This is Why a FW 190 Really Landed in Wales in 1942 | The Pembrey Incident
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- Опубліковано 16 лис 2023
- In this video, I delve into the remarkable incident of German Luftwaffe pilot Armin Faber, who unexpectedly landed his Focke-Wulf FW 190 in Pembrey, Wales AKA the "Pembrey Incident". But the story you know might not be the whole truth.
I'll begin by exploring the popular narrative: a daring pilot, a dramatic chase, and a landing that handed the Allies a priceless war asset. But, as I dig deeper, I uncover a more complex and compelling version of events.
Relying on primary sources and a personal conversation with a close friend of Armin Faber, I challenge long-standing assumptions to reveal a narrative steeped in historical accuracy yet overlooked by many.
So, come along as I debunk myths, present facts, and add a touch of my own brand of humor to this puzzling tale. Get ready to see this WWII enigma through a new lens in an academically sound yet engaging format. It's time to rethink what we thought we knew about the Pembrey incident!
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My grandfather was in the Observer Corp in Kidwelly , just down the road from RAF Pembrey and was on duty that day . He saw the FW 190 and reported it but he said nobody believed him. He was told he had probably made a mistake identifying the a/c type . My grandfather was not pleased about the reaction to his claim . He was at a later date awarded an MBE for his services in the Observer Corp .
An undamaged German bomber landed at Lulsgate airfield near Bristol during WW2.
Like the FW109 featured in this video, the aircraft was transferred to a secret RAF squadron that flew captured German aircraft painted in British colours. Very little is known about this squadron or what they did and would be an interesting topic for further research.
No.1426 (Enemy Aircraft) Flight, RAF..? Hardly a secret organisation. It's been covered in numerous books and web articles and even has its own Wiki page...
I've read an account about a different German bomber which landed at an RAF airfield by mistake in heavy fog. It taxied up to dispersal. The RAF ground crew were amazed and walked towards it. The pilot recognised his error with an "Ach mein Gott!" moment and quickly took off before the ground crew or the gunners could react.
Seek out full pearch flier. On you tube ask him about it. He put out a post , about this on his channel . He could help you out . Tell him Ken sent you to him . Hes involved with aviation and other stuff , but knows about this FW 109 going to Wales . Hope this helps .
First heard about this when I read Wings o The Luftwaffe by Captain Eric Winkle Brown. In my opinion, he made an honest mistake that anyone could make while flying. Excellent video!
Some years ago, I read the autobiography of Jeffrey Quill, a test pilot. In his book he refers to a planned mission known as "operation Airthief". The plan was for Jeffrey Quill and a commando officer, Philip Pinckney, to parachute into occupied France, near to a luftwaffe base where FW190s were operated from, get Jeffrey into the cockpit of a fueled and flight-ready example and fly it back to the UK. JQ, while willing to participate in this operation, was worried about its slim chances of success (and, presumably, their survival). Two days before the mission, it was cancelled, because of the FW190 that had been landed intact in Wales. It can only be one of those occasions when some of those in the British military could not have believed there good fortune!
Many thanks for this video. I had often wondered what became of the pilot of the "gifted" FW190.
I was thinking about working this story into the video as well, but decided it really needs its own video. I thought that Pinckney actually put the plans in on the very day that Faber landed, but I'd need to double check that.
I believe there was a similar scheme to grab a 109 too.
@@CalibanRising Subscribed!
I would like to see this video when it is made.
My old man once told me a story about an incident he witnessed while being stationed on Manston airfield in Kent. He was with the REME, and they were there for some specific purpose ( I can't quite recall what my father said it was - he died in the 80's) when one particular gorgeous day, the maintenance crews were happily going about their work, when the sound of a lone aircraft approaching was heard. The sound grew louder, and all of a sudden it was realised it was an Me 109. The airfield gun crews immediately opened up, and all hell broke loose. The wheels on the German fighter were seen to come down, which made some of the gun crews slacken their rate of fire, but some persisted. Luckily, none seemed to be shooting too accurately that day. By this time, the German was down to around 300 feet or so, and his intentions were clear. He was going to land, and land he did, to be almost immediately surrounded by vehicles and personnel. The German pilot was seen to slowly and carefully taxi towards the nearest hangar, and stop his engine. By this time my father said there were rifles and pistols by the dozen pointing at him. My dad said he calmly opened the cockpit and climbed out, with my dad particularly remembering his long black leather coat. By this time he was seen to salute someone, and hand his pistol over. My dad said within an hour, two cars full of suits had arrived, and took the German away.... Not long after that everyone on the airfield was promptly rounded up and told they had seen nothing. It never happened. The German plane was flown off Manston within a couple of days....for examination elsewhere I imagine.... I have read of several intended defections during WW2, but never any mention of this particular event.
It's stories like this that make me wish I'd been born 40 years earlier and I could have been doing THIS when I could have interviewed men like your dad. Very interesting, I wish I could find out more.
50 years ago, after a very long cross county flight I landed with my 150 B on the wrong airfield and did not even realize it. In the air landmarks have a nasty way to 'disappear."
Tell me about it. On my first flight from a new airfield near Bordeaux I didn't see an entire town on my track.
No Skydemon when I was a rookie. Uncertain of position was just my default!🤔
In the late sixties a pilot of either a Mexicana Airlines or Aeromexico airliner landed at the runway of the Hughes Aircraft/ Hughes Helicopter plant about three miles north of the LAX runways. If he could do that in clear weather, you are more than correct that landmarks can disappear once you're in the air. No word on what the FAA thought of his landing.
Absolute gift to the Allies. At the time the FW190 was superior to the Spitfire V (as would be demonstrated during the Dieppe Raid a few weeks later) so the possibility to test a brand new aircraft was a godsend. The FW190 was superior in pretty well all respects including being 30kph faster at all heights. and this hastened the development of the superb Spitfire IX.
For a period of time after the Spitfire IX was released the Germans did not know it even existed. So they attacked them as if it was the inferior performing Spitfire V and ended up getting the surprise of their lives when the IXs dispatched them handily! Of course, the Vs and IXs look a great deal the same at a distance so the Germans can be be forgiven their confusion.
Excellent story thanks Phil; well researched and presented as ever. As an idea for a future video you could tell the story of the Ju 88 that apparently 'got lost' and landed at the incomplete RAF Lulsgate Bottom (this is now Bristol International Airport). Legend has it that the pilot was confused by Operation Starfish decoy lights. It was only the quick witted presence of mind of a digger driver that stopped the aircraft from taking off again when they realised their mistake by parking his construction vehicle directly in front of the Ju 88; the crew were captured by a local contingent of the Home Guard.
Thanks for the suggestion Nick. I will certainly look into it, sounds very interesting.
The JU88 R that's in the RAF museum, it was Hendon, but now I believe, Duxford, was done by prior arrangement, 3 of the 4 crew knew they were going to land in England.
The pilot told different stories, at different times, to different people. And according to him faked epilepsy and was returned to Germany. During the war. Apparently without repercussions from the Luftwaffe. He got a long way for someone called stupid. To use an Americanism he was “crazy like a fox”. That man deserves a biography!
Geoff did say I'd have enjoyed meeting him. Quite a character to be sure.
The sole fact of being able of convincingly faking epilepsy is one of a kind
@@CalibanRising …. Receiving a new FW190 was quite a godsend for the RAF. I imagine it immediately was flown to the Royal Aircraft Establishment for evaluation and testing. I wonder if Lt Eric Brown RN did the honors?
It certainly was fully evaluated, which is an interesting topic all on its own. I don't think Winkle flew this particular example (someone please correct me) but he certainly flew a FW 190 later on.
@@CalibanRising According to Eric Brown there was a plan in 1942 to pinch a 190A from an airfield in France for evaluation. Brown was to be the pilot helped to the airfield by an SAS officer.
...So it was probably lucky for Brown that a 190A happened to land in the Uk when it did!
An American pilot delivered a P-47 Razorback to the Germans by confusing the cardinal points.
You can find pictures of it with German markings online.
It was blown up by a p51 going ballistic on a German airfield
@@warriorgaming1604 No, it wasn‘t. The Americans found it in a hangar when they occupied Göttingen in April 45.
But you were right - there's a Mustang involved in the case. The photo with a GI standing next to it also shows a dismantled P-51 in the background.
The compass on the instrument panel is linked to a master compass elsewhere in the fuselage. It has a heading ring that can be rotated to the course that you want to follow. There are instances when these "ease of use" features can be mis-set, so that the pilot reads the compass incorrectly every time he looks at it, because it is set wrong. Remember that the pilot of a lone enemy aircraft over England is going to spend as much time as possible scanning the skies around him and would not want to be looking inside the cockpit for any longer than possible. A simple mistake immediately after combat is all it takes to have you flying north instead of south.
It's possible to be sure.
Perhaps therefore he thought the compass was U/S the moment he saw the North Devon coast (In error) but reluctant to admit to the Britishers that "superior" German engineering had failed him ?
The same thing happened to me the other day. There were no parking spaces at the front of the Co-op, so I parked half on the pavement at the side.
But when I came out after doing my shopping, I automatically turned right and quite confidently headed over to where I usually park. I did at least 15 paces before I realised my mistake. And I’d only navigated two isles, a short queue at the till and the question that pops up on card payment thingy asking if I want to donate to Alzheimer’s…!👀
Anyway, I’m only crazy like a 65 year old SAAB 93 Cabriolet driver who’s grateful that WW2 ended all wars…!🙄🧐😎😜
Peace
I am surprised the sun would not alert him he was flying north. A pilot would often look in the direction of the sun since that is where enemy pilots will often come from. So he should realize the position of the sun means he is flying north, regardless of the compass.
@@joeelliott2157
I flown duel ( as P2 ) and assumed command with my P1 insisted they were flying west ( early morning ) with the sun clearly visible at 30° ish to left of our heading,
because they were totally trusting in their new toy satellite navigation
This was a VFR flight in near perfect visibility and my P1 ( distracted) had forgotten the simplest of visual navigation aids .. ( this one being the time & position of the sun )
So I can understand how someone in the heat of battle could accidentally mis-set a compus ( especially so it's a gyro one )
I'll go with the story that is quite likely that. Tried, realising his position ( south Wales coast) may not having enough fuel to make Ireland, and not wishing risk injury by landing on a unprepared surface, are pilot here just choose the 1st large open space ( prepared surface) he could see ,
Geoff Nutkins art work is fantastic _I've bought loads from him over the Years. His Pilot portraits are just great.
Some time ago, a fellow pilot friend made the reverse mistake. Several aircraft were flying from South Wales to Cornwall, he missed the Severn Estuary, due to poor visibility, and only the fact that he recognised the beach (pevensey, I think) as he flew south out of England prevented his flying to France, or more probably, the South Atlantic. He made a check on his navigation by landing at an airfield that he flew near, and arrived at our planned destination several hours after the rest of our “gaggle”
If you'd like to help me produce more videos like this and at the same time are in the market for a leather flying jacket, check out Legendary USA via my link: calibanrising.com/legendary-usa
Thanks again for another fine warplane video......
From an Old F-4 Phantom 2 pilot Shoe🇺🇸
I grew up a few miles from Pembrey, and heard this story a lot when I was growing up, both from my gran, and my dad. The story I was always told was pretty much what you've said in the video, although I was always told he mistook Pembrey for France, but I agree with your conclusion.
A relative of mine tells the story that although this was meant to be somewhat secret, everyone in South Wales knew about it within 24h. His father ran a coffee shop and it was the sole topic of conversation.
Incredible really, since the FW190 was not even known to British intelligende early in its carreer, being thought to be former french Curtiss P-36s at first
One of my grandparents was living in Pontypridd at the time, I wonder if they knew about it back then? How far is the airfield from the Cardiff area?
@@mattkaustickomments over 60 miles
@@pascalchauvet4230He might be talking about the story, the chain of events. I believe the fact about the new aircraft type and technology wouldn't have been the main topic of interest/discussion, as a couple of dogfights along with a botched scramble, so losing three planes, and then the German pilot landing safely and unscathed afterwards, must've been way more entertaining than hearing that they found out the Germans got a new plane, something that was happening on all sides constantly. Cheers.
Interesting video. Thanks.
As an aside to this but connected with visual navigation...
I'm a low (200) hour private pilot in single engined light aircraft.
A few years ago myself and ex wife were in a Grumman AA5 that I was flying and we were trying to take photos of a friend's house in Wolverhampton which is part of the built up and congested West Midlands conurbation.
I reckoned that if I could see the Moleneux football stadium then I could work back and find his house.
I'd flown this rental aircraft down from Tatenhill in Staffordshire.
I was orbiting for around two or three minutes at about 1500ft AGL wondering why I couldn't find the stadium.
Then my missus pointed out that she could see Walsall bus station.
Basically, I was a few miles to the east and over a different town.
Now, this never happened to me. I was pretty good with navigation for obvious reasons. This was an area I was very familiar with on the ground and yet I'd made a rare navigational screw up which proves even a monkey can fall out of a tree.
Broad daylight, not anxious, not being shot at, compass not tumbled. I still made a silly error.
People do.
I agree, it's very easy to make these sorts of navigational errors. I almost missed the whole town near Bordeaux once. It happens.
This is a nice thing about aviation. There’s a very healthy practice of openness about errors, that benefits many and costs nothing.
Just discovered your channel. It’s fantastic. Thanks!
PS Doesn't Faber's aircraft look the absolute business in RAF Roundels?
It should be possible to confirm his claim of low fuel by calculating his flyt track and the aircrafts fuel consumption.
Interesting , always good to revisit some of these well told and often misrepresented storeys.
Thanks for taking the time to post this, enjoyed it.
I have another story, told by a Dutch WW2 pilot to me.
This was just after the Netherlands capitulated to the Germans and there was no more fighting.
This pilot was on Airbase Leeuwarden in the Friesland province, stationed there as a Fokker G.I pilot.
The Germans wanted to take the last few Fokker G.I's to Germany for testing and possibly adding them to their ranks.
This was however a problem as there were no German pilots to take the second Fokker G.I, so they ordered a Dutch pilot to fly to Germany.
The aircraft did have it's weapons, but no ammo. He was to follow the German pilot who was fully stocked up on ammo to Germany.
However this Dutch pilot had a different idea, he waited until they were above the thick cloud deck and he knew it was now or never.
He dove into the cloud deck and stayed inside it while the German pilot in the other Fokker G.I tried to follow and find him. Of course not finding him at all.
The Dutch pilot knew he should reach England and join them instead. So he managed to reach the coastline where the British thought they were under attack.
They did manage to shoot him, but landed safely where the pilot escaped without problems and the aircraft burned down completely.
The pilot got arrested in the first place but at the local airbase soon the truth was revealed and the British pilots got blasted for shooting down a ally.
The Dutch pilot signed up to join the RAF and trained on a Spitfire. He ended up defending British soil and later flew during D-Day as well from what I was told.
He did get eventually after the war transferred back to Leeuwarden airbase.
The story I heard was that having chased a bunch of Spitfires back across the Channel and had a scrap over Devon/Cornwall, Faber discovered that he had forgotten to lock his girocompass before combat and it was now spinning wildly so that he could not tell which direction he was flying and that he was in cloud. Being critically short of fuel, when he crossed out over a coastline he assumed it was the Channel ahead of him and just kept going as straight as he could until seeing a coast ahead and finding an airfield he landed there. The story also said upon discovering he was in Wales he asked if they could give him some petrol. Either way, this event made a pretty much suicidal mission that had been planned to go and steal one from France no longer necessary, which undoubtedly was a very good thing.
A gyrocompass is always used along with a magnetic compass, otherwise there's no way to set it up before flight. He would still have been able to use the magnetic compass.
Would have still had his magnetic compass, right? A magnetic compass will settle down and show accurately if you just fly straight and level for a minute or so. Any pilot knows this.
This was what sparked my research, I had a clear picture of the FW 190's cockpit in my mind and didn't see how he could have flown N instead of S if that was his intention.
@@markr.1984 I just repeated the story I heard without altering it so people could see. Make of it what you will.
@@CalibanRising iirc the compass on the cockpit panel of the Fw190 displayed the heading from the gyrocompass, not the magnetic one. If the gyro toppled during combat, it would have been spinning wildly and useless until reset.
Resetting it was done by flying straight and level until the magnetic compass stabilised, then manually adjusting the gyrocompass to match the reading from the magnetic one. If Faber misread his magnetic compass during this process and entered the opposite heading, the compass on the instrument panel would have been reversed for the rest of the flight. It would have been displaying south while he was heading north, with very little warning that anything was wrong.
In his 1975 book, The Road to Stalingrad, John Erickson mentions briefly how a German plane, with a general on board, accidentally landed at a Soviet airfield. I don't have the book now and can't get the details to find out more via Google. Anybody know?
Pembrey also had the second largest Munitions factory and storage facilities in the UK at that time .
I think an awful lot went on in his mind that day, off the charts combat stress ...
I'm surprised no one made a movie based on this. If there is any truth to the alleged defection then it would make sense to send him back as a spy.
That’s likely something he wouldn’t have felt safe revealing even after the war and considering all other possibilities, as likely as any.
I guess, I m not so sure about it, sorry, but some Jerry fighters were deep into the use of Pervitin. Indeed, it could be fun, but if the person dehydrated a bit while high on it, he could make very bad mistakes like landing in England. You could check it out, confusion is one of its side effects. Horrido! And very good video, thanks.
It may have seemed like a mistake at the time but more or less guaranteed surviving the war.
Your Pervatin and dehydration comment is an interesting element that most modern people fail to consider. It's summer and he has just been in combat so it is easily possible that he had been sweating during combat manuvers and like you said that could add to his mental confusion. I think that the ground mist and thunder clouds need to be considered and above all his previously broken leg. Would you want to jump out of your aircraft to face the risk of your parachute failing to open (it happened more frequently than we would like to admit), or to then face a parachute landing on your still tender leg?
With falling fuel levels, time was running out and no pilot willingly fly out over the Channel to bail out into the sea and almost certain death!
He would not be the first pilot to accidentally fly a reciprocal heading , particularly immediately following a "significant emotional event".
Navigational errors by a 'not novice but also not very experienced' pilot doesn't make him an idiot. Especially with the stress of air combat added to the mix. These kind of errors happened all the time in WW2 on all sides.
The biggest surprise from this is that he as allowed to return to Germany during war time. I thought this was impossible, no matter his condition, faked or not. This is very interesting in itself and I suggest a video about this.
Repatriation did occurred during the war although I'm not sure what the grounds would be. Badly wounded men who could no longer serve were repatriated via The Red Cross
Perhaps there was a swap of some sort. We’ll give you one of yours for one of ours.
Not a chance. Skies were clear enough to map read. Even if his compass was U/S (doubtfully) he would not fly N/W with the sun setting on his left. He knew where he was going. He defected and the SIS knew he was enroute, so they didn't intercept him near Fairwood Common/Swansea.
Thank you for an interesting piece regarding this remarkable incident. Maybe Faber was low on fuel and didn't feel like getting his feet wet? It was a critical issue for BF109s during the Battle of Britain where they had to limit the amount of high fuel demand combat flying over enemy territory to ensure they could get back. Sometimes one perjorative comment in life can bias perceptions. Perhaps the German pilot's view on Faber was exactly as you suggest, based upon a dislike of him. The great Stuka Ace, Hans-Ulrich Udell was said to have been unpopular with his fellow pilots because he didn't like to spend his time out of the cockpit getting drunk with them.
Faber's aircraft was an A-3 with a BMW 801 D-2 engine in which most of the issues concerning reliability had been sorted out. The aircraft had two cowl-mounted MG 17 machine guns, 1,000 rpg, two MG 152/20 cannon in the wing roots, 200 rpg and two MG FF/M cannon in the wings outboard of the landing gear, 55 rpg. Its W.Nr. was 313 and some 500 were produced by FW, Arado, Ago and Fieseler 🙂
My Grandad worked for English Electric on the early Canberras. Great to see them still "alive"
2.27 "He flew N instead of South"
Quite possible aircraft occasionally flew on a reciprocal bearing that is 180 degrees to the actual course they should have been on. This happened when a British aircraft tasked with dropping a mine in a French river estuary flew on the opposite course and dropped it in the Mersey.
I just can't believe Faber could have been that disorientated for that long....look at the compass in the FW 190.
In the 1930s a British flying boat flew from a lake in Africa on a reciprocal course. It couldn't find its destination and ditched in a river and was eventually flown out when they hacked a way through the jungle with it with fuel. The river was barely wider than the wing tips so the cleared trees too. But the important fact here is thar it flew for hundreds of miles in the wrong direction. However, there may also have been an issue with its compass and it's about 25 years since I read the book.
It's not that uncommon during the hunt for the Bismarck an aircraft or a shadowing ship signalled her course to the admiral commanding. His reaction was "it seems XYZ has joined the reciprocal club" because she was going in the opposite direction. They didn't realise that after the torpedo attack by Swordfish her rudder was jammed and she was going in the opposite direction.@@wbertie2604
Very interesting story, particularly since I lived in Pembrey. I'll ask my mother if she remembers any reports of this incident.
It would be interesting to know what she remembers.
A very interesting clarification of the FW190 landing in Britain. Whatever the reason, it was a most welcome and useful gift to the RAF, since the FW190 was really a problem at that stage. As an aside, please do keep doing live commentary; it is becoming irritating how much poor AI voice bot commentaries are spoiling otherwise interesting material.
I loathe AI voices!
The 190 caused such concern that Churchill had asked SOE to plan a Commando raid on an airfield in France with the objective of flying one back.
IIRC, more FW190s got lost in a raid on London and landed in England.
nice work on this video. Most people don't even get the guy's name right. You do in fact start calling him ArNIM towards the end by the way . Reposted on FalkeEins the Luftwaffe blog, thanks!
Thanks for watching. Yeah, I noticed my mistake only after uploading. Sorry, Armin!
It would have been better if you had told something about the RAF working on the German plane and how it helped in their efforts against the Luftwaffe.
That's really worth an entire video by itself. There is also the interesting fact that I forgot to mention about the commando raid proposal to steal a FW 190 filed that very same day.
I agree with the German person (below) who said: "Wessen blühender Fantasie ist denn diese Geschichte entsprungen?" - basically, “Who thought up this fantasy?”
I can't think about anything, in any version, of this, literally, incredible story that could be based on fact; even the transcript of Armin Faber's 'interrogation'.
If Faber was concentrating on gazing outside of his cockpit and totally ignored his compass; and even in 'light haze', he would have, eventually, noticed the position of the sun, in an elementary exercise to determine if he was travelling north or south.
It is true to say that many Luftwaffe fighter pilots were not proficient at navigation merely due to their faulty, rushed training regimes.
The assertion that Faber was an "idiot" doesn't hold water either. The Luftwaffe, like the RAF, were in great need of pilots but they weren't that desperate.
Among the major clinchers in this odd saga is that someone could convincingly 'sell' having epilepsy, especially at a government facility where doctors would be readily available.
The Red Cross, who handled repatriations of this sort, had shall we say, lots of doctors and trained nurses who could spot a false attempt at epilepsy.
Faking epilepsy is a difficult 'act' even for an experienced thespian.
You try 'foaming at the mouth' and having a seizure at the drop of a hat.
But the real 'tag line' for this laughable gag is that epilepsy doesn't come to one 'overnight' and desperate as the Luftwaffe might have been, they, or any other air force, would not allow an epileptic to go through pilot training.
One can imagine the response of the Luftwaffe General or Colonel who told the Red Cross, “Ja, send over Faber, our fighter pilot, because he’s got epilepsy…”.
Oh, really?
So, given that the epilepsy story is obviously BS, he was sent back to Germany for some other reason. Was he working for MI6 or the Abwehr? Or, both.
You seem to know a lot about our mysterious pilot yet, you say you know little or nothing about his ‘reception’ back in Germany or what he did after he arrived.
If he told his ‘debriefers’ any of the above, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been shot - still, you say he had regular contact with people, friends even, after the war.
Did none of your contacts who knew Armin ever go into detail about his fate at the hands of the Luftwaffe?
Sadly, all of the information you present about Faber, claiming what you say corrects 'phoney' stories about him; only result in many new questions.
I think your story of this extremely strange person desperately needs more research and a further episode.
Cheers, and all the best, Bill H. Military Historian and ex-RAAF
Thanks for the comment Bill. There's certainly more to this story and I'd love to be able to do more research into it. I'm sure that I'll be able to come up with more evidence and a more compelling video structure in the future.
Faber was no novice pilot, that makes it still difficult to believe it was a navigational error
All that windage, just to say the well-known story is correct.....! I've flown a lot in that area. At altitude, after a stressful combat, in hazy conditions.......... it would be very VERY easy to fly on a reciprocal course. No mystery whatsoever.
Do you really think so? I mean, he was pretty much the only one doing something like this, apart from a Ju 88 night fighter @@HeavensGremlin
Mind you, when you think a whole flight got confused and went missing in that Bermuda incident?
During the War in Bosnia, there was a Sea Harrier shot down, an SAS patrol in the area was assigned to get him out. On the way to the pick up point, (A French puma I believe) the SAS navigator realised he had been marching on a reciprocal heading, 180 degrees, so navigation error is almost certainly a feasible outcome.
Excellent content,TY😊
Glad you enjoyed it
RAF Pembrey, now airport, is eight miles from me.
Used to have a couple of prints of this FW190, and JG2 waiting to scramble, both signed by Armin Faber and , Geoff Nutkins, the artist, this was about 30 years ago and ive moved so many times ive lost them. I always thought it was compass error, or rather, not reading the setting properly, more or less as you describe.
I heard once a long time ago that his grandmother lived in Cardiff and this was a possible reason he defected and landed in Wales.
I find it difficult to believe that a man who is clever enough to qualify as a combat pilot has trouble reading a compass.
Interesting video, I like your channel since it has unusual content like this. But even if the FW 190 was new and should not be captured, surely what should NOT be allowed to fall into enemy hands would be the kommandogerät?
Wouldn't the pilots be instructed to at least try to destroy that before being captured?
There is a parallel story regarding the war of electronics...the Germans and British were constantly out doing each other in respect of the ability to use the airwaves for navigation and how the British worked out how to change the positioning of where somewhere was so that the German bombers that were given effectively 2 separate radio lines that when they crossed..drop the bombs..this navigation system was also there for fighter pilots to be able to co ordinate with the bombers...the story i saw was that the British boffins made the navigation system of the plane think it was France..
It was called 'Butcher Bird' by RAF Pilots as it was so superior to then current Spitfires which were promptly improved (improved Merlin engine);to equal and be superior.
Not very promptly.
Even in an English book I had, the versions of Focke Wulf 190/152 were considered the best Fighter Planes of the war! Luckily the Germans neither had Pilots nor fuel in the end, to be able to defend their German area effectively! In 1944 the Germans actually produced the highest number of Planes made during the war, but luckily the quality seems to have been rather bad from the spread production sites in tunnels and available spaces.
Mk IX, a converted MK V.
While dogfighting over the Channel it was easy to get lost over the featureless water so the Luftwaffe used electronic beacons to guide their pilots back to their airfield. The British cunningly set up dummy beacons to sow confusion, causing the enemy to distrust their compass and at least spend more time lost and making targets of themselves or even run short of fuel and have to ditch. Most pilots eventually saw through it by the 'wrong' position of the sun, but a few were completely fooled and landed in England.
I remember reading an account, many years ago now, regarding this. I think it was the first time the deception had been tried, and it worked like a dream. The German plane spent the night flying in all directions around the south of England before running out of fuel and landing in a field somewhere. The flight crew were interrogated and they admitted they were totally confused and had no idea where they were.
When I first heard this story, the bit about landing in Wales as he though he had flown over the Channel towards France baffled me because why would he fly north to get back home.
That FW190 looks SO weird in RAF livery. Like my Grandmother in a leopard bikini.
As to the Faber question, well, every armed force has it's share of Ruperts.
lol
What about the West Malling Incident, when FOUR FW190s landed at an airfield in Kent? Two crashlanded in an apple orchard (killing their pilots), one landed on the runway and was shot to pieces by the station armoured car (the pilot was captured alive), the fourth made a perfect landing, taxiing up to a hangar, the pilot got out, staggered into the hangar, and only the realised his mistake and was grabbed by the RAF ground crew. His plane was subsequently wrecked when an inexperienced "erk" took it up for a spin, and crash landed it.
Needs its own video really.
Wessen blühender Fantasie ist denn diese Geschichte entsprungen?
I think Mark Felton did one already.
awesome story bro!
Thanks for watching mate!
A lot of fine points
We stil fly in ww2 in Il2 ,,same as the FW190 in youre video.. We fly each sunday big missions with ACG.. air combat group. When i flew german in 5th staffel.. i also was lost a few times in my 109. luckely never landed in england but all alone in youre plane youre feeling is not nice if you dont know were you are anymore,. I was going up near Frenchs poitn and landed in cherbourg en cotentin. Thats way more south then were i had to be,,, so yes it can and will happen with pilots who are new to airias !!
ACG, that takes me back. I used to be the CO of 615 Squadron about 10 years ago. Sunday night co-op battles were a lot of fun. I'm actually the one doing all the aerobatics at the end in "Bonkin"'s movie he made back then😀
So that's the story behind it; it was mentioned a bit by Harry "Broady" Broadhurst in a 'Hunters In the Sky' VHS tape.
Was he deserting? The only thing I find odd is he would of known it wasnt his airfield, but at this point he would of been almost out of fuel.
"would have"
thats "would have" for the terminally anal.
Getting lost after the stress of a dog fight makes sense. Weather in Southwest UK can change very quickly. The hard to read compass makes it even more likely. He then does a victory lap of an airfield only to find its Wales instead of Breton.
There had to be a couple of RAF planes on the field. He knew what was up.
@@terraflow__bryanburdo4547 if you are not expecting RAF aircraft on your Luftwaffe airstrip you won't necessarily pay any attention. People can be surprisingly unable to see things they don't expect to be there.
Great story Sir
Thanks for listening James
I worked for the old lady who had an antique shop in our village in the early 70's whose husband was Adjutant at Pembry when this happened.
There is a great story about this, apparently the bloke who captured him (Jenkins I think) did so with a very pistol. I didn't include any of these stores, including him nearly being shot on the way to the internment camp, just because I didn't have the sources to prove it happened.
Apparently, on realising his mistake, he tried to destroy the plane and this adjutant stopped him, according to the woman I worked for whose name was Mrs Parry, so that was the Adjutants name also! This also lends credibility to the mistaken landing theory, which Mrs Parry told me was the pilots own account. too! @@CalibanRising
The compass shown is NOT a magnetic compass. Its a gyro compass which is susceptible to toppling. It can topple and rearrect but on a totally different heading. They can topple from rapid/evasive actions and its possible he failed to realign the gyro compass with the magnetic one thus his indicated heading and his actual heading would be totally different. In the heat of the battle and the after affects could have distracted him from the compass realignment and he just blindly followed his gyro compass. Can this happen? Yes it can. I speak from experience but not as a combat pilot
The compass shown is a Führertochterkompass, probably a PFK-f1. It's electronically linked to a “Mutterkompaß” or Master compass which is housed in the rear away from the electronic interference of the cockpit panel and engine. It is basically a repeater for the magnetic Mutterkompaß, which was much more robust than Allied versions. German "Kurskreisel" or directional gyros looked very different. So there is almost zero chance it could be reading an error of 180 degrees.
Was it three in one night that landed at West Malling?
Yep, something like that but that was after Faber's incident.
I've heard it said many times that disorientation is something all pilots experience from time to time... Fighter pilots especially.
I could just imagine him coming out of that engagement with the Spitfire, having completely lost his bearings in the process, and seeing a body of water ahead, just assumed it was the English Channel.
Why he wouldn't check his compass is a bit more of a mystery, but then that could be similar to what happened with the infamous missing Flight 19... Where the flight leader thought he knew his position and convinced himself his compass was wrong. It's like a cognitive dissonance, where the information the instruments are displaying clashes with the mental picture the pilot has in his mind of where he is and which way he's heading.
Faber had only recently converted to the FW-190A?
Which featured a radio compass -- a beacon to take you back to base?
Except those can get get you either on the right course, or, 180deg out.
My guess is that he trusted his training, failed to notice what his magnetic compass was telling him -- but he expected to fly over a body of water and on to an airfield, and that's what happened
That was the case with the "Lady be Good" lost in 1943 and discovered in 1958. They overflew the radar beacon and did not think to take a dogleg one way or another to try to triangulate, but instead flew on into oblivion and later into history.
His Map Reading wasn't all what it was supposed to be....It Was Known that the German Jagdfliegeren where not all that well trained on navigation, it l believe was a matter in general to just play follow the leader.
While it was those that had a trained navigator that would know their training didn't get lost so often.
It would be odd that if he wasn't trying to surrender then one could only imagine that maybe his compass and anyother navigational equipment was playing up or possibly low on fuel.... because it is a bit hard to believe that he was totally clueless that he was still flying over enemy territory !
Oddly the Kanalscheisseren Jagdfliegeren Pilot's started receiving the FW190 around June and July 1941 starting with JG 26 Schlageter.....it wouldn't have been much later on than this when the were arriving in frontline service with JG 2 Richthofen.....So they were very well known to be in service by the RAF.... long before the incident of ObLt Farber
As a pre-war pilot, I would be surprised if he was that poor at navigation, however he obviously became lost over Devon that day. I have no doubt he was intending to land in the UK due to low fuel, that's why he flew the direction he did.
JG 2 only began to get the FW 190 in late March to early April 1942. As I heard it there were quite a few issues with the engines on the earlier variants which had to be solved. You're right, the RAF were well aware of its existence but they had never recovered a FW 190 for testing. This is really the significance of the Pembrey Incident.
Sounds like he was flying a reciprocal compass bearing. Some pilots lost their life's in the war flying west out into the Atlantic instead of East and didn't have the fuel to get back when the mistake was realized...
I'd agree with you except for where he thought he had landed....
If you read the stories from Bomber navigators it was difficult. We take navigation for granted with GPS it is not that simple with no GPS. Many got lost and we will never know how many headed unknowingly out to sea to die when they ran out of fuel. He was short of fuel and saw some water and needed to land no option. Does not matter Wales or France had to land or die what are you going to do?
15:44 critical point!
Your second version is the one I heard, with out the "That Adolf is a wrong'n ........" I've never hear what his fuel situation was tho
Surely it’s not beyond a possibility that the “easy to read” compass had toppled during the earlier high-g combat manoeuvring , and hence was indicating 180 degrees out?
Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada.
Thanks for watching Gordon.
That closeup of the cockpit showed a gyro compass. Bearing in mind the aerobatics he'd been performing during his various dogfights my bet is that the gyro compass had drifted so far off track that it may well have been pointing South instead of North. Usually pilots will uncage their gyros before performing any aerial stunts, then when in stable flight, recage and calibrate with the magnetic compass. Did the pilot simply have a 180° difference between magnetic and gyro compasses?
This was my first thought, but in fact, it is not a gyro compass at all. It displays the reading from a master compass behind the cockpit. So, to the best of my knowledge, it would be almost impossible to get a false reading without battle damage
It's simple. Faber defected. No competent pilot would fly northwest into the setting sun when home base was the other way. As Admin O he disseminated Goering's order to not fly further than 1/2 way across the channel. He also chose a route that had the least radar coverage and then skirted around the well protected munitions factories of Swansea and RAF Fairwood Common to get to the less used Pembry. He knew exactly where he was going. He also had an aunt in Scotland.
Ah!
There was also a Spitfire landed in the occupied Channel Islands in the hope it was the Isle of Wight. D'oh! Pathfinder Patrick Moore quipped he once deduced he was over the North Sea heading East, but was actually over the Irish Sea heading West. QED, Quite Easily Done.
So... this wasn't the event at night where some three or four FW 190's got disoriented and landed, one after the other, at a British airfield, and demanded fuel as if they were in France so they could take off again, and were stopped by an officer in an armored car? Jeez... you send Germans over England and you begin wondering if it's going to be more disastrous for the Germans or the British...
Knowing nothing of this incident and after reading the title, and the video preample. I immediately thought, in this flight sim age how easily we forget human factors. We dont go to work everyday. in the morning facing the expectation that we might be burnt alive or run through with machine gun fire, or crash to death. Likely he just `'lost`' it up there, having just fought for his life, again, you just cannot put yourself in his shoes, or his mental state, at that time on that day. Even though he might have been experienced, he might have been normally brave and a normal bloke by other measure, But at the moment utterly freaked, his brain and emotive state conflicted, he just landed the Plane when he saw an airfield to escape the trauma.
Was he a coward?, was he a defector?. answer, it's more complicated than that.
Is there a record of his plane’s condition as recovered? If so does it mention the condition of the compass? Seems to me with a compass so clearly visible he should have realized he was going the wrong direction unless it was damaged or something (metal) was interfering with it .
This is my main point too. There is a full report out there on its trials by the British. The aircraft was going to be flown back to Farnborough, but the test pilot couldn't guarantee he'd get it there in one piece without risking a forced landing, so it was transported there over land. The fact that someone thought it could have been flown back to England suggests that it was in good flying condition, including the master compass.
After watching this it seems strange as the only story I have heard for this was that he was lost and that's why he landed where he did...
So basically its still a mystery ! But it was obviously very useful for the RAF to get hold of the Focker maybe he sold it!
It wasn't a Fokker - it was a FokeWulf.
Where can I buy the two Hurricanes photo on your wall, Sir?
It's actually a fold-out from an old Flypast magazine. I'm not sure if the print is for sale anywhere.
@@CalibanRising Thank you very much for your time, I'm enjoying more and more your channel, such a good work!
@@bullgrim Thank you for watching mate, it wouldn't work without you. 😀
The weather chart you have obtained is too large scale to be very useful. We need something that shows the actual cloud cover for the area at the time of the events related here. I've not much experience of piloting above clouds, more time as a passenger, but unless the sky is clear it can be very difficult to know roughly where you are if you can only get small glimpses of the ground. During the summer of 1942 we were on double summer time (ie GMT +2) and so all timings are an hour later than what we think of as normal and thus cumulus clouds would still be present until much later in the day. So if our hero though the south Wales coast line was the south Devon coast line is understandable. But to fly north instead of south, even with inoperable compasses, would take a special kind of distraction even taking into account the human propensity to fool themselves into dangerous situations. Been there, done that, survived to tell the tale (misread my altimeter whilst gliding and was a 1,000ft lower than i thought I was, and had to do an approach from an awkward position - the funny thing was my instructor was going to do that to me anyway).
Regarding the weather report, there are several pages of observations for each day, so I haven't shown everything that's available on screen. Regarding his heading, my interpretation of the situation is that he intended to fly North. It wasn't a mistake.
@@CalibanRising as I said you need a special kind of distraction to fly north accidentally, especially if you are above the lowest clouds. I also said the weather chart and not the reports, even though my comments are still pertinent. Those reports are linked to a limited number of locations and would only be indicative of the conditions in the combat area.
The pilot heard about the Welsh hospitality ❤❤🏴🏴🏴
How did repatriation occur? Was there a special location with hostile alien transfer privileges?
It surprises me to hear about, like a medieval custom.
In the book The Great Escape Paul Brickell* relates that one British officer from the camp was repatriated sometime in 43 or 44. Cannot remember his name but was known as the Artful Dodger. I think this was done through Sweden.
*Brickell was interned as a POW in the same camp and likely knew a lot of the POWs that were subsequently shot.
I would love to know what became of the aircraft
I'm still confused...15:10...So he 'positions himself south of the english coast when he was on the north coast of Devon and that's why he flew north'...But surely he would fly south assuming he wanted to go home...What am I missing?
My apologises, I probably didn't explain my point very well here (trying a new style of video). Being low on fuel and not wanting to jump, Faber intended to land in Devon. He was heading North to make the southern coast of Devon as he knew he'd never make it back to his base in Brittany. This is why he went north and not south.
@@CalibanRising Big thanks for the explanation.I've read about this story for over 20 years so to see your in depth video was really good...Another interesting story : A few years back I visited Tangmere museum and saw the wreckage of a Hurri.On reading the info board I find out that it is the wreck of Sgt Dennis Noble from Retford (which isn't far from my home in Whitwell, Derbys)...His aircraft was shot down and went into the road in Hove and was filled in without retrieving his remains.His coffin was sent back to Retford for internment without his body (bricks instead) which was kept secret.A chap called Keith Arnold organised his removal from the road in 1996 and his remains sent for proper burial in Retford where his very elderly sister attended. So when I got home my wife and I drove the few miles to find Nobles grave and pay respects but we couldn't find him. I managed to find the vicars house and asked him where it was but he hadn't heard the story and didn't know. We went back and searched again and asked an old lady in the cemetary who pointed us in the right direction...We found him and on his grave it said 'One of the Few'...I didn't know this story of our local hero until I visited Tangmere
@@lewistaylor1965 That is an interesting story. I'm going to have to read more about it. I know what you mean about local heroes. I did another video recently about a bomber crew when I found a gravestone in a local churchyard. I'd been passing it all my life and only now discovered who it was.
@@CalibanRising I get the feeling there must be stories like this all over the country...Big thank you for the videos...Subscribed!
High cockpit workload , it's all too easy to fly a reciprocal course.
You point at the directionsl giro and call it a compass. I can believe that after combat, short of fuel he may not have noticed the giro was erroneous. ....
You can do that in a chipmunk after aeros!
Any half decent navigator could look at his watch and the sun to work out the difference between north and south. Boy scout stuff, however in the heat of combat even a member of the Master Race might possibly make a mistake.
My understanding was that the FW 190 had a compass rose with a magnetic heading indicator and I thought that wouldn't be affected in the same way as a directional giro. When I went to Shoreham I looked at the compass first to see if there was any obvious damage to it from Trejnar's fire. We couldn't see anything.
WELL,--WHAT HAPPEND TO HIS "190"???--AND WHAT'S THE STORY ON THE "190" WIDSHIELD,-IN THAT MUSEUM ??--(THAT WOULD BE INTERESTING !)--
Geoff said that they rescued the windscreen from a scrap heap, probably sometime in the 80s or 90s. He's 99% sure it's from Faber's aircraft because of the paint scheme found on it.
Very-very interesting !--I thought it might have been the "190"-in the old war museum !-thanks !@@CalibanRising
Ahhhh
Thank you
Welsh flag is sooooo badass!!!
I can't help but think.
Why would he get himself repatriated to Germany in 44?
Surely. After handing his FW190 intact to the enemy. He could have been shot.
TD+X1 I believe.
I live in South Wales and having flown from a few south Wales airports i.e. Cardiff and Swansea I have often thought he must have been totally daft to get the Bristol Channel and the English channel mixed up! the geography easily visible inland is totally different ...in one you can easily see the mountains of south wales (Brecon Beacons, Black mountains, and even Pembrey which is just north west of the Gower peninsular etc, and Northern France, which is basically flat or at the very least gentle rolling slopes!
For an experienced pilot I think it's /impossible/ to accidentally fly 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Particularly in daylight the sun would be on the wrong side. Ergo the direction was deliberate and he /meant/ to land in the UK. Even if it was raining he'd surely be using Instrument Rules and the compass would be yelling in his face 'OI FIDO WRONG FLIPPIN' WAY!'
IF.. and I don't buy it.. IF he was stupid enough to fly the wrong way he might mistake the Bristol Channel for the English Channel and think the coast line ahead was France but then why the heck did he think that the air defences of Cardiff, Barry, and Newport etc were shooting at him? Not to mention the 10 Group fighters..
Regarding Faber's later return to Germany, is it possible that MI6 had got their hands on him and convinced him that the best way to continue the fight against Hitler and defend /Germany/ was to return to Germany and fight from the inside, not to sit on his hands in the UK.
Was Faber a card carrying Nazi? Even if he was, was his membership of the Party just a device to, excuse the pun, fly under the radar, and avoid suspicion?
Could he have got lost and thought he was flying over sea North towards neutral Ireland 🤔
Thanks for sharing this story. But it still doesn’t explain what happened to make him want to land. Was he out of gas, or too low to make it back to France? Was he outnumbered?
You're right, I didn't highlight this enough. He was running low on fuel and that's what made him want to land.
@@CalibanRising Okay, NOW it makes sense given all the context. 🤗. Thanks for answering. Perhaps you may want to add a note in the description or pin a comment.
If his comrade said he was a bit of a plonker then I suspect that was the reason, flying skills notwithstanding.
I wondered if Faber had rubbed him up the wrong way during their year at III Gruppe together.
I thought this happened at east malling in Kent????…. Now a housing estate called kings hill
That was another similar event, but it happened later in the war.
All the stories about it period were told by the pilot himself, he probably got turned around figured he was heading south and was actually heading north after getting turned around as a result of a dogfight. JG-2 was Richthofen at the time
Got to say I’m not really any more clear about what happened.