Hawker Typhoon In Action

[Sharps '74]

I just finished reading a couple of books about the French complicity in the expulsion and extermination of Jews in Both Occupied and Vichy France. Shocking. One of my favourite WWII aircraft, the Hawker Typhoon, was involved in one of the most tragic events of the war.

One of the saddest parts of the history was a raid by RAF 263 Squadron flying Typhoons early in May of 1945, led by 23 year old SL Martin Rumbold. Their mission: to "destroy a number of ships assembled in the Baltic Sea, and to sink all enemy naval formations in the Bay of Lubeck."

The problem was that a couple of these ships were merchants (Cap Arcona and Thielbek) packed with prisoners from Nazi concentrations camps under SS guard. It is believed that these prisoners were going to be killed by scuttling the ships.

"For us this was just another job, but knowing that the SS were on board made us all the more determined to destroy the ships. We came in at 9,000 ft., dived to 3,000 ft. and I fired all eight rockets and every cannon round at one ship."

"The RAF were making strafing runs now, unaware that as many as 9,000 men were dead or dying in the waters of the Bay of Lubeck. Men who had survived years of hell were being slaughtered just four days from the war's end."

Those who made it to shore were gunned down by the SS.

This was a FUBAR of Biblical proportions, likely as a result of poor intel and the RAF is not to blame. Another of the human tragedies in a war of filled with them.

 

[tripoli99]

That corner of the war (Prussia/Baltic) experienced enormous human losses, mostly civilian, in 1945 as the German population was fleeing the onset of the Red Army. The losses on the Eastern Front were astounding, but lost in the American-British centric news of the day. First the Germans exercised their scorched earth policy going East, and the Russian's were only too happy to respond in kind, when it was their turn.

 

[donor]

That corner of the war (Prussia/Baltic) First the Germans exercised their scorched earth policy going East, and the Russian's were only too happy to respond in kind, when it was their turn.

Germans didn't spare much of shipping when Soviets evacuated Odessa and Sevastopol.Bayback is a b...

There was more instances where Allied air power unknowingly bombed factories housing or employing forced labor but I can't remember locations off the top of my head.

Dropping bombs on friendly forces also happened more than once.There are many accounts of that on all European fronts and in Africa.

 

[Grizzly Adams]

Soviets bombed German refugee ships, strafed refugees as well, my mother was there. Nobody was particular in those days. War is Hell.

Grizz

 

[johnny rotten]

Speaking of shipping..... the Wilhelm Gustlof was also sunk in the Baltic
The Russians torpedoed her and she sank taking something like 9300 - 10'500 people down with her (depending on who you talk to)
Very few people today know about that incident, and still believe the Titanic is the largest loss of life from a shipping disaster
East Prussia / West Prussia, Courland, Danzig/Gdansk were nasty places for civilians in 45
You were basically running from one bunch of wolves, and hoping the other bunch of wolves turned a blind eye to you

 

[Grizzly Adams]

Speaking of shipping..... the Wilhelm Gustlof was also sunk in the Baltic
The Russians torpedoed her and she sank taking something like 9300 - 10'500 people down with her (depending on who you talk to)
Very few people today know about that incident, and still believe the Titanic is the largest loss of life from a shipping disaster
East Prussia / West Prussia, Courland, Danzig/Gdansk were nasty places for civilians in 45
You were basically running from one bunch of wolves, and hoping the other bunch of wolves turned a blind eye to you

My mother and her family, less my grandfather who died some months before , were woken in the night and had to make a 500 mile trek by horse and wagon in mid winter from what is now Poland to the North Sea. She was in her late teens and apparently confided some horror stories to my sister.

Grizz

 

[TheTooner]

That corner of the war (Prussia/Baltic) experienced enormous human losses, mostly civilian, in 1945 as the German population was fleeing the onset of the Red Army. The losses on the Eastern Front were astounding, but lost in the American-British centric news of the day. First the Germans exercised their scorched earth policy going East, and the Russian's were only too happy to respond in kind, when it was their turn.

Do you know if Pravda reported much on it?

 

[Sharps '74]

Hey, I didn't say the incident was unique by any means. There were many such incidents resulting in needless loss of life in a war where so many were already lost.

My ex-wife was a child refugee, her family one step ahead of the Red Army as they fled Leipzig. Her father by this time was in a Siberian Gulag. Many stories of human tragedy on all sides.

 

[tjhaile]

Operation Chastise, the "Dambusters" raid, is another example of this sort of tragedy. The majority of casualties were not Germans, but POWs and forced labourers.

 

[Sharps '74]

The justification for that raid was the effect it had on war production in the Ruhrgebiet, diverting energy and resources to rebuild it. It also had a demoralizing effect on the Germans because of the sheer audacity of it.

In the incident re: the Typhoons rocketing and strafing POWs at the end of the war, no strategic gains were made in a war already won. That is the tragedy of it, like the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustlof.

 

[fat tony]

Not sure if you have children but if you do sit down, pour yourself a tot & search for wolf children of East Prussia on the net. Very disturbing.

Speaking of shipping..... the Wilhelm Gustlof was also sunk in the Baltic
The Russians torpedoed her and she sank taking something like 9300 - 10'500 people down with her (depending on who you talk to)
Very few people today know about that incident, and still believe the Titanic is the largest loss of life from a shipping disaster
East Prussia / West Prussia, Courland, Danzig/Gdansk were nasty places for civilians in 45
You were basically running from one bunch of wolves, and hoping the other bunch of wolves turned a blind eye to you

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

That's a hell of a story, that Wulfkinder business. Wikipedia has quite the writeup. My honey's people are all Lithuanian, and I'd never heard of this.

[youtube]4KOZmSAfeC8[/youtube]

Thank God for kind people.

 

[AP]

Not sure if you have children but if you do sit down, pour yourself a tot & search for wolf children of East Prussia on the net. Very disturbing.

It helps to put residential schools in perspective - doesnt it? It is also safe to presume that a great number of Canadians who served overseas -- particularly those that also ended up on 'Occupational' duties and were quite familiar with the plight of DP's - knew what children suffered in Europe.

 

[heliace]

I can't stand how freely they use the word "survivor" nowadays!

 

[fat tony]

Of course the Wolf children business was supressed by Stalin & his successors. Only since the Soviet collapse has the West slowly been apprised about it. Also, before the 1990s I never heard mention of the Wilhelm Gustloff sinking. One of the first documentaries for Western audiences I watched about the sinking implied the Soviets denuded the wreck of human remains as a face saving measure after the fact. I never heard of any references in print on this score, whether it is just a rumour, or whether there might be some truth to it. Modern world maps show this ominous grey area where East Prussia once was now known as the Kaliningrad Oblast. This is the enormity of the Holocaust & the reorganization of what remained of Eastern European civilization under the Soviet occupation. To tell the truth I was not aware of East Prussia in all the time I was growing up. Maybe an educational decision in the Commonwealth hearkening back to WWII when the Allies were presenting a unified front against the fascisti, or a desire to not antagonize the Soviets in the dirty Cold War days?

I was also unaware of the extent of the use of pow ships by the Third Reich in WWII. I had previously thought this was a Japanese tactic. I was aware the Soviets used such prison ships since the Civil War.

 

[Deathrawt]

Another bad one was when the RAF and US Air Force obliterated the German city of Dresdon late in the war
There was no military value in bombing the city as it was mostly full of refugees and civilians

 

[fat tony]

There are those who theorize this was meant as a warning to the Soviets. A good example is the bombing, or should I say the obliteration of the Auergesellschaft factory in the city of Oranienburg. It has been claimed this was reccomended by General Leslie Groves to deny the advanced metallurgical technology of the Auergeslleschaft to the Soviets. You can get an idea of the level of destruction from this one raid in the fact that the bombs often penetrated through all the soil horizons, through the regolith & bounced off the bedrock like rubber balls facing up. These bombs often have chemical vials of acetone in the fuzes, the fact they ended up with noses pointing skyward is the sole reason they have not gone off yet. There are a lot of these unexploded bombs still down there, by some estimates around 400. The Soviets were well aware of why the Auergesellschaft factory was so utterly destroyed. It was to set back their weapons program as much as possible.

There were large concentration camps in Oranienburg. Not sure if they were specifically targeted.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auergesellschaft

^Auergesellschaft article. Also has a link to Uranverein "Uranium club" - you can't make this stuff up lol

 

[MetricMan]

I just finished reading a couple of books about the French complicity in the expulsion and extermination of Jews in Both Occupied and Vichy France. Shocking. One of my favourite WWII aircraft, the Hawker Typhoon, was involved in one of the most tragic events of the war.

One of the saddest parts of the history was a raid by RAF 263 Squadron flying Typhoons early in May of 1945, led by 23 year old SL Martin Rumbold. Their mission: to "destroy a number of ships assembled in the Baltic Sea, and to sink all enemy naval formations in the Bay of Lubeck."

The problem was that a couple of these ships were merchants (Cap Arcona and Thielbek) packed with prisoners from Nazi concentrations camps under SS guard. It is believed that these prisoners were going to be killed by scuttling the ships.

"For us this was just another job, but knowing that the SS were on board made us all the more determined to destroy the ships. We came in at 9,000 ft., dived to 3,000 ft. and I fired all eight rockets and every cannon round at one ship."

"The RAF were making strafing runs now, unaware that as many as 9,000 men were dead or dying in the waters of the Bay of Lubeck. Men who had survived years of hell were being slaughtered just four days from the war's end."

Those who made it to shore were gunned down by the SS.

This was a FUBAR of Biblical proportions, likely as a result of poor intel and the RAF is not to blame. Another of the human tragedies in a war of filled with them.

Sorry, but I have to call BS on both these counts. Where do you get your 'stories' from?

 

[AP]

Sorry, but I have to call BS on both these counts. Where do you get your 'stories' from?

Inform yourself then. Regrettably these ‘stories’ have been substantiated satisfactorily if you care to do a small amount of research.

 

[Hitzy]

There are those who theorize this was meant as a warning to the Soviets. A good example is the bombing, or should I say the obliteration of the Auergeslleschaft factory in the city of Oranienburg. It has been claimed this was reccomended by General Leslie Groves to deny the advanced metallurgical technology of the Auergeslleschaft to the Soviets. You can get an idea of the level of destruction from this one raid in the fact that the bombs often penetrated through all the soil horizons, through the regolith & bounced off the bedrock like rubber balls facing up. These bombs often have chemical vials of acetone in the fuzes, the fact they ended up with noses pointing skyward is the sole reason they have not gone off yet. There are a lot of these unexploded bombs still down there, by some estimates around 400. The Soviets were well aware of why the Auergesellschaft factory was so utterly destroyed. It was to set back their weapons program as much as possible.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auergesellschaft

^Auergesellschaft article. Also has a link to Uranverein "Uranium club" - you can't make this stuff up lol

That plan worked well...the US had the technological advantage and built thousands of precision nukes, while the knuckle dragging Soviets just went with the go big or go home theory and built thousands of massive continent levelling nukes.