Luftwaffe lw. glider pilots badge - part of a vet. family obtained legacy

[Stijn David]

Hello,

I want to show the forumfriends a new piece i managed to aquire. This Lw. glider pilots badge (unmarked BSW) is obtained by me directly from the daughter of the veteran yesterday.

This badge is just a small part of the large grouping i managed to obtain for my glider collection, containing his Soldbuch, Flightlog, Wrest compass, Leather helmet, shoulder boards, several pictures, papers, LW. belt with buckle, lw. Shirt with long sleeves, etc ... etc ....

And this man did actually survive the whol war, was in Russia, France, Italy, etc ... etc .... and did not earn any awards besides his Lw. Glider pilots badge. He did volunteer for the KG 200 and was als drafted into this unit + went into pilot training for the so called "Gruppe Leonidas".

I am very proud on this badge as i can date the appearance of teh BSW pieces better now. This badge was awarded arround early june 1941. This is the earlyest appearance i have found so far of a BSW glider pilots badge.

Hehehe, life is just fun when you specialize. Sometimes nothing happens for months and then all in a sudden such a legacy does pop up. I will post pictures when i have some ;-)

Cordial greetings,

[Stijn David]

Hello,

And the reverse of this delicate beauty => notice the typical crakcs in the wreath and the repaired catch.

Cordial greetings,

[Scott]

Wow - nice find!!

Scott

[nesredep]

Wow - nice find!!

Scott

Hello!

I agree.

All the best

Nesredep

[J Temple-West]

Congratulations, Stijn?. yet another superb addition to the collection.

Being involved in the theatre of operations you mention, I?m surprised that he didn?t merit the Iron Cross.

What rank did he end up with?

Btw. Are you still sending out the book? I?m still waiting for my signed copy.

[Richard Gordon]

Stijn

Another fine additional and wonderful history! With the Glider badge being introduced in late 1940 it's clear that Bruder Schneider, Wien were one of the early contractors for this badge.

Out of interest, what's the earliest date you have for an awarded Juncker?

Rich

[buellmeister]

Stijn,

A commend you on obtaining a truly stunning award!

Regards,

Joel

[Stijn David]

Hello,

Thank you for the comments, yes such finds are worht everything IMHO and i can only hope that i can find other such groupings

@ John: his final rank was Oberfeldwebel and the fun thing is, he started out as a Uffz. and after the award of his glider badge his uiform did never ever change on the award relation, only his rank did rise ;-)

I will look the book up and see what happened, iff nothing turns up a second one will be shipped out !

@ Rich: the earlyest known dates for a C.E.juncker (Type 1.1 A) to be awarded is very early february 1942 (will comment a bit more on this later on)

@ The rest of you guys,

Cordial greetings,

[Paul R]

This is a great find!! Congrats! How many does this make for you now?

[Stijn David]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for the comment, indeed such finds are quite something and they are still possible.

As for the uniform and insigniabuffs i do show already the one shoulderboard that is part of this grouping. It immediatly does show his final rank

This is badest conserved piece from the grouping, once more pictures are available i will post some more.

Cordial rgeetings,

Edited November 21, 2007 by Stijn David

[Stijn David]

Hello,

And here is a listing (with dates) towards wich units our friend did belong:

22.08.1939 ? 01.05.1940 : Res. Flakabt. 225

02.05.1940 ? 02.08.1940 : 5. Res.Flak.Abtl. 225

03.08.1940 ? 01.09.1940 : 4. Res. Flak. Abtl. 611

02.09.1940 ? 23.05.1941 : Segelfliegerschule der Luftwaffe

24.05.1941 ? 20.08.1941 : III./L.L.G.1

21.08.1941 ? 05.05.1942 : 8./L.L.G.1

06.05.1942 ? 01.03.1943 : 1. DFS ? 230 (1)

03.03.1942 ? 10.03.1943 : 2. / Ausb. Gruppe L.L.G.1

11.03.1943 ? 08.01.1944 : III./L.L.G.1

09.01.1944 ? 17.04.1944 : 4./ Erg?nzungsgruppe (S) 2

18.04.1944 ? 09.07.1944 : II. Kampfgeschwader 200

10.07.1944 ? 09.08.1944 : 5./K.G. 200

10.08.1944 ? 16.01.1945 : Flzf. D. Schule A3 Guben

17.01.1945 ? 09.02.1945 : Schleppgruppe 1, LS Fhr. Komp.

10.02.1945 ? 00.00.1945: 4./ TGr. 30

The notification : 1.DFS - 230 (1) does actually stand for the 1. DFS / VK(S) 1

ALso, as you guys do see, he was also part of the KG 200 and did belong towards the guys who volunteered to do the 'Totaleinsatz'

The persons who do know wich unit did wich mission at the given time can start to look up where he was and for what mission he was forseen => quite a few thats for certain

Cordial greetings,

[Stijn David]

Hello,

And now it is time to meet the former owner and holder of the shown Lw. Glider pilots.

Here is a picture of him as scanned out of his Soldbuch

Cordial greetings,

[Stijn David]

Hello,

And here we have picture from him (sadly the picture has quite soe water damage/preserved in the cellar for over 50 years).

We do see our weared as a Fw. wearing his Lw. glider pilots bagde + his Civil C glider certificate (bullion version). Interesting to se eis that he is also wearing his Lw. Dagger 2 nd. model.

The picture does date from March 1942 - Goslar / his unit at that time was the 9./L.L.G.1

Cordial greetings,

[Stijn David]

Hello,

And here we see him pictured somwhere in 1943.

Cordial greetings,

[Paul R]

Thank you for posting these items. They bring much life to the badge. It is great to see the photos of the badge's owner.

[PKeating]

Wonderful! Regarding your identification of BSW badges awarded in 1941, you will recognise this badge, I think!

PK

[PKeating]

And the reverse, with the typical cracks you mentioned. The document for this example is dated December 1941.

PK

[PKeating]

Coming back to your man, Stijn, the suicide mission programme was quite controversial. But it is worth noting that had he stayed with III./LLG1, he would have participated in R?sselsprung in May 1944. And he would have received the EK2 or EK1, like all the glider pilots in that battle who did not already have an Iron Cross.

PK

Edited December 8, 2007 by PKeating

[Stijn David]

Hi Prosper,

Indeed that badge is well known towards me

Yes, you are correct, iff he would have stayed he most probably would have participated in a rather har battle. The very interesting thing is that he did the whole war and never did participate in any glide rmissions, altough he was close in at least 4 occasions !!!!

And he was also in the last existing glider unit when he surrendered => May 1945 !!!! Quite the man and i must say i like this one very much

Cordial greetings,

[PKeating]

Hi Prosper,

Indeed that badge is well known towards me

Yes, you are correct, iff he would have stayed he most probably would have participated in a rather har battle. The very interesting thing is that he did the whole war and never did participate in any glide rmissions, altough he was close in at least 4 occasions !!!!

And he was also in the last existing glider unit when he surrendered => May 1945 !!!! Quite the man and i must say i like this one very much

Cordial greetings,

It seems that he just missed Merkur, arriving at LLG1 on 24.5.1941. But they were based at various airfields around Athens until September 1941, flying supplies into Crete amongst other things, before being withdrawn to Hildesheim. He may have been involved in transporting the Ramckebrigade to North Africa. 12./LLG1 took part in the Gran Sasso mission while 8./LLG1 found itself in the Baltic and other places when not in provincial France on training duties. He might have transferred to KG200 out of extreme boredom! As you say, he missed four missions. I look forward to seeing a discusson about KG200. Interestingly, the paratroopers who jumped and airlanded on the Vercors plateau under the command of Jungwirth were part of KG200. Did your man almost get to go on that mission?

Below, just for everyone's viewing pleasure even if a bit off-topic, is the recipient of the BSW badge I posted. I found the combat photo in the ECPA-D archives in Paris. Not many pilots wore glasses and he looked very familiar. When I checked, it was Otto Bracht, photographed in Southern Russia at the end of 1943.

PK

Edited December 8, 2007 by PKeating

[Stogieman]

Nice stories/history to go with the badges you've shown. Much better than the faceless BSW that was once here

[Stogieman]

But interesting to see that the characteristics of this delicate little gem match up with yours.

[nesredep]

Thank you for posting these items. They bring much life to the badge. It is great to see the photos of the badge's owner.

Hello!

I agree.

All the best

Nesredep

[Luftwaffe Rules]

Beautiful grouping! It is excellent to see a photo of this badge in wear! All the best, Jon

[Stijn David]

Hello,

@ Prosper:

He might have transferred to KG200 out of extreme boredom! As you say, he missed four missions. I look forward to seeing a discusson about KG200. Interestingly, the paratroopers who jumped and airlanded on the Vercors plateau under the command of Jungwirth were part of KG200. Did your man almost get to go on that mission?

Indeed, that seemed to be the fact, as cf. H.Lange (the actual brain after that part of German history) most volunteers where tired of being trained, trained, trained etc ... and not being used for action. I can very well imagine that it must have been demotivating that one is trained over and over again and never does seem real action anymore. Anotehr part that played a role was that quite a few of the volunteers where a hard core of combat veterans from the glider troops. These actually did see the evolution of the glider force from a pure assault weapon towards some kind of transport flying troop as waste of skills.

To name only a few missions he was involved in preparing but never put into real action:

* september/octobre 1941: he did lead a grouping of DFS230's into Russia unde rhis command. Quite a few of his men did fly ressuplymissions unde rhis command, he did not.

* 1942 : Russia - he was trained etc .... in action with the so called 'Bremsfalschirm' at Riga SPilve + was also forseen to help in the ressuply of the encirlced Stalingrad. They where even transported with the train, etc ... to fly that mission but that was aborted.

* 1943: Italy: Grann Sasso => correct, was attached towards the Grann Sasso assaultforce, but stayed back at Pisa airfield

* 1945: Germany => he wa samongst the very last existing glider unit (existed out of approx. 25 glide rpilots), quite a few of his companions did start to fly towards Breslau, Berlin, etc .... he managed once again not to fly into combat and survive dthe whole madness unharmed

And quite a bit more can be found on him, it is actualy a excellent research grouping as he himself did also write his military career down into detail.

However as history has shown us, quite a few of these glider pilots did still get their chance to get into battle. Rest assured my dear friend, a thread on Vassieux and its gliderconnection will be put on the net in the future

@ Stogie:

Also, a very nice BSW product and thanks for showing. Delicate piece for sure.

@ the rest: thanks for the comments

Cordial greetings,