The General Erwin Rommel, not yet Feldmarschall, arranging his life jacket in front to his personal aircraft, somewhere in Libya. Notice also two men with life jacket, surely a Rommel’s staff officer at the center of the photo, and on the right a plane’s crewmember speaking with other German servicemen. The aircraft is a Heinkel He 111 bomber adjusted as Rommel’s transport aircraft, exactly the He 111H-6 KS (Kurierstaffel), WNr.4085 (serial number 4085), Stammkennzeichen VG+ES. The LEMB Stammkennzeichen Database Project appoint the VG+ES WNr.4085 to Stab/StG.3, Kurierstaffel, the Stab (Staff Flight) of the Stukageschwader 3. In effect the Fliegerführer Afrika’s order of battle 27 December 1941 specify a single He 111 in the strength of this Stab. Another single He 111, likely a Kurierstaffel plane, according the Fliegerführer Afrika’s order of battle April 1941, is in the strength of the Stab/StG 1, another Ju 87 equipped Geschwader. But a source affirm the WNr. 4085 destroyed by an accident during a local flight at Ain-el-Gazala on 9 August 1941, causing the death of Hptm. Josef Mies (pilot), Oblt. Karl Pfefferer (observer) and Fw. Willi Birr (engineer), and this not coincide with the previous information. According my opinion likely the He 111 destroyed at Ain-el-Gazala isn’t the WNr.4085, but rather is another He 111 (Stab/StG 1’s aircraft?). Victor Sierra

Rommel’s plane

Campo Imperatore, Gran Sasso d’Italia, 12 September 1943: the final act of the Unternehmen Eiche (Operation Oak), the liberation of Benito Mussolini. The men of the Lehrbataillon (2. Fallschirmjägerdivision), disembarked from ten transport gliders DFS 230, greeting the take-off of the plane direct to Pratica di Mare, Rome, with onboard the pilot Walter Gerlach, the Duce (barely visible dressed in black) and Otto Skorzeny (in the rear seat with beige overcoat) which toke itself all the merits: an history’s page well know and also many times commemorated by ww2incolor (for the DFS 230 gliders see also http://www.ww2incolor.com/d/716886-1/GRAN-SASSO-DFS-DISTR). I alight on in preference to the aircraft and to the pilot, two of event’s leading actors. The plane is the Fieseler Fi 156C-3 Storch Nr.1268, Stammkennzeichen SJ+LL (and not SU+LL as indicated by few sources). Gerlach, a well experienced pilot and good expert of the Storch’s flight characteristic and also, clearly, of the stringent flight conditions on high mountains, was obliged to resolve a very difficult problem, not much for the land, only a run of 30 m (100 ft) uphill (normal practice for the flight in mountain), how for the take-off. The Skorzeny’s request of go on board together Mussolini overloaded the plane and this over a terrain at near 1,800 meter ASL (over 5,700 ft) with all problems hailing from the high altitude, luckily with cold climate. Gerlach on his part solved the problem: take-off run downhill (other practice for the flight in mountains), strictly control of wind’s direction and speed, brakes locked, full flaps, step-by-step power to near full power (75%?), brakes release and “go”: TO in 80 meter (250 ft) and plane in full flight with flaps retraction in climb beginning (notice a detail: the upper portion of the engine cowling appear removed; for better cooling of the engine under strain during the take-off in overload?). The remaining flight was without history and the Garlach’s Storch with Mussolini on board landed successfully at Pratica di Mare where a Luftwaffe’s Heinkel He 111 wait for the Duce and for his transfer in Germany. A good exploit thanks to the Gerlach’s skills and to still unequalled STOL performances of the Fieseler Storch. Victor Sierra

Happy flight, Duce!

Another view, this time without none people around, of the Rommel’s Heinkel He 111H VG+ES of the previous photo. In foreground the staff car of the “Desert’s Fox” with the Rommel’s rank insignia. In North Africa Rommel made use also of other aircrafts as a Focke-Wulf FW 58 and a Fieseler Storch. Victor Sierra