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Fw 190A-3 (Werk Nr 0313) of Oblt. Arnim Faber.

(Rus)  On June 23, 1942, the RAF had the opportunity of inspecting and evaluating their first intact Fw 190 when Oberleutnant Arnim Faber, the adjutant of III./JG 2, landed his aircraft at Pembrey in South Wales. Such a lapse of airmanship was difficult to explain but could have resulted from a compass failure as the pilot had only shortly before been in action against Spitfires over the English Channel, more than a hundred miles to the south. The raid in which he had been involved extended up to the Bristol Channel and it is thought that, in his disorientation, he mistakenly took this for the English Channel. His aircraft, a Fw 190A-3, was immediately taken to the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at Farnborough, Hampshire, where it was exhaustively examined, tested and evaluated.

After the war a number of theories were given for Faber's actions in landing his aircraft. One, a persistent rumour, was that he was attempting to desert but this was never borne out by his subsequent interrogation or, in fact, his later behaviour. When he was settled into a prisoner of war camp he successfully convinced the British authorities that he suffered from epilepsy. With a little more thought to the matter the British authorities might have wondered how an epileptic pilot could rise to be a senior member of a front-line fighter unit. But, nonetheless, in 1944 they allowed his repatriation and, shortly after his return, he was again flying in fighter operations.

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