Voices of WW2@VoicesofWW2
May 10, 1940
Soldiers of the 22nd Luftlande-Division board a Ju-52 prior to the German invasion of the Netherlands (Operation Fall Gelb), Münster.
The majority of the 525 Luftwaffe planes that were damaged or destroyed during the May War, over and in Holland, were Ju-52. Estimates say that between 275 and 350 of these planes were destroyed or heavily damaged and another batch damaged within repair range.
The majority had not been shot down by AAA or opposing air-planes, but suffered from emergency landings, bombing raids on conquered AFB's, artillery-shelling, strafing or demolition by Dutch infantry. Also, especially on AFB Valkenburg, about 35 Ju-52 had just suffered bad damages to the undercarriages, sometimes followed by additional damage from skidding after the gear had given in. That had been caused by the swampy top-soil at Valkenburg, causing the heavy Ju-52's to sink away.
The massive loss of transport planes was the only loss that was truly felt by the Germans. They had had about 800 Ju-52 planes when the war actually broke out in 1939 and by June 1940 only a quarter was still more or less operation. By the time - exactly one year later - that the operation in Crete was on and the good old Ju was in full focus again, the losses suffered in the two years before had barely been compensated. Crete yet again demanded a high toll of these slow but essential airplanes. Again a good year later the Ju-52 had a vital role in the air-bridge to Stalingrad. The previous losses in the war were by then the most hard felt. The transport fleet had not been expanded - mainly due to all the loses during the campaigns in Norway, Holland, Belgium and Crete - but the German controlled part of the world was larger than ever.
The second - possibly heaviest - loss the German Luftwaffe suffered was the number of permanently lost flying personnel. Many extensively trained pilots of the first Luftwaffe hour had been killed or imprisoned during the War over Holland and would not return. The Luftwaffe paid a terrible price for the huge aircraft losses that often took entire crews down in flames. But at least as painful was the Dutch transportation of about 1,350 POW's to the UK. Most of these men had been air-landing troops and Luftwaffe flying personnel. And since the air flying schools had been fully mobilised in the transport fleet in particular, many veteran instructors had been lost to the German cause. It was at least a matter that outraged Goering so much that he had ordered a full investigation on the Dutch transport of the 14th, with the explicit instruction on his inquiry team to hold the responsible Dutch officers accountable. He would be disappointed in the end-result and after all, in no instance a better outcome would have solved the matter for him anyway.
Relatively it had been the Luftwaffe paying quite a paramount price for the conquest of Holland. They had lost a lot more planes than anticipated against a country with a Micky Mouse airforce and a weak army, they had lost precious personnel and moreover suffered a considerable loss amongst the well trained airborne and air-landing troops. Much of that loss was indirectly caused by their own overestimation of the shock and awe element of the massive air-landing. The Germans had clearly neglected the high risk profile of their operation.