German Air Force

Sonderkommando Blaich (Pt.1)

Bundesarchiv

In January 1942, Luftwaffe’s Hauptmann Theo Blaich planned and led a daring bombing raid against the strategic important French depot at Fort Lamy, southern Chad. Blaich was one of those characters larger than life: a rich plantation owner in Africa, he flew back to Germany in his own Fw 108 and joined the Luftwaffe in 1939. Knowledgeable of Africa, Blaich soon realized the importance of Fort Lamy as a main hub of the Allied supply route between the Americas and the African/Middle Eastern theatre of operations. Seen as impossible by the Luftwaffe’s top brass, the raid received the approval of Rommel and authorization for a lonely Heinkel He 111 H-6 medium bomber to try the 5000 km round trip was given. The raid, codenamed ‘Sonderkommando Blaich’, was a joint operation logistically supported by the Italian Regia Aeronautica. In this first photo Italian Maggiore Ottaviano Vimercati-Sanseverino stands in the center (he was to fly a Savoia-Marchetti SM.81 carrying extra fuel for use on the bombing run). The German Hauptmann to the right is Theo Blaich, the leader of the operation.