The main giveaway is the exhaust stub positions.

It's these Hispano Bouchons's that served with the Spanish AIr Force until into the sixties, and are invariably the "Messerschmitts" mis-described in films and TV documentaries. There are only a couple of airworthy Bf109's in the world - the Daimler-Benz engine ihas been extremely rare for decades now, whereas the Rolls Royce Merlin is relatively easy to find (and maintain).

Cheers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to add a bit more smoke and mirrors, the "Sheffield Since 1900" book by Peter Harvey, has another photo of the me109.

In this picture on page 94, the aircraft is displayed within a building with a heavily re-inforced low girder supported roof. The photo shows a long queue of little boys and older "little boys". The caption says that visitors paid 6d to look and 1/- to sit in the cockpit. Proceeds to the Sheffield Newspapers' War Fund.

Of course the plane was toured all around the country 'so the plane may have been photographed at another location.

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to add a bit more smoke and mirrors, the "Sheffield Since 1900" book by Peter Harvey, has another photo of the me109.

In this picture on page 94, the aircraft is displayed within a building with a heavily re-inforced low girder supported roof. The photo shows a long queue of little boys and older "little boys". The caption says that visitors paid 6d to look and 1/- to sit in the cockpit. Proceeds to the Sheffield Newspapers' War Fund.

Of course the plane was toured all around the country 'so the plane may have been photographed at another location.

HD

Thanks Hilldweller - I've orderd the book off Amazon (less than £5 inc. delivery!) So I'm looking forward to getting it. I'm just hoping that these new references don't show I've painted my model wrongly, but knowing my luck, with a choice of 2 patterns I'll have picked the wrong one!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I got the "Sheffield since 1900" book today, and indeed there on page 94 is the picture. I *think* it's the picture sebastionmusclewhale was referring to in his previous post, but he seems to have dropped off the Sheffield History radar. I wonder where it was taken? Definitely not Barker's Pool.

Anyway, thanks guys for the lead to another photo. There must be hundreds out there in albuns in attics...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The photo shows a long queue of little boys and older "little boys". The caption says that visitors paid 6d to look and 1/- to sit in the cockpit. Proceeds to the Sheffield Newspapers' War Fund.

HD

If my dad was still alive he would verify this caption as being correct.

He was one of the "little boys" and regularly used to tell us the story about paying to see a shot down Messerschmitt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If my dad was still alive he would verify this caption as being correct.

He was one of the "little boys" and regularly used to tell us the story about paying to see a shot down Messerschmitt

He could also have possibly confirmed the date (captioned in the book as October 1940). My Dad swears it was when he was at the City Grammar School (across the road from the display), but he wasn't there until 1943...

The fact that there is oil still leaking from the engine indicates that the photo (wherever it was taken) was indeed soon after it crashed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

He could also have possibly confirmed the date (captioned in the book as October 1940). My Dad swears it was when he was at the City Grammar School (across the road from the display), but he wasn't there until 1943...

The fact that there is oil still leaking from the engine indicates that the photo (wherever it was taken) was indeed soon after it crashed.

As fundraising for the war effort was ongoing throughout the war, and as the shot down German aircraft were displayed around the country at such events, could it have been here both in 1940 and in 1943?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As fundraising for the war effort was ongoing throughout the war, and as the shot down German aircraft were displayed around the country at such events, could it have been here both in 1940 and in 1943?

Interesting theory. The 'crane' picture which my Dad reckons is '43 doesn't appear to have half as much oil underneath the engine as the picture in the Sheffield book ('40) where it's under cover. Where is the mystery building then?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Interesting theory. The 'crane' picture which my Dad reckons is '43 doesn't appear to have half as much oil underneath the engine as the picture in the Sheffield book ('40) where it's under cover. Where is the mystery building then?

Well, if most towns had a shot down German plane on display to raise both funds and civilian morale, it begs the questions,

How many planes were shot down over Britain where the wreckage could easily be recovered?

Of these how many were in such lightly damaged condition (ie still in one piece, no major parts missing and not burnt out) to be put on display?

I suspect not that many, hence the need to move them around to display in different areas.

It is unlikely the Me109 was shot down anywhere near Sheffield as it was a fighter plane and would have insufficient range to fly over Sheffield and back from any German air base.

Blitz bombing raids this far north in Britain were done using bombers with no fighter escorts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, if most towns had a shot down German plane on display to raise both funds and civilian morale, it begs the questions,

How many planes were shot down over Britain where the wreckage could easily be recovered?

Of these how many were in such lightly damaged condition (ie still in one piece, no major parts missing and not burnt out) to be put on display?

I suspect not that many, hence the need to move them around to display in different areas.

It is unlikely the Me109 was shot down anywhere near Sheffield as it was a fighter plane and would have insufficient range to fly over Sheffield and back from any German air base.

Blitz bombing raids this far north in Britain were done using bombers with no fighter escorts.

Yeah, if you look back to post #4, the history of the aircraft is fairly well documented:

"It was shot down over Margate, Kent on 6th September 1940. The pilot was Unteroffizier Hans-Georg Schulte. Schulte took off at 17.30 hrs on a freelance patrol. He was flying with four other Bf109's at a height of 16,500 ft when it was shot down by fighters at 18.50 hrs. The pilot tried to land at Manston aerodrome, but crashed near Vincents Farm, Manston at 18.30hrs. The official crash report noted..."

etc etc etc.

Would be interesting to find out whose Spitfire shot him down. Bet it will be on record somewhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Slightly off topic but in one of my Sheffield books is a photo of a German miniature submarine which was on display at the Moorhead.

From memory it was placed on the little tri-angular bomb site at the junction of Button Lane.

I wonder what else was on display at the time, Himmlers surgical support perhaps ?

HD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, if you look back to post #4, the history of the aircraft is fairly well documented:

"It was shot down over Margate, Kent on 6th September 1940. The pilot was Unteroffizier Hans-Georg Schulte. Schulte took off at 17.30 hrs on a freelance patrol. He was flying with four other Bf109's at a height of 16,500 ft when it was shot down by fighters at 18.50 hrs. The pilot tried to land at Manston aerodrome, but crashed near Vincents Farm, Manston at 18.30hrs. The official crash report noted..."

etc etc etc.

Would be interesting to find out whose Spitfire shot him down. Bet it will be on record somewhere.

The report says he was shot down by fighters.

How do you know it was a Spitfire and not some other British fighter aircraft?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Slightly off topic but in one of my Sheffield books is a photo of a German miniature submarine which was on display at the Moorhead.

From memory it was placed on the little tri-angular bomb site at the junction of Button Lane.

I wonder what else was on display at the time, Himmlers surgical support perhaps ?

HD

So if they were displaying a captured miniature submarine that must have been brought here, you don't get many submarines in Sheffield do you.

Unless they were German spies that had come to the City down the river Don lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The report says he was shot down by fighters.

How do you know it was a Spitfire and not some other British fighter aircraft?

I'm going purely on what his grandaughter told me - presumably passed on by Schulte himself:

"On 6th September his plane was hit while fighting again in the Battle over Britain by a Spitfire..."

I was told by a BoB researcher that, at the time of his crash, the only RAF aircraft in the area were from No.1 and No 303 squadrons, both operating Hurricanes (as far as I can tell) , but who am I to argue? Who knows if even Schulte himself knew what hit him?

I'm sure there will be a claim recoreded somewhere by an RAF pilot which will match the location and time of the encounter.

ETA:

Another - unverified - reference states he was brought down by a Spitfire of No. 41 squadron (which were indeed flying Spitfire Mk1a's at the time).

And of course, I forgot to add that Schulte's final confirmed kill was a Spitfire, on the day he was shot down himself, possibly in the same dogfight. So it does seem likely that it was an as yet unidentified pilot of a Spitfire Mk1a that got the better of him in the end.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm going purely on what his grandaughter told me - presumably passed on by Schulte himself:

"On 6th September his plane was hit while fighting again in the Battle over Britain by a Spitfire..."

I was told by a BoB researcher that, at the time of his crash, the only RAF aircraft in the area were from No.1 and No 303 squadrons, both operating Hurricanes (as far as I can tell) , but who am I to argue? Who knows if even Schulte himself knew what hit him?

I'm sure there will be a claim recoreded somewhere by an RAF pilot which will match the location and time of the encounter.

It would be interesting if we could find details of who shot him down and what type of aircraft it was.

As I understand it, although the Spitfire has become the iconic British fighter plane of the war, during the earlier years of the war, and certainly during the Battle of Britain period, there were more Hurricanes in active service than Spitfires.

Although the Spitfire proved to be the better of the 2 aircraft the Hawker Hurricane, developed by Sidney Camm, came into production first and had a simpler construction making it quicker and easier to produce.

The Supermarine Spitfire was developed a year or two later by Reginald Mitchell, it proved to be a better fighter aircraft but its construction was more complex and not as many had been produced by the start of the war.

Contrarary to popular British urban myth, it was not that much superior in performance its adversary the Me109, which itself was quite a formidable fighter. So close were they in performance that there was a behind the scenes "development war" to constantly improve the design and performance of these 2 aircraft in order to get the "upper hand", - so much so that during the war the Spitfire changed froma MkI version to a MkXV (1 to 15), with its top speed almost doubling, its, propellor going from 2 to 5 blades, its ceiling height increasing and its armoury and fire power also increasing. In Germany the Me109 underwent a similar, corresponding level of development although later in the war Messerschmitt came up with alternative ground breaking designs like the Me262, powered by the new jet engine and even the Me163, powered by a rocket motor.

From my interest in photography both Spitfires and Me109 carried gun cameras which took bursts of pictures as the guns were used to record the hits and kills of aircraft being claimed shot down. Who knows, if it was a Spitfire with gun cameras that shot your grandfather down there may be a photographic record of it somewhere.

The German aircraft had the best gun cameras as they were made by companies like Leitz (the Leica camera) and Zeiss (the Contax camera). It is quite ironic really then that when they show documentaries on British TV about the Battle of Britain and they use gun camera sequences to illustrate it that they tend to use the better images from German gun cameras and the plane you see being hit and shot down is usually a Spitfire, - easily given away by those distictive elliptic shaped wings.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

if it was a Spitfire with gun cameras that shot your grandfather down there may be a photographic record of it somewhere.

Just to be clear - it's not my grandfather who's plane it was, rather the grandfather of someone who contacted me offering some more info on the pilot after reading a model forum I subscribe to!

The other thing to add to your thoughts on Spitfire vs Bf109 was armament: the early Spitfires had eight machine guns in the wings, which could be adjusted to converge at different points in front of the aircraft, giving a greater chance of hitting something. The Bf109E on the other hand had just 2 machine guns mounted above the engine, and two cannon - one in each wing, and required a greater degree of marksmanship to be effective - some people say. The Bf109 cannon shells exploded on contact and could take the wing off a Spitfire with just one - well aimed - hit, whereas many German Bombers returned home safely even when riddled with bullet holes from the Spitfire (& Hurricane) machine guns.

Some say that the armament of the Bf109 was designed in that way due to the German pilots being the more natural hunters - especially the ones from the higher echelons of society, for whom hunting was a common pastime.

I was intrigued to read that H-G Schulte returned to Canada, England and also visited Scotland post war...to hunt. Maybe there's some truth in the marksmanship story after all?

Cheers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to be clear - it's not my grandfather who's plane it was, rather the grandfather of someone who contacted me offering some more info on the pilot after reading a model forum I subscribe to!

The other thing to add to your thoughts on Spitfire vs Bf109 was armament: the early Spitfires had eight machine guns in the wings, which could be adjusted to converge at different points in front of the aircraft, giving a greater chance of hitting something. The Bf109E on the other hand had just 2 machine guns mounted above the engine, and two cannon - one in each wing, and required a greater degree of marksmanship to be effective - some people say. The Bf109 cannon shells exploded on contact and could take the wing off a Spitfire with just one - well aimed - hit, whereas many German Bombers returned home safely even when riddled with bullet holes from the Spitfire (& Hurricane) machine guns.

Some say that the armament of the Bf109 was designed in that way due to the German pilots being the more natural hunters - especially the ones from the higher echelons of society, for whom hunting was a common pastime.

I was intrigued to read that H-G Schulte returned to Canada, England and also visited Scotland post war...to hunt. Maybe there's some truth in the marksmanship story after all?

Cheers.

Never thought of posting some actual film camera shots to illustrate the point.

These are good quality images from German gun cameras, so the planes being hit are mainly Spitfires

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zMEiGkEGG04" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having only joined this Forum in 2016 I apologize for my late contribution to confirm that the Me 109 at Barkers Pool had both blue (6d) and red (2/6d) National Savings stamps stuck on it. As part of her activities with the WVS during the War my mother used to sell those stamps to various local people who had expressed a wish to make regular contributions. The particular issue of the blue and red stamps is stated (on-line) as being 1941 and as I was taken to add my blue 'sticker' can remember that blue was the dominant colour of the fuselage of the plane. Google 'National Savings Stamps' if you are sufficiently interested!

As far as I recall there was no Heinkel 111 on public display at that time; reading the posts on this thread has been most enlightening and the researchers congratulated at getting so much detail so long after the event.

   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  Seems  to be a fairly old topic now, but it has stirred some memories..........  I was one of the youngsters who gaped open mouthed at the   109.  I can confirm one or two things....... I think  ! .....It's more than half  a llfetime back. 

The 109 was displayed for sure  between Burgess St & Cambrdge St.,an open site on which a theatre  had stood before it burned down  pre-war. It was screened off whilst the plane was on display.  Fees to view were,. I think,.. 6d ( 2.1/2d} to  look  or a shilling  (5p) to  sit in the cockpit.  The multi-storey building in the background of the pic of the 109 being  lifted off a trailer, is the Grand Hotel.

The Heinkel 111 was displayed some  time later and, being bigger, it  sat in Bramall  Lane  football ground.  The "Wings for Victory Week" which has a mention, was later still and was one of the special events staged nationally to encourage the public to buy more National  Savings Certificates.. With the city centre being knocked about  a bit in the Blitz, there was  room for a Lancaster bomber to be on show at the Moorhead, about where  Debenhams is now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 25/02/2010 at 11:07, mike142sl said:

The original pic is certainly Barkers Pool, you can make out the east end of the front of the City Hall where the box office is now, top left in the background.

Mike appears to be correct. 

The original photo, along with the same view today

 

WW2.jpg

Barkers Pool.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 26/02/2010 at 11:49, dr_gn said:

 

 

Mike,

 

Well, after a bit of digging, it looks like it's a Heinkel He111 type H-1.

 

The triangle on the side is just to indicate the type of fuel used, and is common to many Luftwaffe aircraft (in this case, the number "87" means 87 octane B4 aviation gasoline).

 

As you probably guessed, VDM is the propeller manufacturer.

 

And yes it looks like the prop wasn't turning when it crashed.

 

The size of the tent makes me think the stbd wing is in place.

 

Really, all we have to go on is the aircraft type, the general camoflague pattern, the light coloured spinners and the darker (possibly red?) number (7?) on the fuselage.

 

Cheers,

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...