Sonderkommando Blaich

Sonderkommando Blaich
Part of North African Campaign
Date 21 January 1942 Location Fort Lamy, French Equatorial Africa Result German victory 80,000 gallons of fuel destroyed, Complete oil supply destroyed
Belligerents
Nazi Germany	Free French Forces
Commanders and leaders
Theo Blaich	Unknown
Units involved
Luftwaffe 1 × Heinkel He 111	Unknown
Strength
6	Unknown
Casualties and losses
None	Oil supply destroyed Up to 10 aircraft

The Sonderkommando Blaich (English: Special detail Blaich) was a German special unit consisting of one Heinkel He 111 medium bomber that raided Free French–controlled Fort Lamy in the Chad region of French Equatorial Africa.

The raid against a target located 1,250 mi (2,010 km) from the German bases in North Africa was a success but, on its return flight, the German plane ran out of fuel and had to make an emergency landing; both crew and plane were rescued a week later.

Chad and Fort Lamy came under control of the Free French Forces in 1940 and was a major staging post for the operations against the Kufra oasis group as well as a supply point for the RAF on the route from Takoradi in Ghana to Egypt.

Theo Blaich—a German adventurer and plantation owner who had joined the Wehrmacht in 1939, arriving in his own Messerschmitt Bf 108 Taifun—recognised the importance of Fort Lamy as a way point in the overland transport and communication route from the west coast of Africa to the Nile, as well as an assembly point for Allied operations. Blaich proposed the capture of Fort Lamy to safeguard the southern border of Libya. When his suggestions weren't taken seriously in Berlin, he proposed that he should at least carry out a bombing mission.

Blaich found a more interested audience in Erwin Rommel, who approved the idea and forwarded it to the Fliegerführer Afrika. The date for the operation was set as 21 January 1942, to coincide with Rommel′s offensive against the British defences at El Agheila.

Blaich′s commando left the oasis of Hun on 20 January, and consisted of German and Italian soldiers and three aircraft, an He 111, a Savoia and Blaich′s Taifun. The following six of the group were to go on the air raid, while the Italian crew, minus their pilot, stayed behind:

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