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taken to the Allied Chief of Staff’s Headquar- ters where SS Major Dr Wernher von Braun and about 115 of his rocket scientists were being debriefed by T-2 Technical Intelligence Personnel. From this point onwards things become sketchy, but some evidence sug- gests that Miethe was sent to Fort Bliss and finally Wright Field AAF, which became a principal location for evaluating captured German aeronautical technology. There is a widespread belief that Miethe was directly connected to the Avro Canada flying disc pro- gramme, but research in Toronto has failed to find any definite connection to Avro Canada’s Special Projects Group. Accounts of what happened to engine spe- cialist Klaus Habermohl at the end of World War Two are even more vague. It has been claimed that he was taken prisoner by Russ- ian troops and eventually transported to somewhere east of Moscow where a secret aviation project was taking place at an unknown Opytno Konstrucktorskoe Byuros (OKB or Special Design Bureau). This may or may not be true, but there is absolutely no evi- dence to show that Klaus Habermohl even existed. Intelligence operatives and immediately clas- _Hoyenkamp near Delmenhorst and called it sified. It is also worth mentioning that follow- Focke-Achgelis Flugzeugbau. ing a major fire at the Avro Aircraft Company Professor Focke directly managed Focke- in England during the late 1950s, virtually Achgelis, developing helicopter aircraft that every company record was destroyed includ- _ included the Fa 266 Hornisse (Hornet), Fa 223 ing details of Avro’s most advanced military Drache (Kite) and Fa330 Bachstelze (Water projects. So a lack of hard documentation Wagtail) autogyro. Many engineering innova- does not automatically mean thatan account — tions emerged from this company and Focke of some particularly obscure aviation project invented the turboshaft, which is a universal is bogus. feature of modern helicopters. By the end of World War Two the company was actively Focke’s VTOL Flying Saucer working on the Fa 269 convertiplane, but this Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG, the famous advanced design never progressed very far. German aircraft company, was created in However, the most interesting concept 1924. Contrary to some beliefs, there wasno under consideration was a little known connection to the Netherlands firm run by saucer-shaped VTOL aircraft, which may Anthony Fokker. One of the three founders, have been jointly developed with one of Kurt Professor Heinrich Karl Focke (1890-1979), Tank’s Special Project teams at Focke-Wulf had something of a preoccupation with heli- Aircraft. Professor Focke began producing copters and in 1937 he decided to start an designs for saucer-shaped aircraft during the entirely separate company to develop and __ late 1930s and his circular-winged VTOL con- build them. Teaming up with Gerd Achgelis, | cept continued to evolve during the course of they established the new business at the war. The aircraft finally became an oval- (UKG or Special Vesign Bureau). nis May or may notbe true, but there is absolutely no evi- dence to show that Klaus Habermohl even existed. Dr Belluzzo’s alleged involvement with the flying disc project remains highly question- able. He is credited with completing his own design for a flying disc vehicle in the early 1940s, but there is no proof of a connection to the Heinkel-BMW project. Conceivably, he may have sought to asso- ciate himself with post-war claims coming from Germany about flying saucers to attract some degree of fame. Belluzzo died in Rome on 21st May 1952. However, there is the ques- tion of Francesco de Beaumont’s flying disc designs completed in Rome during the late 1940s. There may be a connection between Belluzzo and de Beaumont, but this remains a matter of hearsay and it is very easy to fill in missing pieces of the story with assumptions that later prove incorrect. Dr Helmut von Zborowski went on to set up a design consultancy in 1947 called Bureau Technique Zborowski (BTZ). The consul- tancy worked for BMW and the French com- pany SNECMA in the development of advanced VTOL fighter concepts based on wartime research. Various stories continue to circulate about the fate of SS General Dr Hans Friedrich Karl Franz Kammler, but it is proba- ble that he was shot dead in early May 1945. Critics will rightly pick up on the absence of records and hard evidence to support the Heinkel-BMW flying disc project, but it must be remembered that massive amounts of German wartime documentation were lost, intentionally destroyed, or retrieved by Allied —_ Several images of the Focke Achgelis VTOL wind tunnel test model. via Bill Rose 43 Several images of the Focke Achgelis VTOL wind tunnel test model. via Bill Rose German Wartime Flying Discs