Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front 1941/42 - How Bad Was It?

hello everyone and welcome back to military aviation history I know as bhisma and today i want to talk to you about the Easter fun specifically the Luftwaffe and what it had to overcome in order to sustain it the most basic effort during the first winter operations between 1941 and 1942 now for this I am turning once again to a primary source a transcript of a discussion taking place in April 1942 between high-ranking officers and our LA office shots in this extract again I took my stuff village who leads the Reichstag ministerium the lice Air Ministry invited always in general life to give an account of the situation the father faced on the eastern front of the last winter months sources asked with every video in the description below before we go into this a bit of a disclaimer it's important to remember that brief can only give his very personal experience as part of his work of the after fee of core that operated in the action bitter on the front lines something he regularly discloses himself a Flickr Co is essentially an air horn combining various too fluffy unit such as sky-shadows two or more figure costs could substitute a figure flutter and air fleet going into this we have to be as always careful with sources describe a situation out of the perspective or the signal person and need to place it into a wider context just talking or just taking somebody at face value can have a detrimental effect now understanding of the overall situation come but compared to a lot of memoirs written after the war that might have presented certain events in a certain way wife is sitting here in a meeting in 1942 having to explain to his superiors and peers the difficulties of operating in the winter he is not a commanding officer in the traditional sense as he doesn't command the Africa Corps so he doesn't really have to make excuses either although he would be observing and some of the responsibilities with the staff on the ground we need to bear such dynamics in mind when looking at history it is only bright provides us with an idea of the challenges Germany faced on the Eastern Front which we don't often discussed when we debate the air war over the Eastern Front discussion that is usually well limited to 40 numbers victory fans and tank Buster's this is one of those primary sources that can really give you an insight to what amount of work is required to put planes into the air does I'm going to be recounting mainly a brief toward his peers or throwing in some extra comments here and there where I think it is necessary to provide a bit of additional context when the after few Goku was deployed on the Eastern Front in 1941 it did so on the run only in the beginning of that year had it been deployed to the Mediterranean then took part in the Balkans invasion of Greece so on before being sent up north to join against Soviets throughout this time various fathers joined the flicka Corps and left they were all know very few breaks for the redeployment to East for any extremes of operation with you it had only about two weeks listen associated a direct transition through the area of operation and its supplying ground-based elements but not even given the chance to transit by a Germany for some hour an hour and you supply the four going towards Eastern Front so what we are dealing with here is a fear core that went through multiple operations Nick on Nick with multiple reorganizations and me deployments without really a chance to reset and consolidate this might not be representative of all north rougher units but considering they all face the same problems the way that the after vehicle had to master them chose both the context the challenges and also the complexity of winter air operations on the Eastern Front after the initial German offensive became bogged down the problem then of the after figure corps can be broken down into a few of chapters basing on shelter getting aircraft airborne and logistics of course you need to remind yourself that all of this is done during winter making everything a bit more complex talking about basing them the first question would be what facing the interior of the Soviet Union was not exactly blessed or abundant of prepare airfields whether we talked about the ones that you might think of of comic strips or are just grass fields developed to sustain a high intensity operation it was very rare to find a large Airways away from a populated zone and those you did find usually where auxilary of nature I've heard you use those or well you built your own basic small aircraft like fighters or Stukas this wasn't exactly so much of an issue compared to Fox - 111 okay maybe it's the bombers who were severely limited when it came to Basin options in the previous campaigns Poland the Low Countries or France for example conducted mainly during either the spring the summer or the early autumn this has not not been much of an issue yes the capacity of captured air bases had always been a problem for the Germans and the distances between the main ones were not always ideal taking a bunker for example - Lucas waters we're actually based hundreds of kilometres away from the beaches but this was a problem in the way that it wasn't as pressing as on the Eastern Front as the AO was more compact on the Eastern Front however a lot of the bases were have buried in the shelter many of them were captured from the Soviets but those might have a hut or two an outhouse perhaps but that was it the fields converted into near field usually had nothing the closest building might have been a small country house or a farm the question now is where do I put a staff my communication my methodological unit my supplying my pilots my grog who's for single copper of a youngish water we are talking about five to seven hundred Safa was about 100 to 150 men you might have a hovel or two but those will be filled out to the point that people will have to take turns or shift even to lie down and this is obviously not ideal the rest of your men may be those that are meant to have a break or that aren't goodbye at the moment they have to be based in the next final five counters away then that complicates the matter and again because you have to get them there and back and the shelter you give them well usually it's built to sustain a small family not a military Union you've got to provide heating and sure it is properly ventilated and that sanitation is in order and then we turn to the maintenance units which usually requires some sort of contraption or building to conduct most of their work you need two ferrymen and equipment with trucks provided they work and they have the fuel or they aren't used for other things and if you have a truck best hope it doesn't get stuck on the way to where it will is supposed to go or that it breaks down because you'll be the one fixing it right there then or getting it unstuck there will be a moment when the men are required to walk the distance and a cold and obviously by the time they arrive where they are meant to be well essentially arrive in a state where they would require another break and have a rest and that is all down to you not having enough room in order to shelter them question them why not just build shelter well if it was done easy would have been done but early on when conditions still allowed it you didn't have the material or the certainty in fact that you've been using exactly this airfield and not the other one airfield hopping was a thing on the Eastern Front and now if you have winter you don't have the materials or the time or the ability to do something new there is snow everywhere the ground is frozen and you'll have to wait until summer to build something proper the luftwaffe or Germany itself I have never really thought about putting measures in place that would have allowed them construct even the most rudimentary shelter quickly and such conditions these have to be provided by summer time before the mud sets in and yes it can be just simple and small if important is that they are simply provided and remember bright sisters in April 1942 so he's clearly aiming to have he's ready for the coming winter mums and they have to be ready soon as a side note and month later he says that the Air Ministry has at backported five hundred of these shelters for the coming winter however he reckons they need at least three thousands and our officer interjects they can build about 75 a day so that would cover bribes the man in about a month half however that is pure production time presumably back in Germany without transportation to the Eastern Front mind you but say you've got the men move to where you're supposed to go and ready to start a day's work but you've got to consider now is that even the most basic task the most basic labor becomes a challenge everything slows down and a lot of little things sort of add up the cameras protecting the planes is pulled off in the morning actually it's peeled off because it's been you know frozen solid over the night and a one-man job is suddenly a three-man affair the heating device to get the planes already well it's prepared and heated of itself and usually there's a Fame of five minutes but now it requires five to six men laboring away for half an hour because the machine is completely frozen itself might need a replacement Park and the men have to fiddle around in minus temperature if you want to refuel a plane well the fuel nozzle is clogged up and the hoses frozen you'll need to twist the knob use it and to get all the angles you need obviously an ideal feeding the ammunition into the ammo drums takes a disproportionate amount of time only getting the covers off is testing your patience as again they're frozen solid by the time you get the engine warmed up an hour or more have passed and heck maybe wind and snow set in and the whole world is for the Damned suppose you've got it started however you now text it to the this was prepared in the morning again as with every morning so that it's nice and hard but not too icy and doesn't show any snow dresses for taxi a job that is usually something that can the pilot can do it himself has now been reduced to a team efforts as the ground crew has to guide the plane by the wing and the tail to make sure that the fighter doesn't drift off on an icy bit so that it gets stuck and that now means that the mansion might have idle for too long it might have to be restarted after quick checkup and all of these things slow everything down him endlessly this might sound like an absolute affair it is a sprite himself notes that Cindy spirit guiding demanded for all hired knows but he in Katzenbach initially at Harbor is then sight upload from the rice field spoon it has personal a BiCMOS unless a scoop soaked in Duluth to claim of course should have teams working in parallel but there will always be some problem maybe maybe one of the wheels burst overnight or a machine good start to deepen the snow or we only have one or two heroes meaning you've got to a stagger the work simple things can have the consequences when the aircraft lands for example and the pilot uses the brakes as you would normally do snow enters the space between the brakes and wheels it melts because of the heat becomes goopy unknown pleasant and then the aircraft comes to a halt next thing you know the watery mush becomes ice and suddenly the brakes are useless you'll have to fall it out if you remember but what you should remember now is what I just told you about the brakes as I'll come back to them in just a minute another good indication of how long evening standard work is made difficult in these conditions is that should you ever need to for example change in energy you could usually do this in a day or two in summer in winter bright notes it takes up to five days actually that's not always true as he also recounts that the men have resorted to building special I take construction that help in their engine replacement work he describes small fees as a full house at Birds house it's just what you expect it's a little box built on stilts that you can push against the aircraft inside a heater and tools with this the engine on a Ju 87 can be changed in two days a feed that drive considers under the circumstance also only extraordinary once you've got the planes in the air you will try your best to prepare everything for the next flight maybe an hour or two later depends with you on the plane and the mission when they come back you do your best to well you keep the engine warm you refuel the aircraft you be armed it and then you send it off again and again and again and again but I've actually notes that some of its to caucus rather sometimes who we should contain the fighters maybe five or six this is a non-stop operation and you do not even have enough shelter to give your ground crew a bit of protection from the biting cold you also have to make sure that they have enough food that you can maybe change out a few men here and there and so forth in short bright notes that most men get out of bed at 4:00 a.m. and are done at 10:00 p.m. and that's them done at the airfield they still have to track that shelter mind you I do have to point out at this point that I don't have any specific information whoever the Germans were able to work in shifts around this time in doing image operations on the Eastern Front in 41 42 maybe some unit states may be offers didn't imagine it really depends on the situation and unit also on your roll of course it might certainly be that you have a few crates in between depending on your tasks while you were taking a rest or waking up office might be cutting wood for fires prepare the airfield in the morning make breakfast or any kind of sustenance repair something that your ship couldn't and so forth so the intensity was certainly always high as bright notes when one of us officers once told him that that suit is slim mine and men are can miss male that is the country I think reciting Francoise Dutton having explained all that brief makes an interesting point when he talks about the difference between theory and reality and how the men are forced to take risks they wouldn't otherwise take for example is the engine already at a desired temperature or not well who cares it's cold I'm freezing let's get it over with Roubaix farmer says it's good enough so crank it up if experience a more or less a fair approach can go well but every now and then someone gets it wrong and mistakes are made and changing what dies to make matters worse there is a certain randomness involved for example it says that until minus 20 degrees Celsius most engines seem to work fine but once you go beyond that some perlite kidding well of us crack like a panther right even acknowledges that as men are taking shortcuts that in peacetime would have condemned them to test on a sort of temporary military prison sort of affair but the stock is divided between theory and reality was not from the frontline crew chiefs or you know crews they're that pretty short cuts by the industry at home certain improvements were already being introduced for example based on the reports coming from frontline the new production run of Ju 87 introduced a new access hatch which allowed the ground staff to introduce the heating host without having to denote the whole cowling so the engine could be heated faster small change big impact likewise small adjustments to the plane this can be made but bright stresses that this has to be done on the production lines not retro actively on existing aircraft on the frontline with so-called industry : these are small mobile workshop sent by the industry to modify the frontline aircraft but while the soldiers are used to the hardship the civilians are not and as brief tells us in a pastas SME that's quite finished c1 Hobbiton we in the former zero an iron fruit so I now demand oven remember the story is about the brakes I told you bribe also notes that they had issues with the related hydraulics and that's he bought the report which he sent home on this issue essentially it freezes meaning that vital components of the plane don't function any longer he told the Air Ministry the hydraulics don't work they freeze the answer he got that's ministero mahatma gunfight she is totally Kemosabe snitched healthy bihar by me know spoonful transit guard ice house good soul again theory versus reality another little favor of a big impact replacement aircraft arrived without the camo coating it arrives who noticed that there was no time to paint the aircraft at the factory and that a pocket of paint is provided in the loading space problem is in - temperatures you cannot paint the aircraft you know the paint is not going to stick it all bluster and then flutter off in a couple of days Brian actually recounts that he's been told at one occasion that the comic outing was done because the Air Ministry hadn't given specific orders on what kind of camo scheme the front-line units would care for it seems like these that he reckons bring the men to the edge of that spy from despair and I find this an interesting comment as it does seem to imply that while demand labor away in horrid conditions they are prepared to do this given the circumstances but when they are given extra work from people back home that really really gets their blood boiling in any case if you think it can't get any worse well it can't but it does there are two more things clothing and aircraft recovery clothing is something we talk about all the time and I assume that most of you understand the lack of proper wedding attire the Germans the German soldiers actually carried what I want to add here is bright top priority yes clothing in itself is important a nice coat good boots socks and all that but he wants is gloves and home protectors wool gloves spray after a few days and skin against frozen metal well you know what happens because a lot of the work is mechanical and fiddly - 20 - Rudy a gloves are top priority oh and something for the face as well because wife actually notes that soldiers tend to work in pairs so they can check each other's noses so they don't freeze off and he wants the Germans to a well copy Soviet clothing because he says that it will most likely work in those conditions aircraft recovery again the winter makes everything so much works exponentially worse in one case you had a feasel story over shooting the runway by about fifty meters three days to get it back to transport a damaged Heinkel 111 wing from relative to washout three to four days to recover a Jo 52 that had an emergency landing in the countryside eight weeks breath actually tried to get skits to get her out only to be told on the phone that that's what not possible because the after vehicle was not known to operate during the winter on the Eastern Front and so no provisions were made yeah I think I'm starting to understand this whole despair business but hey good news Ju 88 skits were provided that for 14 days and yeah they they didn't work when it comes down to it the situation made it not impossible to recover any aircraft that didn't land your Road or actually next to the airfield why bother the aircraft is instead scavenged and then left there maybe in a few months when somebody remembers the rest is recovered probably not now I could add more things but this essentially summarizes the points Brian makes and should give you a more of an insight into the situation for the Germans or at least after vehicle and how they were perceived back home during the winter of 1941 and 1942 and none of these things are not exactly the kind of points you find in a discussion on the Eastern Front and why it was so difficult for a lot of traffic to operate in that environment and I hope that I well actually brought gave you something more to work with I actually want to give him the last word because I think he sums it up nicely when he says that the are white he'd organized one nest by decides loudly and outside its what the book was cut though she left the spheres he M Masson winter it's not my life in Canada I hope that you all enjoyed this video and if you did please consider sharing it far and wide and supporting me on patreon or my paypal or patreon you'll find all manner of perks from sneak peeks early access to videos and access to my exclusive Discworld server as always have great day good hunting and see you in the sky

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 176,382

Keywords: Luftwaffe, Eastern Front, Winter, Germany, Wehrmacht, Heer, Army, German, Ostfront, Soviet Union, General Winter, Cold, Bf 109, Ju87, Stuka

Id: ELONuVW4WF0

Length: 22min 10sec (1330 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 15 2019