Seenotdienst
[2] As the Allies of World War II advanced, denying sea areas to German forces, local groups of the Seenotdienst were disbanded.
Goltz gained coordination with aircraft units of the Kriegsmarine as well as with civilian lifeboat societies[3] and the German Maritime Search and Rescue Service (DGzRS, or "Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbrüchiger").
[2] A group of 24 British Vickers Wellington medium bombers were frustrated by low clouds and fog in their mission to bomb Wilhelmshaven, and they turned for home.
German Seenotdienst rescue boats based at Hörnum worked with He 59s to save some twenty British airmen from the icy water.
Near the end of the occupation some local boat commanders defied the Nazi regime, and three Dutch lifeboats escaped across the Channel, one carrying 40 Jews to sanctuary in England.
The aircraft each carried an inflatable rubber raft which would help the airmen avoid hypothermia from continued immersion in the cold water, and increase the time available for rescue.
[2] In July 1940, a white-painted He 59 operating near Deal, Kent was shot down and the crew taken captive because it was sharing the air with 12 Bf 109 fighters and because the British were wary of Luftwaffe aircraft dropping spies and saboteurs.
[2] The German pilot's log showed that he had noted the position and direction of British convoys—British officials determined that this constituted military reconnaissance, not rescue work.
Winston Churchill later wrote "We did not recognise this means of rescuing enemy pilots who had been shot down in action, in order that they might come and bomb our civil population again.
"[10] Germany protested this order on the grounds that rescue aircraft were part of the Geneva Convention agreement stipulating that belligerents must respect each other's "mobile sanitary formations" such as field ambulances and hospital ships.
Some three-engined Dornier Do 24 flying boats that were built in the Netherlands, and eight French Bréguet 521 Bizerte models were refitted with standard Seenotdienst rescue supplies.
[13] During the first two years of war, the British Royal Air Force Marine Branch had no coordinated air-sea rescue units—only about 28 crash boats[14] and no dedicated aircraft.
In January 1941, a Directorate of Air-Sea Rescue was formed by the Royal Air Force for the purpose of saving those in distress at sea, especially airmen.
[17] In November 1944, German leadership decided that the flying boat manufacturing resources could be put to better use elsewhere, and ordered the Dornier factory to cease making Do 24s.
[13] The most persons that a single Seenotdienst aircraft rescued in one sortie was 99 children and 14 adults carried by a Do 24, saved from orphanages threatened by the Soviet advance into Koszalin during the Battle of Kolberg at the beginning of March 1945.
Investigation into the matter was initiated, including experiments on prisoners at Dachau concentration camp which involved submersing men in extremely cold water to induce severe hypothermia.
[4] The highly visible buoy-type floats held emergency equipment including food, water, blankets and dry clothing enough for four men, and they attracted distressed airmen from both sides of the conflict.
