Herbert Schmid
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Oberleutnant (English: First Lieutenant) is a senior lieutenant Officer (armed forces), officer rank in the German (language), German-speaking armed forces of Germany (Bundeswehr), the Austrian Armed Forces, and the Swiss Armed Forces. In Austria, ''Oberle ...
Herbert Schmid (1 April 1914 – 1975) was a German World War II pilot who
defected In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...
to north-east Scotland in May 1943, piloting a German nightfighter with advanced interception radar which allowed British scientists to jam German nightfighter radar.


Early life

He was born in
Sachsen-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the 8th-largest state in Germany by area an ...
. His father was the secretary to the German Chancellor and Foreign Minister,
Gustav Stresemann Gustav Ernst Stresemann (; 10 May 1878 – 3 October 1929) was a German statesman during the Weimar Republic who served as Chancellor of Germany#First German Republic (Weimar Republic, 1919–1933), chancellor of Germany from August to November 1 ...
"Ju 88 R-1, Werk Nr. ''360043''."
''RAF Museum''. Retrieved: 30 January 2014.
In 1974 the West German newspaper ''
Bild am Sonntag ''Bild am Sonntag'' (''BamS'') is the largest-selling German national Sunday newspaper published in Berlin, Germany. History and profile ''Bild am Sonntag'' was first published on 29 April 1956.Helmut Böger, ''Bild'', 8 May 2011Die Story von Ba ...
'' ran a story about Herbert Schmid, written by Günther Stiller, claiming that he was a British agent, who had flown a
Dornier Do 217 The Dornier Do 217 was a bomber used by the German ''Luftwaffe'' during World War II. It was a more powerful development of the Dornier Do 17, known as the ''Fliegender Bleistift'' (German: "flying pencil"). Designed in 1937-38 as a heavy bomber ...
into a
Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (), abbreviated ''Lincs'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands and Yorkshire and the Humber regions of England. It is bordered by the East Riding of Yorkshire across the Humber estuary to th ...
RAF airfield on the night of 20 May 1941.


Career

He was a pilot in the
Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...
, serving with
Nachtjagdgeschwader 3 ''Nachtjagdgeschwader'' 3 (NJG 3) was a Luftwaffe night fighter-wing of World War II. NJG 3 was formed on 29 September 1941 in Stade from Stab./Zerstörergeschwader 26. Pilots of NJG 3 claimed approximately 820 aerial victories by day and ni ...
(NJG 3).


May 1943 defection to Scotland

On Sunday 9 May 1943, at age 29, Schmid flew his
Junkers Ju 88 The Junkers Ju 88 is a twin-engined multirole combat aircraft designed and produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works. It was used extensively during the Second World War by the ''Luftwaffe'' and became one o ...
R-1 (''360043''), equipped with the most advanced German nightfighter interception radar, to an RAF station at
Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...
. He had set off from
Aalborg Aalborg or Ålborg ( , , ) is Denmark's List of cities and towns in Denmark, fourth largest urban settlement (behind Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Odense) with a population of 119,862 (1 July 2022) in the town proper and an Urban area, urban populati ...
in Denmark at 1503, flying to Norway to refuel at 1603. It took off at 1650 to take part in a mission over the
Skagerrak The Skagerrak (; , , ) is a strait running between the North Jutlandic Island of Denmark, the east coast of Norway and the west coast of Sweden, connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea. The Skagerrak contains some of the busiest shipping ...
, between Norway and Denmark. At 1710, a false message was sent to the German nightfighter headquarters in Denmark, saying that the aircraft's starboard engine was on fire; the aircraft dropped down to sea level and dropped three life rafts.


Interception

Two
Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. It was the only British fighter produced continuously throughout the ...
s from 165 Squadron, with an American (in ''BM 515T'') and Canadian pilot (in ''AB 921''), were sent to intercept the Ju 88, making contact with the Ju 88 at 1805, west of Aberdeen; the Ju 88 dropped its flaps and undercarriage and launched red flares. The Ju 88 landed at Aberdeen at 1820. One German aircrew, Oberfeldwebel Erich Kantwill, was not compliant following the landing and had to be taken at gunpoint. A WAAF photographer noticed how 'full of smug confidence' that the two German pilots seemed, with one of the pilots 'leisurely combing his hair', not like a typical prisoner-of-war would do so. The Station Commander was
Group Captain Group captain (Gp Capt or G/C) is a senior officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is used by air forces of many Commonwealth of Nations, countries that have historical British influence. Group cap ...
J W Colquhoun. Schmid was detained as a prisoner of war, after being detained in the Officer's Mess for one day with the other crew of his aircraft. On 10 May, the three Luftwaffe aircrew, in civilian clothes, were given an
RAF Regiment The Royal Air Force Regiment (RAF Regiment) is part of the Royal Air Force and functions as a specialist corps. Founded by Royal Warrant in 1942, the Corps carries-out security tasks relating to the protection of assets and personnel dedicated ...
escort to
Aberdeen railway station Aberdeen railway station is the main railway station in Aberdeen, Scotland. It is the busiest railway station in Scotland north of the major cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. It is located on Guild Street in the city centre, next to Union Squa ...
. On the train they were accompanied by staff of
MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...
. Prof RV Jones caught the night train from London, arriving on the morning of Tuesday 11 May. He inspected the aircraft with fellow physicist Derek Jackson.


Aircraft testing

Once the aircraft was captured, German nightfighters could be detected much earlier. The aircraft was flown many times, behind a Vickers Wellington that dropped the tin foil ''Chaff (countermeasure), window''. The radar-jamming technique known as ''window'' was found to work. The previous year, Vickers Wellington, Wellington ''DV819'' of No. 1474 Flight (part of No. 192 Squadron RAF, 192 Squadron) had attempted the world's first Ferret mission, from RAF Gransden Lodge in Huntingdonshire on 3 December 1942, to find German AI radar; the aircraft came under attack by a Luftwaffe Ju 88 nightfighter, and shot down on the Kent coast; the captured Ju 88 would find the radar system that this Wellington had been trying to find in December 1942.


History of Aberdeen

On Tuesday 17 January 1950, Prof RV Jones revisited Aberdeen, to give a talk about the incident, at the University of Aberdeen, to the Tarves Literary Society. He said that the 1943 incident was his first visit to the city. He also mentioned that the Soviets had taken an interest in radar from 1935, but had not progressed. Some Soviet laboratories looked at the possibilities, and one laboratory had got further than the others. In 1938 the OGPU (Joint State Political Directorate, the fore-runner of the NKVD) arrived at the radar laboratory, interviewed staff, became suspicious, leading to deportation of some of the scientists, as the OGPU believed that the scientists were 'English spies'. Prof RV Jones said, at the meeting in Aberdeen, that this action by the Soviets had 'wrecked their own radar research'. Another important British physicist was Sir Robert Cockburn (physicist), Robert Cockburn. Prof RV Jones was the person who had been the first to convince the British government that German scientists had developed radar, mostly thanks to the Oslo Report, passed to the Embassy of the United Kingdom, Oslo, British Embassy in Oslo in Norway by its author, the physicist Hans Ferdinand Mayer, on 4 November 1939. The Germans would know nothing of this report, until the end of the war. On 23 February 1941 Air Marshal Philip Joubert de la Ferté arranged a meeting to discuss whether the Germans had any radar, and Prof RV Jones showed him a picture of the Freya radar, taken the day before, at Auderville in France; the Germans had also — foolishly — named the radar system after the Norse goddess Freyja; given that the Norse goddess in question was known for her magical power to see over a hundred miles, British scientists did not need a surfeit of guesses to deduce the likely function of the German system. In July 1942 a German-speaking British Y service radio operator, broadcasting from a radio transmitter at Wrotham in Kent, and intercepting Luftwaffe nightfighter radio transmissions, heard mention of the unknown ''Emil-Emil'' system. British scientists deduced that this new system was an aircraft interception radar, operating at 490 MHz. (''Emil-Emil'' turned out to be a code name for the Lichtenstein radar system). On 26 April 1943, the Ground Grocer radio transmitter at RAF Dunwich, on the Suffolk coast, began jamming the ''Emil-Emil'' wavelengths.


Military outcome

The Serrate radar detector, for British nightfighters, resulted from the understanding of the Ju-88's 50-cm radar. Serrate was first deployed on 14 June 1943. Five nightfighters had Serrate detectors, resulting in the loss of one Luftwaffe aircraft. Later the technology was deployed on Mosquito nightfighters of No. 141 Squadron RAF, 141 Sqn, No. 239 Squadron RAF, 239 Sqn at RAF West Raynham, and No. 169 Squadron RAF, 169 Sqn at RAF Great Massingham in the west of Norfolk. Erich Kantwill returned to his wife Anneliese in Dortmund, and his daughter. Schmid returned to Bonn.


Aircraft

Within five days the Ju 88 had been given the designation ''PJ876'', later being tested at RAF Collyweston in Northamptonshire. In the 1960s the aircraft was at RAF Biggin Hill, then in storage at RAF Henlow, then moved to Wales in August 1973, to be restored by a team led by Flt Lt Ken Hurst. In early 1975 the aircraft was restored to original condition at RAF St Athan in south Wales. The aircraft was moved to the RAF Museum in London in November 1978, when the museum opened.


See also

* 23 June 1942, a Fw 190 A3 accidentally landed, with Oberleutnant Armin Faber at RAF Pembrey, now Pembrey Sands Air Weapons Range; it was the first time that the RAF had such an aircraft; the pilot mistook the Bristol Channel for the English Channel; he came from Jagdgeschwader 2 at Morlaix; he was confronted by Sgt Matthews, with a flare; he was taken to RAF Fairwood Common by Group Captain David Atcherley; the aircraft is in Shoreham Aircraft Museum * 16 April 1943, in the early hours; twelve Focke-Wulf Fw 190 A4 Luftwaffe aircraft had followed RAF bombers home from Germany to Essex; four of the Fw 190 aircraft had crossed the Thames estuary and believing it was the English Channel, the aircraft mistakenly landed at RAF West Malling; one crashed with the pilot killed, but the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 operational history, other three pilots were captured, with Feldwebel Otto Bechtold from Schnellkampfgeschwader 10 * 13 July 1944, a landing at RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk of a Nachtjagdgeschwader 2 (NJG 2) Ju 88G, also carrying advanced radar, piloted by Unteroffizier Hans Mackle, Obergefreiter Heinz Olze and Obergefreiter Hans Mockle * 21 July 1944, at around 0300, two Messerschmitt Bf 109 (G) aircraft landed at RAF Manston in Kent, piloted by Leutnant Horst Prenzel and Feldwebel Manfred Gromill of Jagdgeschwader 301 (JG 301)Manston History
/ref> * Helmuth Pohle, led the first German aerial attack on the UK, in Scotland, on 16 October 1939 in a Ju 88, later taken prisoner-of-war


References


External links


1943 defection
{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmid, Herbert 1914 births Aviation accidents and incidents in 1943 Aviation history of Scotland German defectors German emigrants to the United Kingdom German prisoners of war in World War II held by the United Kingdom German World War II fighter pilots History of Aberdeen Military history of Denmark during World War II Military history of Scotland People from Saxony-Anhalt Technical intelligence during World War II World War II strategic bombing of Germany Year of death missing