Baltic Sea, 19./20. June 1944 Operation Drosselfang

[RoW]

Quickly... Division of Soviet MTBs on types:
D-3 class: TK-9, 10, 37, 60.
G-5 class: ТК-33, 41, 43, 53, 63, 101, 103, 111.
Sh-4 class: TK-153, 163.

[Klaus F.]

Hello RoW,
thanks for the MTB list.
I would like to mean uncle Otto Lechner (born December 5th, 1918)
today introducing. He was Maschinenmaat on T31.
Served:
T9 (July 1940 until August 1941)
Hermes > ZG3 < (February 1942 until September 1942)
T31 (February 1944 until June 20th, 1944)

Best regards
Klaus

[trident7]

Klaus,

As you probably know, your uncle is wearing the Destroyer War Badge on his left jacket pocket. Image attached. John

[Klaus F.]

Hi Trident (John),
Yes, I know. Many thanks for the good picture!
Medal receive:
August 6th, 1941 = Destroyer War Badge (Zerstörer-Kriegsabzeichen)
September 4th, 1942 = Iron Cross, second category (Eisernes Kreuz, 2. Klasse)
Greetings
Klaus

[Erich]

Klaus, after June of 44 where did your uncle serve ? am I missing something here ?? great and honourable foto of him

Erich ~

[Rauli]

Klaus, after June of 44 where did your uncle serve ? am I missing something here ?? great and honourable foto of him

Erich ~

KIA 20th June 1944

[Klaus F.]

Hello Erich, Hello Rauli,
my uncle Otto Lechner who was machine-maat on T 31, died
by the sinking of the Flottentorpedoboot T 31 in the night of the
19. /20. June 1944. He was in service in this time of the torpedo-attack.
He was for the “pressure-boilers” responsible. The torpedo also hit the ship
in the vicinity of this section. Ammunition, perhaps the torpedoes of T 31 and the
“boilers” exploded. Eyewitnesses from T 30 talked about a violent explosion.
The ship was torn up into two parts at almost maximum speed.
Nobody had a chance in this ship-department.
Greetings
Klaus
PS:
My first message in this forum, on 14. August 2005,
I tell from the death of my uncle.

[Klaus F.]

Hello together,
many thanks to everyone which help me by “Drosselfang” investigations.
Greetings
Klaus

[Juha Tompuri]

From the Finnish edition of the:



Sinking of the German Torpedoboot T31
The attacks of the Soviet MTB's
1- 1st MTB Flotilla saw T30 and T31 in battle against enemy
2 - 1st MTB Flotilla assisted in repelling the attack
3 - The battle ending to the sinking of T31

[Klaus F.]

Hello Juha,
this is a good news!
Is a ISBN-number of this book known?
How can I get this book? - or the part
with the "Drosselfang"-history?

Greetings
Klaus

[Mischa]

Hello Klaus, Hello Juha,
what a lovely morning, what a message!
I have two question, how many pages has that book? Are there any pictures?
Regards
Mischa

[igorr]

I must say, map is very primitive and inaccurate.
Torpedoboote first go on SO course, then manoeuvre on general OST, finally turn SO again and in 22.58 come back to WEST and some minutes later - NW. They returned parallel to previous course, but little NO from them, not southward. And at last in 23.42 they turn to Narvi, on SW and after 21 minutes T.31 was hit with torpedo. In short, it seems as if T-boote make a "8".

[Mischa]

Hello igorr,
You are absolutly right. It is not the first and not the second map with some mistakes. If You will I can send You a map from a Polish (Soviet sourcess) Book. In compare with the Finnish version, is the second very "exact" I`m really happy, that we have another book about this sad "Drosselfang" operation.
regards
Mischa

[Juha Tompuri]

Hello Juha,
this is a good news!
Is a ISBN-number of this book known?
How can I get this book? - or the part
with the "Drosselfang"-history?

Hi Klaus,
The ISBN number of the Finnish language edition is 978-952-92-1768-7.
At the moment I don't know about the original, Estonian one.
I'll check about the Finnish language book availlability.

Hello Klaus, Hello Juha,
what a lovely morning, what a message!
I have two question, how many pages has that book? Are there any pictures?

The book has 400 pages with around 30 photos + maps.

I must say, map is very primitive and inaccurate.

The book is about Estonian volunteers ( ca. 10% of the Finnish Navy personel at that time were Estonians) serving at Finnish Navy during the Continuation War. It (as for instance the map) is based on the memories of the volunteers.
AFAIK the crude map is drawn how the Estonians serving at the 1st and 2nd MTB Flotilla saw, and now (AFAIK the memories were collected from the veterans in the 90's) remember.
A very good thing that the collection work was done, sadly that it couldn't been done earlier.

Hello igorr,
You are absolutly right. It is not the first and not the second map with some mistakes. If You will I can send You a map from a Polish (Soviet sourcess) Book. In compare with the Finnish version, is the second very "exact"

By all means if you have anything to add to this discussion, all new information is welcome.
I believe that the most detailled picture of the events can be found by comparing info from different sources.

I`m really happy, that we have another book about this sad "Drosselfang" operation.

We "have had" several of them: the ones directly mentioned at this thread, and those from sources linked.
Like: http://warsailors.com/forum/read.php?1, ... #msg-16727

Regards, Juha

[igorr]

Thanx Mischa, but i have german original map, and original german accounts (KTB extractions) too.
If you can read russian all ultimate true about this case may be found in this book: http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/4257487/
Miroslav Morozov wrote article about T.31 sinking with cross-searchung in original documents - soviet and german.