Luftwaffe Group to a Lufty Flak Radar man

[Jock Auld]

Guys,

This is quite unusual?

The guy is qualified as a radar tech?

The thing that interests me is that in the back of the soldbuch is a bit of silver, what looks like 'fag' paper but it is folded in half and I was wondering if it may be a bit of 'window' that he picked up since he would have been battling against it?

Jock

[Bernhard H.Holst]

Hello Jock.

The Soldbuch owner may very well have kept a piece of windows as souvenir. We called these Staniolpapier strips "Lametta" or tinsel as they resembled that material. We knew that allied planes unloaded this stuff but not what it did or was supposed to do. It was picked up by us occasionally also. As a reminder: first used with the heavy air raids on Hamburg, July 1943.

Your man was a trained E-Messmann (Entfernungs Messmann) or distance evaluator for heavy Flak as is shown in the second page of the Soldbuch and page 22 b. He was entitled to wear the "Taetigkeits Abzeichen" or specialty emblem of that specialty.

He was trained on Kommando Geraet 40 on a 4 Meter basis and a smaller on, the 36. These were not radar equipment but deployed in battery and higher level positions following the air formation and computing the different values and then the fire directions he guns needed to get some defensive fire close to the enemy planes.

An interesting group to have.

Bernhard H. Holst

Edited July 2, 2014 by Bernhard H.Holst

[Jock Auld]

Bernhard,

Thanks for the detail, as ever, I thought wrongly that it was a radar range finder, if not, is it a 'stadiarmetric' (spelling) rangefinder? I find it facinating you can remember the 'window' being dropped, saying that I remember the propaganda fliers from Op Granby (Iraq). It may not be your 'Tinsel' but I was wondering why would some-one keep a bit of tin foil? I suppose I can research the dimentions as it was cut to a specific size to interfere with a particular wave length, I will let you know what I find!

Thanks Again

Jock

Edited July 2, 2014 by Jock Auld

[Bernhard H.Holst]

Hello Jock.

Probably the mystery surrounding those strips caused us to collect them.

The Flak's use of their fire direction equipment seems to be somewhat computer related to obtain fire concentration . Battery sizes were increased to six and more guns and the results must have been scary reading some of the accounts from air crews.

But I do not know the exact working of these fire direction units . The crews serving them were supposed to be extra bright ones.

Bernhard H. Holst

[turtle]

Very nice & interesting group in great condition! Thanks for showing!

[Paul R]

Totally amazing and complete grouping you have. I am completely envious. The photograph in his Soldbuch really adds a lot of appeal for me. I wonder what he did after the war. You are lucky to have this set!