Luftwaffe Crete - gliders - awards

[Stijn David]

Hello,

Here is a documented (and straight from the owner into the collection) story of a Glider pilot who was active in the battle of crete.

He did earn 2 bravery awards for his action, here the story go's.

The original recipient was drafter in the Luftwaffe on 01.10.1939 and was trained to become a glider pilot. His first military training as such he received at the glider school of Braunschweig/Waggum.

After having completed the glider training he was transferred towards the 5 e Staffel L.L.G 1 (based at Halberstadt)

here he received further training and was commanded towards a Uffz. training course at Harzgerode. This training course was a very hard school and from the 60 persons who participated 3 died during the course !!!! (as a result the commanding officer was degradated from oberleutnant towards Feldwebel => he died during the Crete campaign)

Our glider pilot was on the list to take part in operation "Mercure" and went with his unit on 13.05.1941 towards Greece.

He was known as a excellent glider pilot (he has the highest glider degree for that time => the silver C) and was on the active list to fly with the first wave (as a part of the Gruppe West)

He started on 5.40 hours at Megara in the " Erste Kette " als Left " Kettenhund " from Lt. Pongratz.

His crew that he did transport : 9 soldiers from the Zug Oberleutnant Sch?chter.

And now towards his actual combat report :

" From about 10 km. at 1200 meters hight i did start my mission, My object was covered with very strong smoke and dusk clouds (from bombardments, etc .. )

I did land directly near the bridge (my glider was number 16) over the Travonitis river. The machine was quite a bit damaged but the crew did stay unharmed and fully operational.

A few seconds after the landing the DFS230 was covered very strongly with machine gun fire and did start to burn.

Our grouping did cary out its mission (capture and hold the bridge) but was under heavy fire. We had to take cover at the side of the bridge and managed to place our 2 heavy machine guns at each side of the bridge to secure the objective.

After the Tank attack (?) at about 18.00 Hours i did receive the order from a Oberleutnant (name unknown) to guard 12 prisonners and bring them towards a gathering point for POW's.

Once arrived there i did receive another order to guard the prisonners (a total of 50) during the night from the 20 may towards 21 may 1941.

At 21 May i did receive once again a new order to bring the POW's towards the Maleme airfield, wich was under heavy Artillery fire.

The POW's had to work and fill the bomb damages in order to make the airfield usable again at some point.

From 22 towards 24 May all remaining (read surviving) glider pilots where placed under the command of a Kriegsmarine Officer and used as coast guards near the maleme airfield.

At 24 May we where transported out of Crete towards Megara again"

Here we do see a picture from his fotoalbum from his glider, very close near the bridge.

[Stijn David]

Hello,

About 2 months later (after a well deserved holliday) he received the iron cross 2 nd. class.

Here we have the award document.

More to follow. ...

[Stijn David]

Hello,

And here we do have our proud new awardee with the EK 2 attached towards his uniform.

But it did not end here offcoarse ....

[Stijn David]

About 6 months after his mission he was also awarded the iron cross 1 e class for the crete operation !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How was this possible?

Since the mission he had to cary out was such a complete succes and he was one of the very few that landed directly near the objective + made it possible to capture the bridge undamaged. In ths first fase of the action he was actually the key person .

But why was the award rendered so late ? apparently the administrative way untill the succes was recognized as such took quite some time and this does make the time difference.

ANd here we do see the result of a late recognition, 2 bravery awards where rendered for both the same action with 6 months difference !!!!!!!!!

Cordial greetings and thanks for looking and reading.

[J Temple-West]

Hi Stijn,

A fascinating piece of history, not much covered. Many thanks.

[Stijn David]

Hi John,

Thank you for the reply, i think it would be nice iff other members also could post some bravery groupings and give the story why certain awards where rendered.

I will see what i can do in the future to get a few other glider bravery story's out.

Offcoarse it does not have to be glider, other Luftwaffe is just as interesting.

Cordial greetings,

[Paul R]

Stijn,

Another impressive grouping! Thank you for the nice read! Thank you for sharing.

Unfortunately, I do not have any documented Luftwaffe groupings... yet.

[Stijn David]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for the kind words, do not panic => certain things do take time and sometimes even small groupigs can be just as satisfying as a high end award one.

Research and always keep digging is what makes it staisfying.

Cordial greetings,

ps: i would love to see some more Crete glider bravery (or Crete cufftitle) documents !!!