West German Luftwaffe 'Invades' East Germany 1961
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- čas přidán 5. 09. 2024
- Discover what happened when a pair of West German F-84 Thunderstreaks found themselves deep inside East Germany just a month after the Berlin Wall was constructed, and the rather unique end of the aircraft.
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Thanks: Alfvan Beem
A running joke in Germany in the '60's went: "How does a German citizen acquire an F-104? Buy some real estate, and wait!"
Those pilots were thrown under the bus by their own command. Some things never change.
In an age of modern navigation we forget what is was like before GPS.
Old Iron yep
Even with glasnos russian gps they still get lost. Unless Alaska screws up gps...but I doubt it.
The problem is people place so much reliance on GPS that they forget to keep their map reading skills etc up to par so when the GPS system does have a major flakey, which is only a matter of time, lots of people are going to be up to high dough. Before GPS was ever around my late father would plan any long distance journey the night before using a map, a pen and a note pad. The route was written down with all road changes marked down along the relevant distances between them as well as rest stops. The 6 P rule applies.
I honestly can't imagine being a WW2 pilot using a paper map trying to figure out where I need to go.
Agree.
Bundeswehr: ''So what did you do with those two aircraft that accidentally landed at your airfield?''. The French: ''We buried them''.
A little too harsh, permanently grounding 2 veteran pilots, kudos to them for avoiding the pursing MIGs
Well, it's been just a month after East Germany built the Berlin Wall and only NATO civilian planes are allowed in East German Airspace. That single event might start WW3.
According to Wikipedia, Lt. Col. Barth was reinstated after an appeal. This was yet another great video. Thanks again and keep them coming!
Another brilliant video Dr Felton. Keep up the great work.
Doctor ?
@@yottakm3764 yes the guy who runs this channel has a P.hd in military history and is a known author of many military books.
Now this was before my time but back in the 60s/70s/80s Germany felt like a warzone with constant (almost daily) low level fly overs by jets, helicopter exercices and tank coloms tearing up cobble-roads in rural areas. It's no wonder the peace movement got strong in the 70s.
A fun story from a village nearby is that in the 70s a colom of british tanks toar up a road leading to a farmers yard so he got on his tractor and cut off the path of the tanks. After a good half hour of heated arguing the commander assured that they (the british army) will take care of the road asap and they (from what I've been told) stayed true to their word.
As real British gentlemen they made their word true...One wouldn't expect less.
We Americans in this era were also well known and respected for these kinds of goodwill gestures as well by the German people.
The music these videos start with is the bomb. Perfect timpani accents. It automatically piques your interest in what Felton is about to say. Kudos to whoever created it.
The name of the song is pursuit
@@jpsuarez5249 Who is the singer with the almost inaudible voice?
Timpani accents. You just making shit up, it’s just a British accent that’s all.
Instrumentation malfunction and the commanding officer gets blamed. That definitely sounds like a military operation
I would’ve hated to be military personnel inside West Berlin. If war would’ve broken out, West Berlin would be surrounded and would quickly fall!
If war broke out whole Europe would end up a radioactive desert anyway.
There was no such soviet plan to start with. Their scenario was a Barbarossa type assault by NATO with an immediate retaliation by all of their nuclear arsenal.
@@CharlesvanDijk-ir6bl Not quite, depending on the time period. Seven Days to River Rhein exercises assumed an initial NATO nuclear strike against transport hubs in Poland which would cut off the Group Of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSVG) from any reinforcements within the timeframe of the campaign. GSVG was to push into West Germany whilst capturing port cities such as Hamburg and Bremerhaven until they reached Rhein within a week. At that point, the captured land would be used as a bargaining chip at the negotiations for a quick ceasefire. Under such conditions nuclear weapons were to be used only along and immediately behind the enemy lines as to avoid further nuclear escalation. Additionally any use of tactical nuclear warheads was ruled out on the territories of nuclear-armed states in Europe (ie the UK and France). Essentially the Soviets wanted to avoid the war lasting more than a week or two in order to avoid a global nuclear escalation as well as additional US reinforcements arriving to Europe from the continental United States. This in part explains the sheer number of units within the GSVG.
All of this is outlined in the Seven Days to River Rhein exercises. Obviously that's just an assumption on the Soviet part as to what the war would be like, but it's a fascinating insight into their strategic thinking regarding the action in Europe in the 70-80s
@@CharlesvanDijk-ir6bl LMAO, there was "no Soviet plan to start a war"? Let me introduce you to a little something called *7 Days to The Rhine*.
I've got breaking news for you - the USSR was planning offensive operations against the rest of Europe - which they wanted to occupy and an x - 4 pretty much the entirety of the Cold War. NATO was never going to invade them, that was just a fantasy - and pretty much everyone with half a brain knew it. Thank God the Red Menace is gone from Europe, and people there can live their lives without having to be concerned about getting vaporized every morning on the way to work.
@@Laotzu.Goldbug Whilst such plans most certainly did exist, as stated above by myself, Seven Days to River Rhein was an exercise that presumed the war starting with an initial limited nuclear strike against the Warsaw Pact by the NATO.
As for the red menace being gone, I do concur.
Wow.. I have to say thats a superb display of airmanship by those two West German pilots. Evading a Mach 2 capable MiG 21 is no joke. F84 thunderstreak is no match for a supersonic MiG and those two pilots were like sitting ducks in their subsonic jet. If there was a dogfight both of them would've been shot down and killed.
40 degree false has also to be recognized, because the sun is in the wrong direction. Before GPS, I checked being with the car or bicycle underway in the right direction by looking on the clock and the direction of the sun.
Absolutely.... and these were veteran pilots.
Very interesting video, thanks. As a side point, don't ever change the music, it is perfect.
Barry.Devon
I agree, this is the best intro music yet.
We were buzzed almost monthly by photo-reconnaissance MiG-19R fighters taking off from east Germany flying low, popping up, take photos, then scoot back across the border. We were a Military Intelligence site near the east German border monitoring Warsaw Pact communications in the late 1960s to mid 1970s.
Awesome video. For those that are interested the german issues with the f-104 was due to them using the aircraft as a ground attacker, a role that airframe wasnt designed to carry out, resulting in a lot of crashes
Imagine if Erich Hartmann was one of them
Military jet pilots not notice a compass off by 40 degrees, and "miss" radio calls? Pilots grounded? CO relieved? Clearly the authorities believed this was no accident.
My uncle was stationed in Germany when the wall went up. The Cold War almost became a hot war.
It almost went hot many times, but it was not always publicised. I remember at least 2 distinct crisis during my 23 years of service in the British Army, much of it spent in Germany.
@@gunner678 I heard those stories too. It makes me curious to hear what your story is.
And they evaded the Ruskies...Shows how good their piloting skills are. I hope they got reinstated at a later date.
Wonderful video again, Mark. You pronounce the complicated German words in a very accurate way.
It hasn't even been 24 hours since the last upload!
If you like this story, i recommend looking into this border incident when west german border guards and east german soldiers got into a firefight in 1962. leading to the death of a NVA Officer named rudi Arnstadt.
When In Germany, we used to call the starfighter, flying coffins
Over a hundred F-104 crashed in the Luftwaffe in three years' time, killing that number of young pilots. Lockheed executives never quite admitted that something was seriously wrong with their aircraft.
And some Soldiers of the NVA (Army of East Germany) joked: We now don't even habe to shoot them down, they Fall down from therselves.
@@kevinanderson3849 F-104 was totally alright, but Luftwaffe used them as fighter-bombers, role for which wasn't Starfighter never intended, that's reason of high rate of accidents of Luftwaffe's F-104.
@@kevinanderson3849 There was nothing inherently wrong with the F-104G.The problem was mainly, beside that it was pressed in service for roles it wasn't designed for (fighter bomber), an insufficient training on the part of the maintenance crews.
@@janctrnacty1215
The number of mistakes on the F104 is quite embarassing:
- use for unintended purposes
- increasing maintenance intevals to double the recommended amount of time
- allow unskilled personnel to tinker around on the planes
- poor organization of maintenance crews allowed for unmaintained planes to "slip through" and get handed back to their squadron without any service done
- Most planes were simply parked outside since hangar space was limited
- Germans love field mods, they did so many on the Starfighter that you'd have had a hard time finding two identical machines
- The West German Air Force technically failed to provide their pilots with enough flight hours to maintain their qualification - they lifted off anyway
- The first Ejection seat was a death trap rather than a lifesaver
- Air Force command put up an aerobatics team using the F104. Pilots transfered over from the more maneuverable sub-sonic jets and the entire squadron darted into the ground still flying in formation because the pilots under-estimated the Starfighter's turning circle. This tragedy (and not the Ramstein Airshow disaster) is the reason Germany has no aerobatics team to this date.
Mathias Rust: 'Amateurs.' :) Sank jü, Herr Doktor, für ze Video.
The commanding general of these two pilots was General Kammhuber, who in WWII was the founder of the so called Kammhuber line to defend the german reich against allied bombers. 18 years gao (2001) the Allied Museum in Berlin did some research about the two F-84Fs. They where indeed burried by the french forces while the two pilots where flown to Paris and handed over by the french authorities to the german ambassador to France. When the Tegel terminal was built, the two Jets "surfaced" again and where destroyed completly in order not to provoke the soviets especially in regard for the upcomming new four power agreement about West Berlin in 1972.
Can't get enough of your videos Mark. Excellent research. Also, refreshing to see real facts without the one sided views. Thank you so much
1:45 What a wonderful picture! I'd love to see more Wehrnacht-after-the -war pictures!
I find them captivating.
Please do a video on the air battle between a US Navy PV2 Neptune and 3 MiG-15 jets over St. Lawrence Island, Alaska in June 1955.
Thanks. I appreciate this interesting bit of history. Well done.
These videos are so incredibly interesting. You do a damn good job telling the story. Cheers Dr. Felton 👍
Those German F-84s are extremely fortunate that the Migs didn't catch up to them - Mig-21 would eat and F-84 for breakfast.
@@sebs.3917 the "East German" pilots were probably Russians
There is this thing called following a protocol. The planes weren't scrambled to _shoot_ the planes down but to "bring them down" - preferably by forcing them to land. It is common practice.
Only discovered your videos about two days ago and I'm hooked, also going by the theme of your videos I'd recommend looking up a fella called James Brady, the only Irishman to fight for the Germans in the battle for Berlin, its a fascinating story of how he ended up in the ss.
Is it just me or this the perfect video format I watch these videos on my break it works perfectly time wise and I always love learning something new and Mark I love the topics you pick, always fascinating!
I'm here from a shout out given by Forgotten Weapons. I'm always looking for good quality on this site, and am glad to have found this channel.
Excellent German pronunciation - so many YT videos are laughably bad in that respect; it really grinds my getrieben! Very interesting vid also.
At the beginning of the vid you show a map of post-war Germany showing its division West-East, but on the Western side you show the Bundesrepublik as it was prior to 1948, when the 3 occupation zones merged and was created the Federal Republic. Since in this vid we are dealing with an incident that took place in 1961, that map shouldn't be showing occupation zones but one integrated country, the Bundesrepublik.
what a time we lived in(when i was jong),thanks again Mark,nice one!
...there's a cool story about an USAF RF-101 based in Germany that flew to France for a training recon mission, the pilot got confused, went down the wrong valley and photographed a "cement plant" and as he was pulling out it got intercepted by an French SO 4050, the american lit the burners and dissapeared toward Germany, when it landed they told him he had photographed a reactor under construction... then "escaped" to Germany, this was the excuse DeGaulle was waiting to kick the US from france... and he did... all for a mistake in navigation...
Great video. Thanks for digging up these forgotten but nevertheless hair rising stories that mainstream official history keeps denying.
I truly enjoy your videos and these small pieces of almost forgotten history. I often wish your videos were quite longer with more detail. Please keep up the great work!
Another interesting video. I would have thought that disasembling the -planes or flying them back to West Germany in American colours would have been cheaper than burying them (and forgetting them),,
Mark’s German pronunciation is excellent
Three down votes from former Soviet Mig pilots I suppose.
Why not?
@88Gibson LesPaul the internet is global
Its like old school History Channel....love this channel
Former WW2 German Pilots watching American Jets be like :
"We had these before you Hahaha"
True
The starfighter is I suppose a bizarre aircraft. It really looks like it was made more for outer space. The wings are so small it had to have been a bitch to control. I have a soft spot for it because the close of day/sign off for the local tv station was a flight of them going in and out of clouds as a narrator read "flight" by John Gilespee McGee. Come to think of it Mark McGee would make a good vid (even book) he died so young and left the one poem as ample proof of his potential. I guess it says something that ppl still think some mens death were especially painful so many years after the war.
Beautiful documentary
Outstanding narration
A rare topic of Cold War
Thanks
Knocking them out of the park Mark!
West Germany never did recognise the government of East Germany. So, for instance whenever a refugee from East Germany made it to West Germany, was automatically a citizen of that.
Thanks for sharing this story! I was aware of it, but not with the Details. These where strange times in the cold war... Greetings from Germany!
Could have ended very badly. Strictly, West German military weren't allowed in West Berlin as it was under 4-Power occupation, all the Powers patrolled daily (notionally) checking for enemy (i.e. German) forces. The Bundeswehr could not conscript West Berliners or West Germans living in West Berlin, hence draft-dodgers moved to West Berlin. Luckily, these two pilots weren't interned till the end of the Occupation in 1990 or even 1991 when the legal rights of the 4 Powers were renounced.
russia/sovjets was not allowed to arrest anyone in west berlin..so..and arested coz they went there from? westberlin was uk, france and usa only. no reds. bw was not allowed to have base there but also was this flight for a NATO manouver..and btw..even bw was not allowed to be in west berlin.for east berlin was the same agreemend that no NVA should be there..but we all know they was
Thanks, Mark, for another interesting and little known aspect of the Cold War. In the days before GPS, knowing exactly where you were on either side of an imaginary line was as much a matter of luck than precision.
Note the model of a Bf-109 on the desk of the West German officer at 2:18. I don't know when that snippet of film was made, but it's surprising that would have been allowed. West German law was rather draconian about the display of any Nazi memorabilia, in particular any display of the swastika. I can't tell what marking was on the tail of that model, but the correct marking would have been a swastika. All I can see in this low res film is a black smudge on the tail. I wonder how historically accurate that model actually was?
He was a die hard fan of the 109.
Apparently since the 50s, many model kits didn't include swastika decals.
www.ihr.org/jhr/v18/v18n2p34_Desjardin.html
@keith moore After WW2? Nonsense. All aircraft and even ground vehicle of the Bundeswehr since 1956 had nothing but the Iron Cross as the official emblem on them. No Nazi (Balkenkreuz) or what you call "imperial" markings...
The incident caused quite a stir in German politics at the time. Lt. Col. Siegfried Barth was later rehabilitated and retired as a full Colonel. He passed away in 1997.
Peter Pfefferkorn later moved to the United States. As of 2015, he was living in Kerrville, Texas:
www.hccommunityjournal.com/community_life/article_ac2126c4-1f4b-11e5-bd8e-4f70e947defe.html
There is no information readily available on Hans Eberl.
It *might* have been a ruse to test Soviet defences. They send the pilots on purpose to trigger them, then look at the radar screens. Relatively small fighter planes could not carry bulky Tube based onboard radar and depended 100% on ground control instructions, that´s why "hiding in the clouds" worked.
you got a shout out from InrangeTV. Awesome my dude!
Nice to see 168th Missouri National Guard guarding Berlin. My Dad's old outfit. Thanks Mark.
Fabulous. Detailed and immensely interesting stories as usual. Thank you!
Really love your vids on parts of HIstory not shown in Documentaries from major Networks, thank you and keep it up.
What a harsh punishment for an accident.
I guess we didnt had a lack of experienced pilots back then.
We might assume with the likely initiation of military actions from the east and the palpable threat of nuclear hell, egregious mistakes could not be tolerated particularly in West Germany which would quickly become a virtual inferno.
I'll be in rehab soon, this channel is addictive
Great videos mark, i love how you find the most obscure stories and make it entertaining and educational.
Do more videos on West/East German armies
Great sequences and moods.
Happy sub.
Hey mark can you do hunters against f86 Sabre during indo pak war 1965 or star fighter against mig 21 in the 1971 Bangladesh war .
Didn't we kick the hell out of them in 65 n 71
nit23sharma 65 wasn’t the most glorious for India but 71 definitely was .
Former Wehrmacht personnel serving withing the Bundeswehr were allowed to wear special "denazified" versions of their wartime decorations, as some of the officers in the video are doing.
The theme music makes me want to drink some serious beer, in a beer stein.
french guys, where are our planes now? "heu... je ne sais pas... disparus?" *french guy standing on freshly moved ground*
Very interesting. Love your objectivity.
'I'm shocked, I'm shocked. ...... Round up the usual suspects' . In this case, bury the suspects.
An event I had not heard of before! Thanks Mr Felton! Kudos to the French for a very astute resolution...Fighter planes? What fighter planes? There are no fighter planes here....you must be mistaken...=)
Speaking of Thunderstreaks, I highly recommend Richard Bach's "Stranger To The Ground".
Another great video Mark. You are one of my favorite channels on you tube
This was absolutely fascinating.
The Cold War was full of interesting and fantastic weirdness. Thank you for another great video!
Great musick and videos.
Thank you.
Mark (Doctor), It's fascinating how so much history is 'buried' to time; rough being grounded. But, thank goodness jets, and history, are found again. Keith (a new Doctor, but not of my passion, history ☹️).
back then the bundeswehr used to have decent uniforms .....
Waste of two perfectly good aircraft. Should have flown them out wearing USAF livery.
Not really worth it with an aging aircraft.
@TheSatanicTicTac I don't think that they were conserved after they were found buried. The F-84 shown at the museum is just one that previously served with the Luftwaffe. I don't think that they were in any fit state to be conserved? There was pictures shown of the buried F-84s shown in an exhibition during 2006.
"In an exhibition at the Luftwaffenmuseum Berlin-Gatow in 2006, pictures of the two buried and then rediscovered Thunderstreaks at Tegel were shown, finally clearing up the question of what became of the two planes."
everything.explained.today/1961_F-84_Thunderstreak_incident/#Ref-5
It would be interesting to see the images of the two buried F-84s but the links now appear to be dead.
Even moreso, you mean.
Great post as usual.Thank you Mark
No it wasn't. Two perfectly good working airplanes buried was dumb. At the very least they could have took the wings off and drove them out on a flatbed truck.
Mark Felton thanks for making best videos
Thank goodness none of these incidents ended in war we dodged quite a few bullets during the Cold War
Another fantastic video👍 will you make any Cold War submarine incidents? Thanks again.
At 2.20 on the officers desk nice model of a messerschmitt.
For all of you asking for the song
Pursuit imovie
Another fascinating video- thanks.
Great Work.
Congratulations.
Sad to think that a country that was once united regardless of it's government structure would be fighting itself essentially, and each other.
Yes, but that is fortunately over and this year it will be the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall...30 years ! it seems like only 10 years ago at the most !
Interesting. My Dad's squadron the 166TFS OANG was deployed to Etain France during this time. They were flying F84s at that time.
I never realized we had non-commisioned pilots in the jet age!
This is also what I thought when I read about this incident
Same here. I believe there is place for enlisted pilots
Always a pleasure watching your interesting clips.
The only problem with the F-104 was that it required a higher than average pilot to fly it. Not an aircraft for the low proficiency pilot.
That and the fact that the Germans took a high speed interceptor and tried to use it as a ground attack sled. High wing loading, combined with low speed and altitude are a bad mix! :(
FINALY !
And honest video with honest facts on this subject !
#subbed
Love your videos Mark, keep them coming.
Excellent video again, dark days back then indeed.
Thank you Mark for another informative video.
Ian and Karl gave you a mention on the latest InRange Q&A, hope it brings you some new subs! ^_^
That's wonderful news - I really enjoy Forgotten Weapons. Great channel.
thankfully it didn't lead to something worse, and gladly the pilots escaped the soviets. thanks for this interesting story 👌
You have some really great ww 2 content
Yet another masterpiece Monsieur Felton .Very interesting .Shame for the pilot. His equipment let him down and they grounded him. Shitty bit of rough justice.