The Luftwaffe's rescue buoy (German: Rettungsboje) was designed to provide shelter for the pilots or crew of aircraft shot down or forced to make an emergency landing over water.
The buoys were developed for flyers of the Luftwaffe brought down while operating over the English Channel during the Battle of Britain, and were constructed under the direction of the German Ministry of Air Navigation in 1940 at the suggestion of Generaloberst Ernst Udet, Director-General of Equipment for the Luftwaffe. Because of this, an alternate name for them was the Udet-Boje.
The initial buoys were a simple design, 2m (07feet) high, and 1mx5mm (03feetx16feetm) in size, offering little in the form of shelter. A flag pole allowed a flag or lamp to be hoisted, supplies included a basic medical kit, iron rations, water, life jackets and ropes.
An improved buoy was designed and 50 were anchored in the English Channel during 1940.
Being in fixed locations, they could be checked once or twice a day: if occupied, a seaplane or Flugsicherungboot (high speed launch) could be summoned.
They saved many airmen that ships or seaplanes might have been too late to rescue.
A British equivalent, the Air-Sea Rescue Float was also developed and deployed.[1] They used a boat-shaped hull of welded steel. Sixteen were constructed,[2] and they were deployed under the main routes bombers took to and from continental Europe.[3] They were equipped with cooking facilities, signal flags, a radio and six bunks. Food, blankets, clothing, drinking water and first-aid supplies were carried.
One example, ASR-10, is in the collection of the Scottish Maritime Museum. Its post-war career is unknown, but for many years it lay derelict on a slipway at Gourock, Scotland, before it was acquired by the museum.[4]
A rescue buoy was incorporated into the harbour boom at Braye Harbour in German-occupied Alderney, reputedly manned by three men armed with a machine gun.
Rettungsbojen have appeared in films from the World War II period: One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) and We Dive at Dawn (1943).