Uffz. Willi Drude (7./JG 77) by his son Wolfgang Drude

 

On 15 December, 1944, Uffz. Wilhelm-Karl 'Willi' Drude (7./JG 77) was one of a group of pilots transferred from JG 77 to JG 5. He had been with JG 77 only a matter of weeks having just completed his fighter pilot's training in 1./EJG Süd (Strausberg) during November 1944. On 26 December, during the transfer flight to Norway, Drude headed out over the North Sea and landed at Dyce (Scotland). He was one of the few deserters from JG 77.

Drude was flying Me 109 G-14 'Yellow 15' (WNr. 463224) and had (probably simulated) engine trouble before take off from Aalborg airfield. He was thus airborne later than the rest of the formation. He seized the opportunity to fly alone to the UK, reported that he was ditching his aircraft, and arrived at Dyce airfield in Scotland later that day. Indicating he was going to land by waggling his wings, he then approached the runway, bounced a few times, and survived without injury when the aircraft flipped onto its back. He was recovered from the aircraft by British airmen on the scene, and taken prisoner.

Drude was born in Bremen in 1922 and had joined an army unit in 1940 as a mechanic and not started pilot training until late 1943. He died at the age of 81 in Grants Pass, Oregon in September 2003.

His only son Wolfgang Drude tells his story with several detail differences;

".. Dad told me everyone knew the war was lost and they were now just being used for canon fodder. I remember him telling me he had been stationed in Paris, France when he got caught coming back on base with a suitcase full of nylons and cigs. So basically he was black marketeering. That little stunt got him a transfer to the Russian Front, so most of his photos were from there. In November of 1944 his JG was stationed at an airfield in Eggersdorf, Germany. It's just SE of Berlin and that airstrip still exists today. It was at this airstrip that I believe the last photos of him were taken. I googled it and actually found it. The same forest in the background on the photo is also still there. The airstrip also has a bar/ pub, or Kneipe as it's known in German called "Die fliegende Kiste" (The flying crate), 'Kiste' (or 'crate') of course being the German slang pilots used to call their planes. I got in touch with the owner via email and he was totally unaware that a fighter squadron had been stationed there for a brief time during the war. It's now mainly used by small planes and gliders. From there his Staffel was transferred to Stavanger/Sola in Norway. It's located on the south-western most side of Norway right by the North Sea. It was from here that dad flew his last combat mission. Engine failure caused him to make an emergency landing over enemy territory. Dad spent the next 18 months in an English POW camp after which he came back to Germany. I'm his only son and was born in Bottrop, Germany in 1949. It's about 6 km from the city of Essen in the Ruhr area..."

"..Dad had 4 other brothers who were in the Wehrmacht, but none were pilots. All survived the war but one went missing after it ended. His name was Karl Drude and he sent a card home from just outside Berlin saying he'd be home in just a few days. He never arrived, was never heard from again and was the youngest of them all. Dad figured he was snatched up by the Russians and sent to his doom in one of their work camps. I named my first son after him, so now there's a 2nd Karl Drude who also lives here in Boise, Idaho...."

"...I wonder if any of those other pilots in his JG survived. When the opportunity arose several years after the war, we all migrated to Sydney Australia. Back then (1953), Australia was in dire need of trades people and would pay for the trip out there. You in turn had to stay there for a minimum of 5 years to pay them back by just being there. Dad jumped on that opportunity and was the only one of his brothers to migrate to a foreign country. It would be interesting to find out if POW Camp 7 was in Scotland, because I recall dad mentioning the city or town of Liverpool. Again, if he defected, I'm surprised he was able to collect his military pension from Berlin for all those years once he retired..."

Bückers with bazookas - Bü 181 'Bestmann' mit Panzerfäusten (1)

Above; Bücker Bü 181 'Bestmann' WNr 501659 was built in Czechoslovakia in early 1944 and served at the FFS A/B 23 in Kaufbeuren with the Kennung RM+HE where it was converted to mount Panzerfaust bazookas in the final weeks of the war. Today it is exhibited at the Deutsche Technik Museum in Berlin. Photo courtesy Marc Hasenbein.

Below; first published in the Modell Magazin issue of 3/83 this was for a long time the only known photo of a fully-armed Panzerfaust-toting Bücker Bü 181 'Bestmann' seen here undergoing trials with the Panzerfaust Versuchskommando (test detachment) at Trebbin on 01 April 1945.

According to Christian Möller in his book “ Das letzte Aufgebot..” , “ kaum jemand weiß, dass die deutsche Luftwaffe kurz vor dem Kriegsende ab April 1945 langsame Schulmaschinen vom Typ Bücker Bü 181 als Schlachtflugzeuge gegen die Bodentruppen der Alliierten eingesetzt hat - very few know that shortly before the end of the war the German Luftwaffe was employing in a ground-attack role slow training types such as the Bücker Bü 181 against Allied ground forces” .

Of course in his inimitable style – his Nachtschlacht book featured well over a 1,000 footnotes - author Möller then provides a footnote detailing a lengthy list of references which prove if anything that there has, on the contrary, been a decent amount of (mostly German-language) coverage, including magazine and web articles, devoted to the late-war combat role of the Bücker Bü 181. I will be covering a few of these over the course of some forthcoming blog posts.

Cover illustration from Christian Möller's “ Das letzte Aufgebot..”  - click on the image to go direct to publisher Helios

Of course I'm being a little unfair to Christian and  I guess the point is nonetheless worth making again for those Luftwaffe 'enthusiasts' who cannot see past the jets and other so-called Wunderwaffen; the reality of late-war collapse was that for every single advanced jet fighter or bomber being put into service by March/April 1945, the Luftwaffe in its death throes was hurriedly deploying antiquated biplanes or obsolescent ab initio type trainers in a combat role- either night ground attack Nachtschlächter or 'tank-hunting' Panzerknacker. With training schools closed and the Luftwaffe starved of fuel - these types did not demand much in the way of piloting skills or even require much gasolene - Bückers and Arados were thus hastily formed into a host of Kommandos and “attack” Staffeln in the forlorn hope of being able to continue the fight to the bitter end. Inexperienced ex-instructors were being ordered to launch perilous early-morning or late-evening ground attack missions against Allied supply columns or tank spearheads with the most derisory of means - the Bü 181 Schulflugzeug (trainer) mounting Panzerfauste rocket launchers on and under the wings. These Panzerfauste bomb-toting Bückers – aerobatic-capable, low-wing, unarmoured monoplanes- were barely able to manage 150 km/h and featured side-by-side seating and dual control columns. It was even planned to re-equip the III. Gruppe of the famed Junkers Ju 87-equipped Schlachtgeschwader 2 with these machines.


In a last-ditch attempt to stem the flow of Allied armour pouring into southern Germany 3. Panzerjagdstaffel was just one such ad-hoc tank-hunting Staffel deployed in the Panzerbekämpfung (tank hunting) role from mid-April 1945 - it was planned to establish some fourteen similar anti-tank units comprising twelve aircraft and some twenty pilots with the units divided between east and western fronts. Established at Kaufbeuren in early March 1945, the Bü 181 trainers of 3. Panzerjagdstaffel were crewed (pilot/observer) by qualified flying instructors from Flugschule A/B 23 under Staffelsfuehrer Oberleutnant Karl-Heinz Dragenscheck. Some details of this unit's exploits - one of the few to actually see service - were given in an issue of Flugzeug classic magazine during 2006. Boring in at low level at barely 150 kph, the intrepid pilots had trained to close to within 500 m of enemy tanks before pulling up to around 20-30 metres altitude and then diving on their targets, unleashing the rockets at a distance of only some 100 metres before banking sharply away in order to escape the blast wave from the exploding rocket. To nullify Allied air supremacy, sorties were to be flown at the crack of dawn or as darkness was falling.

"....Die Bü 181 der 3. Panzerjagdstaffel erhielten am 19. April 1945 ihre Feuertaufe. Sechs Bestmann starteten um 20.20 Uhr vom Flugplatz Ringingen aus in den Raum Tübingen. Zwar entdeckten die Besatzungen keine Panzer, konnten aber einige alliierte Lastkraftwagen zerstören. Einen Tag später, an Adolf Hitlers letztem Geburtstag, wiederholten die Bücker ihre Angriffe. Im Morgengrauen des 24. April startete die 3. Panzerjagdstaffel zum vermutlich letzten Kampfeinsatz...."

Airborne from Ringingen six Bü 181s of 3. Panzerjagdstaffel (tank hunting squadron) underwent their baptism of fire against Allied armour at 20h20 in the vicinity of Tübingen on 19 April 1945. Although the crews (pilot and navigator) failed to locate any tanks, a number of Allied trucks were destroyed. The sortie was repeated on the following day. 3. Panzerjagdstaffel flew what was probably their last sortie of the war at dawn on the 24th. In this instance the targets were not even Allied tanks but abandoned German aircraft left on the field at Memmingen. After this the unit fell back via a number of different airfields to the Bavarian Alps before the personnel surrendered to the Americans at Reit im Winkl on 9 May 1945.... As can be seen in the photo (bottom) the Panzerfaust rockets were fired by means of Bowden cables laid across the wings from the cockpit and the engine cowl mounted a crude aiming device. In practise the upper wing mounted rockets were only rarely fitted - the exhaust gases at launch had a tendency to set the wooden wing surfaces on fire!
Prior to the unit's first sortie there was an event of some note - one of the unit's Bü 181 was stolen by two defectors - former flying instructors Unteroffiziere Hans Ficker and Werner Diermeyer. The two 24-year old officers appropriated one of the light trainers at dawn on 19 April 45 and flew off to Switzerland at the controls of the machine illustrated. Ficker had lost his brother during the Battle of Britain and had himself been badly injured in a crash during October 1944. By January 1945 the lack of fuel for training had effectively ended the careers of the two flying instructors, both now likely candidates to be re-mustered as infantry or as flak crews. Dying a heroes' death for Volk und Vaterland in some muddy trench was not for Unteroffizier Diermeyer. Diermeyer had at one point been offered a chance to re-train on the Me 262 but in the chaos of the last months of the war nothing had come of this. At some stage during the story Diermayer had got wind of the aerial activities taking place at Kaufbeuren. So instead of reporting to barracks in Hoersching, Ostmark (Austria) for infantry service, Diermayer made his way to Munich where he met up with Ficker. The two men carefully prepared their flight and on the evening of 18 April 1945 made their way out to the airfield. Luck was on their side. Training for the first anti-tank missions had just been completed and the following day the tank hunting Bü 181s were to fly their first combat sorties. At that moment an air-raid alarm sent everyone to the bunkers and the two men were able to enter a hangar where the Bü 181 assigned to the Staffelkapitän of 3. PzJgSt was being serviced. Ficker managed to get the engine started, taxiied out onto the field and quickly getting airborne the two men headed for Bregrenz and the Swiss border, touching down at Duebendorf some ninety minutes later. Post war this particular machine served - along with five others - in the Swiss Air Force before being retired in the mid-fifties. 

Johannes Kuhn Schlachtgeschwader 101 - defecting Luftwaffe pilots (1)

I came across this photo of a crash-landed Fw 190 in the RAF Manston Airfield history museum and was surprised to learn that this particular Fw 190, WNr. 171747, had landed close to RAF Manston in Kent during August 1944 and had been flown by a defecting Dutch ferry pilot called Kuhn. A quick look through the books turned up the following.

Johannes Kuhn was born in Amsterdam on 15 November 1908. He served in the Militaire Luchtvaart (Dutch air force) from 1932, and in 1937 volunteered for a six-year term with the Dutch Indies air force, which he joined on 14 August 1937. However, due to an illness, doctors pronounced him unfit for service in the tropics in 1938, and Kuhn had to return to the Netherlands. From April 1939 onwards he flew with 1-2 LvR (1st Reconnaissance Group of the 2nd Air Regiment/ Army Aviation). At the end of that year Kuhn was transferred to V-2 LvR (Army Aviation Fighter Group) and retrained as a fighter pilot. He was shot down over the Pijnacker area on the first day of the German western campaign, on 10 May 1940. Kuhn saved himself by parachute, but owing to a bad knee injury had to spend several months in hospital. His wound did not heal until 1942, and on 15 October of that year he was officially discharged from the Dutch military service. On the same day he volunteered for the German Luftwaffe. Kuhn was later to declare that his German wife had talked him into joining the Luftwaffe, probably a 'protective' statement given to veil his real motives. In any case, until April 1943, he underwent training with the Flieger-Ausbildungsregiment 63 (Pre-Flight Training Regiment) at Toul, and passed the Flugzeug­führerüberprüfungsschule (Pilot Re-Examination School) at Prenzlau, graduating in early July.


From 2 July 1943 Kuhn was with Schlachtgeschwader 101, a close-support training formation, flying the Hs 129 armoured assault aircraft from Paris-Orly. In February 1944 he was assigned to the Flugzeugführerüberprüfungsschule at Quedlinburg, and in May was posted to his last unit, 3./Uber­fiihrungsgruppe West (3rd Squadron of Ferry Group West). The pilots of this unit, consisting of four Staffeln and a Stab, were engaged in ferrying aircraft from industrial establishments and assembly plants to the various front-line units. After the Allied invasion of France the losses of Ferry Group West rose dramatically, the pilots having to fly in all weather conditions and their aircraft often being damaged while touching down on improvised airstrips.

By then Kuhn had realized that the war was lost for the Reich and decided to defect. A favourable opportunity came on 30 August, when 14 Fw 190s had to be ferried to JG 26 at Brussels­-Melsbroek. Kuhn took off from Wiesbaden, and, as the weather was poor, managed to disengage from the others without being noticed. His course now led over Ostend and the English Channel in low-Ievel flight straight to southern England. Kuhn avoided landing on an RAF airfield, where he would have risked being shot down by anti-aircraft fire. Instead he made a perfect belly landing in a field near Monkton road farm, close to Manston in Kent. His Fw 190A-8, WNr. 171747 was only slightly damaged and later put on display at the Farnborough exhibition of captured German equipment prior to being scrapped.

(Source: In The Skies Of Europe by Hans Werner Neulen)