The recovered JU-88 has a great story:
The date is late night/early morning on June 29th 1942.Willi Voss, a married man [4] and one of the students that are on guard at the school, discovers something. He sees light from one of the cockpit in a Ju88A-5 and goes for inspect it further. Inside the Plane he discovers a friend of his. This particular friend has earlier tried to get Willi to desert together with him for unknown reasons. The next things happens quick, he's threatened with a pistol and are set to fly the Plane to UK. [5]
The alarm is sounded when the Plane takes off. We don't know what kind of air defence Greifswald had, probably it had the standard mix of 20 mm "Vierling" and 37 mm's, including MG's based on tripods throughout the Airfield Perimeter. The surprise is probably complete, since the flak crew's didn't get in any decsive hits on the Plane.
Typical German Light Flak Emplacements with 37mm Flak and MG34.
Probably, MG's at the airfield had also been shooting at the Plane. Two bullets holes was later found, one had gone through the gasoline tank, and out! Luckily this was not a tracer bullet! The next bullet was found embedded in the wing compartment between the wings and the fuselage. The bullet were of 7x62 caliber, typical of MG34 or MG42.
Over the Baltic ocean there are thick fog and making navigation very difficult, one of the Students must have been through some blind navigation, since they managed a while to keep the right course. The bad weather continoues over Denmark. Staying only some few meters in search for landmarks, they're running a high risk flying into something. The reason why they steers north is probably to avoid crossing Northern Germany and Denmark because of the flak contested areas around Kiel and Wihelmshafen, and (unknown to them) using the blind holes of the German radar coverage around the Swedish coast.
The Germans used their network of Radars to follow the Deserters before the Crashlanding
Back on the ground, german radar positions followed the deserters on the screens. The radar station, and center for several Night fighter units, in Grove (Karup), Denmark gives the order to either force the Plane to land, or shot it down before it reaches UK. But the bad weather forced the Germans to cease most of the Flights.
Map over the actual area. Copyright: "Nordwarts" by Reichsluftministerium, 1940.
At 4:15 CF+VP was in vicinity of Skagen, north in Denmark. The Plane had been tracked from 2:30 to 2:50 over Seeland in Denmark. Order was given to shoot the Plane down, this order was given by Generalmajor Krueger back in Greifswald.[6] It's not certain who was flying the Plane, was it Willi Voss or was he tied to the seat? For unknown reasons,, the Plane changes course to Norway instead of UK. The Norwegian coast at Telemark is sighted. Both Pilots still believe that they had managed to get to UK safe. [7]
When the Plane is over Kilsfjorden, the fuel situation is critical and the RPM of both the engines are decreasing. They begin a short turn over the fjord, and settles for a place not far from the mainland. The back canopy is released as standard procedure during crash landings.
A Ju88 banks over near the French coast. Somewhat similar to how CF+VP maneuvered the last minutes before the crashlanding in Kilsfjorden.
They make a low pass over some houses at the beach before touching down on the water, almost crashing into some apple trees. The Pilot made a textbook example of a three point landing on the fjord, without damaging the Plane slightly [8]. The lifeboat is released back in the Plane, but today the big mystery, is what happened to the lifeboat, since none of the eyewitnesses saw this boat. Also a mystery is the existence of the german fighters over Kilsfjorden that day, did they intercept the Plane before the crash landing? [9]
Aase Heibø and Liv Anna Haslum are cleaning the cottage belonging to Dr. Krohn before the summer vacation. Suddenly they hear a loud noise and looks out of the window. They sees a Plane making a low round over the Fjord and finally ditches down on the water. After the water had calmed down, Aase sees two guys climbing out of the cockpit.
The women takes a small boat at the cottage [10], and rows as mad out to the Plane to rescue the Pilots. Willi Voss is easily rescued. The other one, who probably couldn't swim, drowns only few meters away from the hands of Aase.
Back in the cottage, Willi gets dry clothes and warm soup. The Pilot suit is hanged out to dry out, this was to become a faithful decision. Willi get shocked when he hears that he have landed in Norway instead of UK. When the girls tells about the fate to the co-pilot, Willi only replies with something like that the dead has taken a step further, and he [Willi] is finished. The girls noticed that Willi carried with him a brown envolope, that they had also seen him with it, standing on the wing. This brown envelope was most probably thrown into the fireplace, was heated up to warm the wet aviators. At the same time Arne Sandaas from the neighboring cottage comes in. He has witnessed the whole incident. Arne has a longer conversation with Willi. Sandaas offer Willi to hide him until the war is over. Willi rejects this proposal and says he doesn't have a chance anyway.
Later a group of german soldiers with an officer [11] discovers the cottage and Pilot's suit. Willi is arrested and Arne Sandaas gets notification about later questioning by the officer.
Arne Sandaas, as one of the prime witnesses, was later called in for interrogation in Oslo. Sandaas and Sturmbannführer Wegner [12], the guard appointed, was called to Berlin. It was a long and eventful trip for Sandaas [13], as a member of the resistance he made a detailed report for London. When they arrived at the Court Martial at January, 12. 1943, they were quite surprised to know that Willi Voss had been executed the previous day.
Even today the circumstances around this execution is very sketchy at best. Today we believe that the deceased was a spy for England [14] and had connections on the rocket base at Penemünde. Willi had also observed a briefcase which the Co-Pilot had brought with him. This particular briefcase was never found in the wreck, most probably the brief case was flushed away when the Plane sank. A map over the location where CF+VP ditched.
We know also that Willi Voss was married and lived in Cologne. There is a possibility that there are still living relatives after Willi. Today there are little or nothing known about this case. This because the papers from the RKG was moved in 1945 to the state archive in Moscow.
[4] Willi Voss gave his marriage ring to one of the girls that saved him, the fate of this ring is not known. He also told them that he was from Cologne.
[5] Why UK was the destination instead of neutral Sweden, which was much closer and easier to navigate to, can explained to Sweden's policy to repatriating deserters back to Germany. This was probably known by Wehrmacht personnel from rumors and by showcases published by OKW to discourage desertion. The policy of returning deserters was not changed after the defeat at Stalingrad. Another reason could have been the probability not have being able to contact British consulate authorities in Sweden, thus jeopardizing the mission.
[9] According to Guttorm Fjeldstad, eyewitnesses have told about shooting before the crash, this has yet to confirmed with surviving German archives, if they still exist. The bullets found in the Plane can either come from landbased MG's or from a airborne Fighter.
[10] This cottage still stands today.
[11] The origin of these soldiers is not known.
[14] A similar case happened one year later in Norway. A german nightfighter pilot, Heinrich Schmitt, defected with a Ju88 and its crew (one was forced) on May 23rd 1943. The Ju88R-1 are now preserved at RAF Hendon.