Martin Harlinghausen (17 January 1902 – 22 March 1986) was a German military aviator and general. Harlinghausen specialised in maritime interdiction and anti-warship operations. During World War II Harlinghausen was the leading exponent of anti-ship warfare with the destruction of 22 ships credited to him.
Born in 1902 Harlinghausen joined the Reichsmarine, the Weimar navy. In 1931 he transitioned from sailor to pilot. After formation of the Third Reich in 1933, Harlinghausen was compelled to join the Luftwaffe. In 1936 he was selected to command an anti-shipping unit in the Condor Legion and subsequently served in the Spanish Civil War. Harlinghausen developed effective combat tactics and was highly decorated by Nationalist Spain. Harlinghausen was appointed chief of staff of the anti-shipping Fliegerkorps X in 1939.
During World War II Harlinghausen flew combat missions even while a staff officer. On 5 May 1940 he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for commanding anti-shipping units in the Norwegian Campaign. In mid–1940 Fliegerkorps X transferred to German-occupied France. The command supported the Kriegsmarine in the Battle of the Atlantic and the Battle of Britain. In January 1941 he was awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross. In February 1941, Harlinghausen was appointed commanding officer of the newly established Fliegerführer Atlantik. Harlinghausen lobbied hard for the expansion of his forces but other military theatres received priority. In October 1941 he was wounded in action while attacking a convoy leaving the command leaderless.
On 5 January 1942 Ulrich Kessler replaced Harlinghausen. Harlinghausen was simultaneously appointed Geschwaderkommodore of Kampfgeschwader 26 and Bevollmächtigter for das Lufttorpedowesen (Plenipotentiary for airborne torpedoes). In January 1943 Harlinghausen was given command of Fliegerkorps II and relieved five months later on 10 June. He returned to duty in October 1943 as chief of staff to the General der Kampfflieger. His last command was Luftgau XIV from 21 August 1944 through to April 1945. During the appointment Harlinghausen was promoted to Generalleutnant on 1 December 1944.
Harlinghausen was captured in 1945 and remained a prisoner of war until 1947. He served in the Bundesluftwaffe from 1957 to 1961. Harlinghausen either resigned his commission or was forced into retirement after disputes with superiors.
Early life Harlinghausen was born in Rheda, the German Empire in 1902. Son of industrialist Wilhelm Harlinghausen (1866–1942) and Therese Zurmühlen. He married Inge Ruhenstroth in 1940. Harlinghausen received his elementary and secondary education in 1922. After completing his Abitur he studied law for one semester at the University of Göttingen.
He joined the Reichsmarine (German Navy) on 1 April 1923 and trained on torpedo boats. In 1931 Harlinghausen began pilot training. He received his commission as Leutnant zur See in 1927 and the Oberleutnant zur See in 1929. With the Nazi seizure of power, and the founding of the Third Reich, he transferred to the Luftwaffe, the aerial warfare branch of the Wehrmacht (Nazi German Armed Forces) in October 1933. At this time Harlinghausen held the lowly rank of Leutnant zur See (Lt zS or LZS). In 1934 he began work as an instructor in training schools. After training as an observer in October 1934 he joined the training section of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium. At the ministry became an associate of Hans Geisler. The two men became the foremost anti-shipping experts in Germany. He served at the Air War academy at Berlin–Gatow for much of 1935 through to 1937.
Harlinghausen served under Geisler at Warnemünde naval base in 1931. Harlinghausen was given command of 1 seestaffel in 1937, an elevated to the position of Staffelkapitän. In October 1937 he was appointed to command küsten mehrzweck staffel 3./506 (coastal squadron of the 506th air group).
Spanish Civil War In January 1938, Harlinghausen, then ranked as Hauptmann (Captain) took command of AS/88 (Seefliegerstaffel—sea flying squadron), an anti-shipping unit in the Condor Legion in Pollensa, Mallorca The frequency of bombing operations against merchant ships increased under his command. The squadron had been engaged in the Spanish Civil War since its outbreak. The main weapon of this unit was the Heinkel He 59. From January 1937 the type began experimenting with air-dropped torpedoes against transport and warships. Harlinghausen expanded the target list to include coastal communications with bombs and small-arms fire. Harlinghausen preferred the He 59 for the aircraft's ability to sustain severe damage and remain airborne. On one such mission over Barcelona, the aircraft was damaged by the blast from the bombs he had just dropped. The He 59 survive with a twisted fuselage and the lower wings broken in several places.
Under his direction AS/88 developed ship and coastal-attack tactics. A particularly well-used approach against land targets was to fly at high altitude with engines switched off, then dive and release the bombs at 1,000 ft (300 metres), then start the engines for a hasty departure. By August 1938 16 sorties per week were flown, in small formations of three with each aircraft carrying a ton of bombs. 12 He 59s were lost in 1938 and 1939—three to night fighters. Losses were replaced by aircraft flown in from Mallorca, via Sardinia. At this time the unit operated two Heinkel He 115s and evaluated them.
AS/88 operations in Spain were undermined by a lack of support services. The He 59 units had been transferred to the Luftwaffe by the Kriegsmarine yet the navy still stored the spares for the complex machine. The only engineering unit was based in Seville, permanently and was not transferred to meet operational needs. The aircraft had to be sent back to Germany. They were flown to Cádiz, dismantled and shipped; a process that lasted three months and often left the unit severely under resourced.
In his first combat mission he destroyed the Campsa fuel depots in Valencia which had been a priority target for some time. Harlinghausen became the first pilot to sink a ship using an air-dropped torpedo when he sank a cargo ship off Valencia harbour on 21 July 1938. The 4,798-ton freighter was named Thorpeness and British. It sank one nautical mile from Valencia. Francisco Franco informed the English that the ship had struck a mine. On 1 August 1938 Harlinghausen was promoted to Major.
In commanding in Spain, Harlinghausen became a pioneer of attacking ships accurately with bombs. German aircraft—mainly Heinkel He 59 and Heinkel He 60s—sank 144 ships out of the 554 lost by the Republican forces. Before the fall of Barcelona in 1939, for example, German aircraft sank 30 ships and damaged scores more in the harbour.
At the end of the war, which ended in a Nationalist victory for Franco, Hitler and Mussolini, AS/88 had been credited with 52 ships sunk. Nevertheless, the anti-shipping arm failed to achieve any strategic results in Spain. Harlinghausen continued to develop this neglected sphere in opposition to the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe. The high command remained aloof from naval air power matters because it did not foresee a war with the British Empire.
Harlinghausen left AS/88 to return the air war school at Gatow in December 1938. In April 1939 he became the operations officer for Luftflotte 2 (Air Fleet 2) known at the time as Luftflottenkommando 2 (Air Fleet Command 2).
World War II On 3 September 1939—two days after the invasion of Poland—Hans Geisler was removed the staff of Luftflotte 2 and given command of Fliegerkorps X, which was initially named Fliegerdivision 10 upon formation on 5 September. Harlinghausen was appointed as chief of staff, effective from 1 November 1939. The headquarters located to Blankenese, Hamburg. The OKL regarded the war at sea and the destruction of British sea communications as secondary to the defeat of the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the British aviation industry. In September 1939, Harlinghausen's Fliegerkorps carried out sporadic operations off Eastern England with some success.
After it was renamed and formed from a division to a corps on 3 October 1939 the command was given I./Kampfgeschwader 30 and I./Kampfgeschwader 26, equipped with the Junkers Ju 88 and Heinkel He 111. The air corps operated in the North Sea during the Phoney War period. In a memorandum, dated 15 January 1940, the navy wished to procure the Dornier Do 217 bomber, then under development, but Hermann Göring, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, refused citing the intent to transfer all offensive operations over to Fliegerkorps X, along with all new types. The He 115 was allocated to the navy instead. Harlinghausen was influential in ending production of the He 115 in favour of the He 111 for naval operations.
For Harlinghausen, the war began in the autumn. On 17 October 1939, elements of the air corps attacked Scapa Flow, a major anchorage for the Royal Navy. Nazi propaganda wrongly claimed the aircraft carrier Ark Royal sunk. Operations in the north sea over the course of 17-19 December 1939 sank 10 vessels, all fishing trawlers, for a meagre 2,949 tons. On 17 December 1939, five trawlers were sunk, with at least two dead and five wounded. The following day there were three deaths aboard two sunken trawlers. Another was damaged and lost three crew killed. On 19 December, Star of Scotland suffered three dead in an attempt to sink her. From 9–30 January 1940, the air corps sank 12 freighters for 23, 994 gross register tons off eastern England. Specifically, KG 26 and 30 sank four ships and damaged four more in a single operation on 29 January. The following day, 35 Heinkel He 111s sank a further two and damaged a further eight.
Shipping operations were extended to Scotland in 1940. In March 1940 German aircraft attacked 57 merchant ships and 38 Trawlers. Seven of the former and one of the latter were seriously damaged. Despite being the chief of staff in Fliegerkorps X, Harlinghausen flew missions and sank two merchant ships of , and severely damaged the 8,441 grt passenger ship Domala. The attack, carried out off St Catherine's Point, killed 98 people. On 1 March 1940, a He 111 from the Korpsführungkette (Corps Command Section)/Fliegerkorps X with Harlinghausen aboard, sank the 1,388 grt Norwegian freighter, Vestfoss south-east of Copinsay Island. On 20 March he sank the transport Barn Hill (5,439 grt) on a southward armed reconnaissance mission into the English Channel. The ship sank off Brighton. The vessel settled on a sand bank in shallow water and her cargo was salvaged.
Operations incurred casualties. No. 12 Group RAF and No. 13 Group RAF moved into Scottish and Northumbrian airfields in greater strength. With this move, the number of interceptions by RAF Fighter Command increased. 10 26 bombers were lost from 17 October 1939 to 15 August 1940 over Northumbria and Durham. 30 lost a further aircraft; all but one to fighter aircraft. A number of these interceptions were made during attacks on the Orkney islands from 8–10 April, made as a precursor to the invasions of Norway and Denmark.
Operation Weserübung