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DUAL SERVICE
Captain Bert van Sloten, awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service in WWII, has died at 105:
With the Nazi invasion of Holland in May 1940, van Sloten was drafted into the Royal Dutch air force, and, flying a DC3 Dakota transport, brought a Dornier Do-17 bomber down on a German arm-oured unit, destroying at least eight tanks. He usually denied the feat, though after a few glasses of Bols and Grolsch would sometimes murmur, “Maybe I blew up six of the bastards!”
A twist in the story: in WWI, van Sloten was awarded the Iron Cross First Class.
UPDATE. Much doubt in comments over Bert’s believability. Bert may be bogus.
A fascinating man. Rest in peace, Captain.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 09 21 at 09:16 AM • permalinkThe first DC-3 flew in 1935, but I have never heard of an armed DC-3 (except in a Biggles story where a passengertr had a tommy-gun).
Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 09 21 at 10:34 AM • permalinkI’d like a second source on this story.
Not this one either.
No mention of the incident in the Dutch Air Battle May 1940 page. And I think such an explot might have gotten a mention.
He’s not on the list of pilots of 32 Squadron at Biggin Hill during the Battle of Britain.
And it’s the Grauniad after all….
Susan Norton: DC3 were not armed as a figher plane. However DC3 did serve as gunships in Vietnam, pouring an incredible amount of machinegun fire out the side in a ground attack role with miniguns. “Puff the Magic Dragon” ring any bells?
Posted by Steve at the pub on 2005 09 21 at 11:15 AM • permalinkMaybe he dropped recordings of dutch comedians into the cockpit of the other plane…
Posted by Mr. Bingley on 2005 09 21 at 11:23 AM • permalink#9 Steve at the pub - not in 1940 they weren’t. The electric gatling gun was not invented then, and when it was it was used in them for ground-attack, not air-to-air combat. And, if one really wants to be pedantic, which I never am, they were not DC-3s but C-47s.
Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 09 21 at 12:07 PM • permalinkThis is getting interesting. I have just googled “Bert van Sloten,” “Van Sloten - DC3” and “Van Sloten - Distinguished Flying Cross.”
NOTHING comes up! There are some stories in Dutch about people named Bert van Sloten but though I don’t read Dutch it is possible to get the gist of them and they are plainly referring to quite different people.
I think the story is a Grauniad hoax or lie. - Don’t forget, this is the paper that publishes stories under Osama Bin Laden’s by-line.
Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 09 21 at 12:23 PM • permalinkOkay.
Are we to believe that this incident took place during May 1940, during Germany’s invasion of the Netherlands?
1.) If so, I don’t have any information that Holland even had any DC-3 Dakota transports. Several European countries were buying American and British aircraft, but their involvement was minimal. (Curtiss Hawks were used by the French Air Force during this period).
2.)There are no accounts that anyone ever used Dakotas as combat ground attack aircraft during World War II. There do exist some bizarre stories of aircraft being adapted during times of emergency, such as Admiral Halsey’s (USN) personal Catalina flying boat being equipped with torpedos, without the admiral’s knowledge. This was actually successful, once. The pilot was reprimanded, and then awarded with a medal. Also, Piper Cubs used by the American Civil Air Patrol were used to attack U-boats operating off of the American coat in early 1942. I’ve heard stories of pilots kicking bombs out of the door, to force U-boats to submergeUnlikely it was a DC-3 which is not known to have carried any armament.
The more likely possibility (if the story is true) is a B-23 Dragon, which was a folow-on to the B-18 Bolo which in itself was DC-2 derivative. The timing would be about right for the B-23 (1939) as well.
The B-23 Dragon would have been equipped with the right armament. Three .30 caliber machine guns (nose, dorsal and ventral) as well as a single .50 caliber machine gun mounted in the tail.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2005 09 21 at 03:36 PM • permalinkThe Dutch had DC-3s, but given that the Do-17 carried 3 x MGs (Do-17Z) and later versions carried more and the DC-3 was unarmed, my money would be on the Dornier to win the fight.
Throw in the fact that the Dornier was 45 MPH faster than the DC-3 and its not as if a DC-3 could dictate that a combat must occur, let alone dictate the terms of a fight.
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2005 09 21 at 06:09 PM • permalinkNo mention of the alleged incident in this history of the air war over Holland http://www.avalanchepress.com/LeftUp.php Considering that the fighting was only over 5 days you’d think such an incident would be mentioned.
According to the article the Luchtvaartafdeling used Fokker FVIIs as transports, with no mention of DC-3 or C-47.KLM did operate DC-3s at the time (http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Commercial_Aviation/netherlands/Tran24.htm). But I’m not sure that the Luchtvaartafdeling would have commandeered their planes prior to the German attack.
Also Holland was neutral in the Great War, so for him to win an Iron Cross he’d have to volunteered to fight for Germany, which although possible doesn’t seem right.
Lieutenant Bram (Bob) Van der Stok appears to have been the hero of the hour, it’s a similar name, but the rank is wrong. Van der Stok was born in 1915 and died in 1993 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_van_der_Stok )
The most likely way I could see a DC3 bringing down an enemy plane is if it had a ‘door gunner’ (that’s no problem, just bold a machine gun somewhere near the door. It could even be improvised in flight). But that wouldn’t be van Sloten’s kill, would it? I suppose he could have somehow forced the bomber to crash with a clever maneuver of some sort. I think the most likely explanation, though, is that the Guardian messed up on some major part of the story (wouldn’t be the first time, would it?).
freak wormhole in the time/space continuum, anyone? Maybe Bert was doing an orbit over Bien Hoa when there was a cosmic wash caused by Marilyn Shepherd’s passing Turdis (on it’s way to Hanoi, to offer her sage advice to Uncle Ho on how to defeat the capitalist imperialst running dogs, in dogalog), and he found a planeload of Nazis in his gunsights.
Or maybe it’s bullshit.If the Bertster was farting about with some jagdstaffel in 1917, he’d have been 40 in 1940, a bit long in the tooth for the Dutch Air Force and certainly too old for operational duty with the RAF, especially in fighters. The nearest thing the Dutch would have had to a C47 in 1940 would be a civil DC3 being operated by KLM, which I dare say would come off second best to an MG32 equipped Dornier, unless you rammed the bloody thing.
Most of the Dutch airforce was destroyed on the ground by the Luftwaffe as well- i reckon the scribe responsible for this piece has had his head smothered in one too many Dutch ovens.Going back to the original article, I think it’s easier to list verifiable facts.
1) There was a World War I
2) Anthony Fokker did arrange for Fokker DVII fighter and FII (mistakenly referred to as F11) transports to be smuggled back to Holland from Germany
3) KLM did fly to the East Indies interwar.
4) There was a World War II
5) Holland was invaded by Germany in May 1940 (fighting took place from 10 to 15 May)
6) There was a RAF 32 squadron, which flew Hurricanes.Areas of concern.
1) According to the timeline he left Holland in 1917 to join up with the Germans. This is after the slaughter of Verdun and the Somme. Just how boring would home life have to be?
2) The Germans accepted some 17 year old Dutch kid into their air service? My guess is he’d be more likely to be shot as a spy than accepted into service as a pilot. At least being put into the infantry where someone of doubtful loyalty couldn’t fly away with one of the new fighterplanes.
3) It is quite possible for him to have flown a KLM DC3 from Holland to Britain. Bringing down a faster, more agile, armed plane in a DC3 is very doubtful.
4) Claiming he was drafted into the Dutch Air Force on invasion of Holland by Germany. Commandeered maybe, but 5 whole days isn’t even enough time for issuing a uniform.
5) To be awarded the DFC he’d need to have done something heroic for the RAF. No mention of anything heroic for the RAF.
6) His age (40) at the time of the Battle of britain. Most BoB pilots were in their very early 20s, and flying fighter aircraft is very different from flying airliners, which he’d been doing for the prior 20 years or so.
7) Stating his knowledge of Indonesian skies was of help to the USAAF and RAF. The RAF were operating mainly over Burma and Malaya. The USAAF were operating mainly from bases in Australia, and later from Pacific Islands. The allied air force that saw the most service over Indonesia was the RAAF.The RAF were operating Hurricanes over Indonesia before it fell to the Japanese, the only foreign pilots were Americans. The Dutch had no air ops there as such, maybe a few Brewster Buffalos which were dealt with quickly by Navy Noughts. The RAF was fairly reticent about handing out DFCs to non-Britons, very few even going to Commonwealth pilots. Most of my reading puts even pilots in their mid 30’s as being over the hill, and relegated to ferry flights, training and coastal command- in one case a NZ Typhoon squadron based at Tangmere on the Kent coast had a 36 year old, and had to fabricate his date of birth to keep him operational- he was known as “Grandpa”. I’m also a little uncertain as to how many WW1 veterans were recruited from the other side; certainly there were WW1 vets in the RAF, all at Squadron Leader and higher ranks, and certainly not flying operationally.
I call shennanigans.He usually denied the feat, though after a few glasses of Bols and Grolsch would sometimes murmur, “Maybe I blew up six of the bastards!”
After a few glasses of Grolsch I’ve been known to murmur a few things myself – including that I was an ace fighter pilot in WW2 (and I wasn’t born till decades later).
#26 I seem to recollect reading/hearing somewhere that there was a squadron of Mitchell bombers operated by Dutch aircrews out of Darwin (or nearby bases) during the War in the Pacific. Don’t know if they flew under the Dutch flag or as part of RAAF or what there status was. Accounted for a lot of Grolsch, I believe.
This smells like the greatest crock o’ shi’ite I ever read. Trust the Guardian to foul up when it comes to obits on WWII heroes.
If you want to read about the real McCoy you should check out the obituary section of the UK Daily Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk). There you’ll read about genuine heroes.
Posted by Harry Flashman on 2005 09 21 at 11:10 PM • permalink#27 Razor makes a point which also occurred to me: tanks in action are spread out. How could one plane hit eight, or six, of them?
If this story is the crock of shite it seems, it is a real tribute to the Grauniad’s unprofessionalsm. Somebody tip off “Private Eye.”
Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 09 22 at 01:16 AM • permalinkSusan, if the tanks were in column formation on a road march, it’s possible, especially if the Dornier had a load of bombs. They’d be close enough for sympathetic detonation.
After reading the above comments, though, I don’t consider it likely. The story is very suspect.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 09 22 at 01:39 AM • permalinkOn a road march vehicles are still kept spaced to prevent exactly that and the early DO-17 models were renowned for having low bombloads underpowered engines required it if they were to maintain their designed speeds).
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2005 09 22 at 03:47 AM • permalinkIn early 1942, the USAAC 3rd Attack Group personnel had arrived at Charter Towers sans aircraft. They heard about “some Dutch B-25s” near Sydney. The Lt. Col commanding piled a couple of dozen pilots into a C-47 and flew down to the field. He bullied the 1st Lt at the depot into releasing the B-25s to his crews.
Subsequently, the paper pushers transferred the aircraft from the RNAF to the USAAC. By that time, the “Dutch” aircraft had flown several missions. Part of the story is here: http://home.st.net.au/~dunn/cortesi.htm
Posted by billy hank on 2005 09 22 at 04:17 AM • permalinkHarry, not that I want to nitpick, but go and review gun camera footage from Allied strafing runs on road columns. And those were from later in the war when the Allies had air superiority. Imagine the attitude during the Wehrmacht’s drive across Europe in 1939-1940 when the Luftwafte ruled the skies.
Don’t expect doctrine to be adhered to closely in the field, even if the doctrine turns out to be right. Complacency is more rampant in any military than one might think.
But I think we can all agree that this story is likely bogus.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 09 22 at 05:35 AM • permalinkMost of that gun camera footage of strafing runs on Hun armour and mechanised columns comes from rocket-firing Typhoons- they hit them at low altitude, at about 400 knots, and the Sausage-Eaters didn’t have time to shit themselves, let alone break up the column. A similar event occured at the end of Gulf War 1, when a cruising A10 spotted a column leaving Kuwait City, dropped clusters at either end of the gully the Iraqis were in to block the exits, then called in their mates to join the fun.
The likelyhood of a crashing Dornier, bombed up or not, taking out 8 Panzer 4s is highly unlikely- tank busting requires AP rounds, delivered accurately.
I think it’s Bols ocks.I get a bit shitty about pricks claiming things such as this- I know a lot of RAF chaps (and there’s less of them every year), and every one of them is proud for what they’ve done, but don’t make a fuss about it.
An old mate who karked a few years back flew pathfinders in lancasters- he went to the UK with 120 other blokes in 1941, came home with ten.
That’s what I know about this.Of course there was always thescourge of the mother-fokkas.
How would a crashing Flying Pencil hurt a tank? Even the best tankbusters had to hit one in exactly the right place with some serious ordnance to break it in a meaningful way. Fun story, though.
Posted by Uncle Mikey on 2005 09 22 at 02:01 PM • permalinkA loaded Do 17 weighed 18832 lbs, 2200 lbs of which was ordnance. It also would have been carrying a lot of fuel, which in those days probably would have been high-octane gasoline. That landing right on top of 8 of any tanks ever built would wipe them out. What’s hard to believe about the story is how the plane is supposed to have hit the tanks in the first place.
Its also worth noting that, in WW2, air attack against tanks was almost entirely ineffective - I know lots of tanks were claimed as kills, but the operational research teams who checked the battlefields in places like falaise found that almost none of the tanks were destroyed by air attack.
Air attack was, however, effective agaist halftracks and trucks, which left the tanks unsupplied.
Posted by Harry Buttle on 2005 09 22 at 05:25 PM • permalink
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Interesting,
But then I am also Dutch, and can trace my family’s history to 1326 AD.
The only tragedy is that Genever can’t be bought in OZ anymore.