WIX Archive:Beached Heinkel He 111 ...

[WIX_Archive]

Originally posted by Mark Allen.

Here's what one of the expert Luftwaffe guys had to say:

"This machine... is an Heinkel He 111 H-3 possibly coded 6N+DH or 6N+DX of Ergängzungskette/KGr. 100, one of the first six machines assigned to the unit in August 1940 at its inception. Based in Lüneburg, this pathfinder unit was being trained to use the X-Gerät (X-Verfahren) radio navigation aid that required the fitting of two additional aerial masts. KGr. 100`s first operational use of this system was on the night of November 14/15 against Coventry. The images above suggest they were taken in the late summer of 1940 on the northwestern German coast with the aircraft making an emergency landing due to a technical cause since no combat damage is evident."

[seagull61785]

I remember sitting in the cockpit of a Heinkel like this when two of them came to Britain for the filming of the B of B movie in 1968.

Two things I recall were the peculiar smell that the aircraft had, unlike any other aircraft smell I had ever experienced either before or afterwards. Sort of a combination of a stale rubber/benzine/vegetable oil is the only way I can describe it.

The second memory of sitting in that big glasshouse of a nose was thinking how vulnerable the crew must have felt in combat, especially if a British fighter had elected to carry out a full frontal attack. It would have taken some 'intestinal fortitude' to stay in formation and not to break away when faced with a battery of eight Brownings hosing tracers, etc right in your face.

I think that airmen of both sides were part of a special generation.