What was it like to be a Luftwaffe pilot in Occupied France? Below are some excerpts from transcripts of interviews done 10 years after D-Day:
The quiet months of 1944:
Thomas Beike was a Leutnant (Pilot Officer) attached to Jagdabschnittführer 5 (Leading Fighter Group 5) in the area North of Evreux, Normandy.
our section’s small airbase, which was in the Evreux-Lisieux sector was one of several in that area positioned quite near to the coast. The base was on a plain belonging to a country estate of some kind, and the chateau had been requisitioned to provide accommodation for the pilots and senior officers. So I went from bedding down in a frozen hut, as I did in my posting on the Eastern Front, to sleeping in a proper bed with a staff servant to attend to meals and the polishing of boots and other necessities. This chateau had a wine cellar which was very well stocked, and the quality of food available locally was remarkable.
As you are a man of the world, sir, you can also appreciate that we pilots were popular fellows with the French ladies. We were officially forbidden from having anything more than a passing relationship, if you understand me, with French women, but in many cases the pilots and the ground crews, the Flak crews and so on formed quite affectionate bonds with some of these girls. The ladies were extremely astute, I remember, and in many ways they ran the local villages and towns in the absence of their menfolk, who were often in the labour force or the internment system.
The effects of Allied bombing and blockades:
To keep a fighter aircraft in service, you need a great deal of spare parts, oil, coolant, lubricants and so on, and all of these were in short supply in 1944. It was quite common for a fighter to be waiting in its hangar, fully armed, pilot ready, fuelled, but unable to take off because coolant could not be found for the engine. Or, when the coolant arrived, the special air filters could not be replaced, and so on, with endless combinations of things that were missing or could not be repaired. This meant that units took off below strength, meaning that yet more planes were lost when they ran up against the big Allied formations. As for the pilots, we simply did not have enough good quality, fresh pilots to replace those lost in the air. … our units were under strength and each individual man was badly over-stretched, with all the mental stress that is a result. So each Luftwaffe pilot, living in his chateau with his polished boots and so on, was under the surface a somewhat tormented individual.
D-Day:
On the 5th, it was the birthday of one of the other pilots, and we had a small gathering at the farmhouse to mark this event.
Well, there were six of us pilot officers, and two senior officers, one of whom attended with his wife, who was visiting the base from Germany. You may look surprised, Herr Eckhertz, but this was quite acceptable in our section. At about nine pm, the senior attendees departed, leaving only us pilots. We were joined after that by several French ladies, who were well-connected locally and were excellent company. In what role did the French ladies attend this gathering? In what role? As guests. I am sure you can understand that if one is in France, it is inevitable that such ladies will find their way into the company of pilots.
The ladies, I must say, were very upset at this display of air power that the Allies were making over France. We could tell that these were Allied aircraft from their engine tone, which was level, whereas our large aircraft had a rise-and-fall tone to the engines. We stood in the darkness listening to all this going on in the air. The ladies made remarks such as ‘You must save us from those salauds Anglaises’ (English bastards) and similar things. For them, it was very upsetting, this threatening force, and we sent a squadron car to return them to their homes.
In the end, in the mid-morning, three of us were ordered to take off and fly to the coast near Caen as an armed reconnaissance patrol. … Was the Messerschmitt suitable as a reconnaissance plane? No, it was completely unsuitable. Visibility was very limited forward, because the engine cowling was right here, under your chin. You were meant to dive on things to be able to see them. We could see nothing behind, with no bubble canopy, and even to the sides the wings obstructed the view. … our planes had no radio connection to our base . . . in the air, we could only speak to each other. So we would have to observe, see what we could, and then return to base at speed without being shot down, to make our report.
The Allies own the air:
As my ground crew were closing my canopy, my commander stepped up on the ladder and shouted to me that this was a vital mission, that the aerial information we could bring back was essential to the task of driving the enemy back to the sea. He gave me his personal Leica aviation camera, … As soon as we levelled out, we were hit by a pair of Mustangs that came down from the 120 degree point, on our rear quadrant. They tore right through us before we got our wits together . . . damn, I blush with shame when I remember that, to be attacked so quickly and in such a basic fashion.
I wasn’t hit, but one of my comrades was, . . . and then he was simply lost in all the flames. This was the pilot whose birthday we celebrated the night before; he was twenty-five years old. I doubt if he has a grave or a headstone of any sort in France.
[on returning] I saw on the runway the burning outline of our third Messerschmitt. I found out later that he had returned with an engine fire, and blown up as he came in. I was the only one to survive of us three, you see.
Friendly fire was a problem:
Flak tracer was coming up as well, which must have been German fire, as we were still inland. Those Flak gunners were in a panic and shooting at anything, it seemed.
(The book also contains stories of Allied planes strafing Allied soldiers.)
He was able to contribute to the German defense effort:
I am not proud of it, but I personally shot up a row of Churchill tank men in that week after the invasion. … We got this information about their position from a local French civilian, in fact, who was passing us intelligence about the Allied locations. You see, we couldn’t go up, patrol around for targets and then attack them, as the Allied pilots did. We were so outnumbered that we would have been brought down immediately. But if we had reliable, specific information that a certain target was at a certain location, we could race over in one pass and hit them and then go for home, with no need for a second run at them. The French who sympathised with us, and there were many, often gave us this kind of target information, through channels that our people had set up as we retreated.
Why would French citizens be helping the Germans?
In the first days and weeks, it was by no means certain that the landings were a permanent lodgement, or that they would develop into a full invasion even if they were. Everyone remembered the peculiar attack on Dieppe, when the Canadians invaded but then left after a few hours. Was this going to be a repeat of that, but on a bigger scale? So, because of this uncertainty, many of the French in the Allied zone put their bets on both horses, if you see what I mean, and they played up to the Allied invaders while secretly passing information to us. A certain contact gave us excellent information, and this particular alert about a group of the Churchill tanks came from her. I went up and set myself on a direct course for the location, knowing I would only have one pass before having to break for my base again. As soon as I saw the copse of trees, I saw the outline of the Churchills, which were stationary with no attempt to break up their outlines with foliage or nets. I also saw the crews assembled in a large group, in a meadow to the rear. Perhaps they were having some kind of briefing there.
The fact was that quite a number of the French followed us out of France, rather than be paraded as ‘collaborators’ and the like by the Allies and the French patriots who sprang up all over the place after the invasion. Such French helpers were welcomed into the Reich, even though they gave us more mouths to feed.
From a German military police officer:
I am pointing out that from July 1940 to August 1944, which is almost the entire war, really, the French government supported and cooperated with Germany in all areas. And not just the French government, but the French state: the police, the civil service, the factories, the transports and all the rest of it.
From “static infantry” private Marten Eineg:
Our life, by the standards of what most German soldiers experienced, was frankly very soft. Our military rations were basic, but these were amply supplemented by produce from local farmers and retailers, … When I read today about the French Resistance, I am impressed at their tenacity, but if the readers of such books could see the trading that went on between us and the local French, they might form a different view of life in France at that time. Well, but this is perhaps a case of history being written by victors.
I would like to be able to boast that I was the first to sight the allied ships, …, but in fact I was not on observation duty at the time. On the Monday evening, I had accompanied two of my comrades to a small bar in the nearby town, which was friendly to Germans, and we had stayed there for several hours. They served a very light red wine which we were very fond of, and there were young ladies who would sit at our tables and speak with us.
I was astonished at the number of craft; … These craft included destroyer-type warships, tugs, and numerous low vessels which seemed to be invasion barges. There was a great variety of other boats. I was struck speechless at this sight, which I had never imagined possible. The sheer volume of craft was what amazed me. Even as I stared, more ships came into view, endlessly filling the sea.
I thought that this bombardment would be over soon, but I found that it continued on and on. It became impossible to react, or even to think clearly, because there was no pause between the explosions,… I assure you that I was not afraid to fight, but to be subjected to these colossal, ceaseless explosions was not the same as fighting. The man who was the gun loader reacted even worse than me, and he began to scream and bang his hands on the concrete wall; I could not hear his voice, but I could see his mouth and fists moving.
The other Germans interviewed in the book tell a similar story of sudden transition from a comfortable quiet life to absolute hell. Here’s a “concrete Panzer” (static gun) private soldier’s version:
Apart
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