Parachute bag relic from Stalingrad

[AKbear]

Hey guys,
Has anyone seen this or could help with translation of the bag? I picked this up from a dealer, he said it was found inside a building on an old air field for the Luftwaffe, he continued to say that it was bag to hold parachutes... Tell me what you guys thinks??

[klinger]

it means plain emergency equipment, good chance that it was for a parachute

[Adrian Stevenson]

I think I agree.

The "FL" number is the Luftwaffe stock code for the item. These lists have been published in the past, but I don't have them, sorry.

Cheers, Ade.

[CMc]

I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but maybe the "Fi 156" inscription on the bag refers to the type of aircraft it was designed to fit in? The Fi 156 was a Short Take-off and Landing (STOL) aircraft designed by Fiesler and used by the Luftwaffe in World War II, as a liason plane, for medevac duties, and for various other things. They were nicknamed "Storch" or 'stork', after the long legged bird due to the plane's long-legged appearance with it's fixed landing gear.

I've done a bit of digging online, and although I might be wrong, I think an Fi 156 D1-trop would've been a Medevac plane, with modifications to allow it to work in tropical climates (maybe this one had been in North Africa, then was redeployed to the Eastern Front?)

The Storch was involved in all sorts of strange exploits during the war, for example one was used by a Commando team lead by Otto Skorzeny to rescue Benito Mussolini after his overthow, whilst the famous German test pilot Hanna Reistch and her partner, Luftwaffe General von Greim, landed one on Berlin's Tiergarten during the last days of the war, in order that they could see Hitler at his bunker.

Finally, a Storch was involved in what must have been the strangest dogfight of the war, (since it sounded like it happened in 1915 rather than 1945), when a US Army Piper L4 liason plane encountered a Storch over Germany, and gave chase. However, given that neither plane was actually armed, the crews were forced to attack each other with their own sidearms, and eventually the US crew managed to down the Storch using only a pair of .45 caliber handguns!


But getting back to subject, I think there's every chance the bag you have there used to hold parachutes for a Fiesler 156 D1 Storch Medevac plane.

[AKbear]

Thanks guys!!! CMc you make a good point since it was found along with a couple of the metal flight tags that allow the injured and the sick to fly. I will continue searching for what FL Ade thanks for the heads up.

[Matt L]

The text certainly shows it was 'for' a Fiesler- the D1 listed as originally intended for use by the Wüstennotstaffeln- desert emergency (medevac) squadrons and it could mount skis instead of wheels, which certainly would have been advantageous in the snow of Russia...

I wonder about the use of the bag though- I'd have thought were it a parachute, it'd be clearly marked 'Fallschirm' and all I've found is parachutes numbered Fl 30 xxx (5 digits) or Fl 400 xxx (6 digits)- no 300 xxx. Actually 6-digit Fl Nummern seem oddly uncommon and no list I've found has a 300 xxx block. As klinger says, Notausrüstung simply means emergency equipment, so that's what I'd think this was- not a parachute storage bag but one for other perhaps survival stuff or, since it was a Notstaffeln aircraft, perhaps it was their medical equipment.