World War II Database

1.  Alan Chanter says:
2 Oct 2021 09:07:49 AM

On 18 August 1943 U-403 was sunk southwest of Dakar by a Lockheed Hudson of 200 squadron and a French-crewed Wellington based at Dakar. The submarine’s commander, Karl-Franz Heine, who was killed, had earlier in the war famously escaped an earlier death when, 11 October 1940, he had been a crew member in a Dornier Do 17 of Küstenfliegruppe 606 from Brest on a mission to bomb aircraft factories at Crewe and Liverpool’s Speke Aerodrome. At 1820hrs the bombers were intercepted by Spitfires of 611 squadron from RAF Ternhill. His aircraft was badly shot up, and was reported to be on fire. Feldwebel Willi Staas, the radio operator, and Unteroffizier Heinz Johannsen, the engineer, baled-out. The Spitfire pilots reported that the bomber had crashed somewhere in the wilds of North Wales but, in fact, the remaining two crew members, Pilot Oberfeldwebel Willi Hagen and Oberleutnant zur Se Karl–Franz Heine had miraculously nursed their crippled bomber home to Brest.