Quote:
Originally Posted by Dread Knot
Too bad for the Kriegsmarine that they had no naval aviation of their own. All aircraft - coastal based and ship based - were under command of the Luftwaffe and flown by Luftwaffe officers, following the Göring's order that, "everything that flies belongs to me".
Who knows what devastating results could have been obtained on convoys by dedicated naval attack aircraft in concert with the U-Boats.
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Actually, this is not quite true. Elements of the Küstenflieger, while poor in quality and numbers, remained under Kriegsmarine control well into the war. While individual Staffeln were handed over to Luftwaffe control throughout the war in the time frame this thread deals with, most units were still subordinate to ObdM. True, they were transferred to Luftwaffe control but only in a piecemeal fashion. There is a new book that deals with these units called - yep, you guessed it - Küstenflieger.
As for Luftwaffe encounters, I play with the option to have updates turned on so when I see a lone ship in the vicinity I assume that this is a Luftwaffe report. However - I turn this option off from 1943 onwards as the chance of getting useful info from that source is rather dubious. Also, any report beyond the western approaches I discard because no aircraft could that far out into the Atlantic, right? That is my sum total of Luftwaffe experience!