Desert Swan Song
For this issue of Iron Cross magazine, it seemed appropriate to continue with the theme of Jagdgeschwader 53 (as covered across pages 26 to 33 in this issue) through a photograph taken in the Western Desert of a downed Messerschmitt Bf 109 F-4 of 7/JG53.
This photograph of officers and men of The Rifles posing with the wreckage of the shot down aircraft was taken somewhere near Mechili, Libya, on 16 December 1941 after the 24-victory ‘ace’ Oberleutnant Heinz ‘Hans’ Altendorf had been brought down by anti-aircraft fire while strafing a convoy of armoured vehicles.
Altendorf, who was taken POW, was born in Opperheim, Germany, on 26 February 1917 and joined the military in 1938. Becoming a fighter pilot in the Luftwaffe, he eventually rose to become the Staffelkapitän of 7/JG53 in 1940, thus flying in the III Gruppe of JG53 during the period covered in the feature elsewhere in this issue.
During the Battle of France, Altendorf achieved his first victory on 19 May 1940, shooting down a Bloch 152 to the northeast of Reims. He followed this with three more victories in France, two over England during the Battle of Britain and another two over the English Channel in May 1941.
During the Battle of Britain, he had crashlanded his damaged Messerschmitt Bf 109 E at Cap Griz Nez on 5 October 1940 after combat over England.
When the unit moved to the Eastern Front, Altendorf’s victory tally rose exponentially and he achieved a further 17 claims over Soviet aircraft between May 1941 and 5 December 1941, although he was shot down (but uninjured) at Grajewo on 23 June 1941. In December 1941, the III Gruppe was moved for a short time to North Africa. It was here that Heinz Altendorf’s career as a fighter pilot came to an end.
Altendorf was interned at a POW camp in Canada but returned home in 1947. However, he returned to Canada where he settled with his wife and two daughters and worked for the Berkel Company in Toronto until retirement.
He died in Harrison Hot Springs, British Columbia, on 14 September 2008.