Küstenflieger group at Detlev's this week

[Simon Orchard]

Occasionally historically important groupings crop up on the market at very cheap prices. It seems that one such group turned up at Detlev's site this Friday.

The group included 5 award docs and a flugbuch. Although the description was brief a look at the page of the flugbuch shown showed he carried out a 'LT angriff' on the 2nd July 1942. This set alarm bells ringing for me and after 10 minutes in the books it became clear what we have. As far as i can gather, on 2 July 1942 8 He115 from Kü.Fl.Gr.406 took off from Sørreissa in North Norway and carried out a torpedo attack against the famous convoy PQ17, subsequent entries show further sorties in this the most famous and destructive of all the convoy battles in WWII. Looking at the date for the EKI doc and even for the Ehrenpokal doc it seems quite likely they were awarded in connection with the PQ17 attacks.

That makes this group quite exceptional and historically important. To be honest the price asked of 800 euros was very cheap indeed. I just hope the group has found it's way to a good home where the new owner knows what it is he has.


Simon