Scheinwerfer-Abteilung

[Ebusitanus]

Hello,
Bringing up this thread up to life as to hopefully get some feedback as to research the service time of my grandfather.

I have not found any specific wartime pictures that would make possible to know which precise Zug he was part off. He was in trasmissions of the unit so that a specific searchlight is doubtfull. He told me that his unit's HQ was Bredene near Ostende. Might that be where his transmissions work toke place?

Acording to WASt (which had almost no information on his service due to archive destruction at the end of the war) His Dog tag would have read 11./Fla.Schw.A.III/4. which fit well into him being part of the 3rd Battalion of the 4th Flak Regiment which stood at Ostende for most of the war while the other two battalions were sent to Russia

This unit changed names in August 43 to Flakscheinwerfer-Abteilung 469 which then changed to different parent Flak regiments throughout the comming months while still stationed in Ostende. After the Normandy landings at some point they got mobilited in the direction of the front but just in time to take part with the retreat/rout towards the Reich. My grandfather told me how they blew up the big searchlight and moved towards the Netherlands.

One thing that has irritated me regarding what he has left me is his Erkenungsmarke. Its not the same WASt said he had nor does it match one that can be seen amongst his pictures. It reads 2./Flakscheinw.Abt.129. Why would WASt say it was 11./Fla.Schw.A.III/4? Would that first have been his traning command before being sent to the 4th Flak Regiment?

http://www.ww2.dk/ground/flak/abt/sw129.html

He told me he had started the war in Hamm near Dortmund which is precisely where the III./4. was raised. Where does the Flakscheinw.Abt.129 come in?

http://www.ww2.dk/ground/flak/flargt4.html

These christmas I will retrieve my grandfather's postwar foto collection where I expect to find images of the trip he took after the war with a fromer comrade to visit his old Ostende garrison. I hope to learn more from that so that we might pintpoint specific areas on the map.

[jopaerya]

Hello

Maybe it's optical illusion but it looks that the dog tag around his neck has a other text/numbers then your photo ??
Could he be transferred during the war from the 11./III/4 to the 2./129 ??

Here some information from the III./4 later renamed as 469 , end 1943 this unit was send to the Flakregiment 431
that became a part of the III Luftwaffe Flakkorps . On the list from 1944 there is no more 469 ( Arthur van Beveren and BAMA )

Regards Jos

[Ebusitanus]

Hello
Maybe it's optical illusion but it looks that the dog tag around his neck has a other text/numbers then your photo ??
Could he be transferred during the war from the 11./III/4 to the 2./129 ??

Indeed it is a different tag. The picture is not clear enough as to read wether the tag is about the 11./III/4 or the Flakscheinwerfer-Abteilung 469 (Post August 1943).
The information about the 2./Abt.129 that I could dig up dries up on the 1/12/1944 in Darmstadt. My working theory at this time that it might have moved up to the Ruhr. My grandfather used to tell me how after the retreat on the 469 towards Holland he got sent to train Volksturm troopers in the Ruhr being a NCO. Might this be here were he would have ditched his 469 or 11./III/4 eraly war tags for this new one? It makes in my opinion not much sense otherwise that he would have ended the war with a 129 tag as he trained and then fought in the Ruhr till the end of war becomming a POW when said cauldron surrendered in April 1945.

Here some information from the III./4 later renamed as 469 , end 1943 this unit was send to the Flakregiment 431
that became a part of the III Luftwaffe Flakkorps . On the list from 1944 there is no more 469 ( Arthur van Beveren and BAMA )

Many thanks for that information that I will surely add to my file on Opa. From what I have the 469 was sent already in March (your list is from April) to:

Mar 44: under Flakscheinwerfer-Rgt. 195 (Flakgruppe Somme).

Any idea what that "W" could mean on his tag?

[Nectar]

Your thoughts on the dogtags are not that completely right. Soldiers mostly didn't get new dogtags when transfering units. A soldier was issued an Erkennungsmarke and a Soldbuch with his first enlisted unit. There are instances where the soldier would never receive a new dogtag and finished the war with the one he was presented the first day.

[Ebusitanus]

Your thoughts on the dogtags are not that completely right. Soldiers mostly didn't get new dogtags when transfering units. A soldier was issued an Erkennungsmarke and a Soldbuch with his first enlisted unit. There are instances where the soldier would never receive a new dogtag and finished the war with the one he was presented the first day.

You are of course correct and soldiers did keep their original tags but it also did happen that they would actually get new ones too in certain circumstances. The fact of the matter is that he had one set of tags as described in his WASt letter and further proven by the picture but on the other hand I do have the tag he told me personally was his. I do not have any reason to doubt his words and the 129 tag is pretty much the same unit type he had fought his war in. The 129 did stay part of the war around his home town which leads me to believe there has to be a conection between both. Still trying to figure out the reason and timeline of his transfer. His war time career as far as I have been able to follow it from his own recollections place him along the 11./III/4 bases and later 469 ones. His moves late 1944 and 1945 are foggy and there is where I think the switch happened. Not sure why yet.

[Viperhaai]

Hello,
I am very interested in this thread. I live next to the Coxyde airbase and i am currently restoring a Flak 30 with its Ah Sd 51. To be honest, i am a newby if i comes to marking etc. Any more info is appreciated.