War Journal

June 1940

Now back to June 1940 when I had my transfer to the Wetterstaffel. Until then I never had had heard from their existence. But when I came to Berlin-Gatow where the staffel was located, I learned that they would fly to England I was quite relieved. It happened that the whole unit moved from Berlin to Oldenburg. One part of us moved to Brest in France to fly west as far as was possible and another unit moved to Bordeaux to fly from their over the Atlantic till Norway and next day same way back. Their planes were FW 200 (Condor).

Our captain was Oberleutnant Jonas, 24 years old, the next in rank was Lieutenant Reuter, 1 year older than me, he was technician Officer, and the next in rank was me, then 20 years old. Furthermore we had 6 meteorologists who were trained to navigate during the flights., beside observing the weather-conditions and make measurements. And now to our planes. We had 6 Heinkel 111 H2 and one H3, 3 DO 17 Z, one FW 58 (Weihe), one older type of HE 111, 1 JU 52, and one JU 52 which was determined to serve the Chief-Wetterdienst, General Spang.We used his plane too, but when he ordered his Ju, we had to bring him to where he wanted to fly.

I lived in a nice little room and cared for cigarettes and fruits and even for something to drink. I used a radio from my brother who was in Marburg in hospital. He was fighter-pilot and was shot down during the French campaign. He was taken prisoner an freed 8 day later by German troops.

Alborg

I met my father in Alborg, we went down-town to buy several things you could not get any longer in Germany as silk stockings for my sister and so on. After that we went back to the ship and spent a nice evening. Next morning my driver collected us to bring us to the airport so I was able to show my father my plane. I then took-off for Stavanger and the driver brought my father to his ship. I would have liked to take him with me, but he was not allowed to leave the ship for longer

So I flew to Stavanger. When I arrived there, I phoned to the weather station "rain-bow" and asked for a car to visit them, after having delivered the spare for our Do 17Z.T he answered they could not help me. I answered: sorry then I must take the barrel of beer back to Oldenburg. Within ten minutes I had a car to bring them the beer. When I flew back to Oldenburg I had 16 passengers, all had leave and tried to find a possibility to get quickly to Germany and I brought them in 3 hours to Germany via the North Sea. Although I had some trouble with them, as they did not take their seats. But after a stern word they behaved!.