Del has been trawling through the footage made available via the Agentur Karl Höffkes film archive (AKH) and has come across some DFS 230 colour footage;
" ...from the Agentur Karl Höffkes film archive - home movie taken by a Luftwaffe officer while training on the DFS 230.."
This footage almost certainly looks to have been filmed in the south of France presumably during the summer of 1943, prior to Gran Sasso. Either Valence Chabeuil or Lézignan-Corbières. It features a Staffel of Luftlandegeschwader 1 equipped with DFS 230 gliders and Henschel Hs 126 and Avia B.534 tugs training for a new mission... Hauptmann Joseph Karl, Gruppenkommandeur of III./LLG.1 is seen in the footage.
On 19 August 1943, 12./LLG1 was transferred to Ottana (Sardinia), then on 11 September 1943 to Pratica di Mare (south of Rome). Its mission in Italy was the transport of 1./FJR.7 (Fallschirmjäger-Regiment) to Gran Sasso for the ‘liberation’ of Mussolini. I have extracted a couple of time codes which correspond to the stills below...
10:40:11 arrival by train at a town in France, possibly Valence. Does anyone recognise it?
10:43:00 engine start Hs 126 tugs of LLG 1 on the airfield.
10:43:27 pilot in cockpit of DFS 230. Note MG 34 with muzzle flash guard attached to the fuselage and MG 15 mounted above the cockpit
10:42:47 a group of officers chatting. In the white cap the Kommandeur of III./LLG 1 (I think..). Another officer in white cap shows off his "Kreta" cuff band for the camera.
10:48:13 colour section - a DFS 230 with nose-mounted braking rockets, also shown in close-up
10:49:10 DFS 230 comes into land and the glider's braking rockets are fired. This section concludes with a few shots of the DFS 230 passengers disembarking...
At this point I would provide a link to view reel M349 ..but since preparing this post I can no longer find the film...
