Luftwaffe Viermot toes

1942-45

R ob ert Forsyth
ROBERT FORSYTH has
studied the history and
operations of th e Luftw affe
for many years. He has w ritten
four books for Osprey -
Aviation Elite Units 27:
Jagdverband 4 4 - Squadron
o f Experten and Aviation Elite
Units 29: Jagdgeschw ader 7
‘N ow otny’, Duel 24: Fw 190 vs
B -1 7 and A ircraft of the Aces
99: Legion Condor Aces. He is
also th e author of JV 4 4 - The
G alland Circus (1996), B attle
over Bavaria: The B -2 6 versus
the Germ an Jets (1998),
M istel: Germ an Com posite
A ircra ft and Operations
1 9 4 2 -1 9 4 5 (2001) and
M esserschm itt M e 2 6 4
A m erikabom ber (2 006 - with
Eddie J Creek). He is presently
working on a volum e on
M e 2 6 2 bom ber and
reconnaissance units for
publication in th e Osprey
Com bat A ircraft series.

Profile artist JIM LAURIER is

a native of New Ham pshire.
He graduated w ith honours
from the Paiers School of Art,
Connecticut, in 1978 and has
w orked as a freelance
illustrator ever since,
com pleting assignm ents in
a w ide variety of fields. Jim
has a keen interest in m ilitary
subjects, both aviation and
armour, and is a Fellow
m em ber of th e Am erican
Society of Aviation Artists,
the New York Society of
Illustrators and th e Am erican
Fighter Aces Association. He
has been a key contributor to
the Osprey Aviation list since
20 0 0 , and in th at tim e he has
produced some of the finest
artw ork seen in these
volumes.
OS P RE Y A I R C R A F T OF THE ACES • 1 01

Luftwaffe Viermot
Aces 1942-45
 SERIES EDITOR: T O N Y HOLMES
OSPREY AIRCRAFT OF THE ACES * 1 0 1

tjft Luftwaffe Viermot

Aces 1942-45
Robert Forsyth
Front Cover First published in Great Britain in 2 0 11 by Osprey Publishing
On 1 August 1943, a combined force Midland House, West Way, Botley, Oxford, 0 X 2 OPH
of B-24 Liberators drawn from five
44-02 23rd Street, Suite 219, Long Island City, NY, 1 1 10 1, USA
groups of the US Eighth and Ninth
Air Forces launched a major strike
on the Ploesti oilfields and refinery E-mail; [email protected]
complex north of Bucharest, in
Rumania, which produced some
Osprey Publishing is part o f the Osprey Group
ten million tons of oil per year, with
the aim of depriving the Third Reich
of a valued source of fuel. Flying © 2 0 11 Osprey Publishing Limited
from bases near Benghazi, in Libya,
the 178 B-24s constituting Operation
Tidal Wave followed a 2000-mile
All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose o f private study,
course across the Mediterranean, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Design and
passing over the island of Corfu, Patents Act, 1988, no part o f this publication may be reproduced, stored in
before turning at the Albanian coast
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
and heading inland over Yugoslavia
and Bulgaria towards the target. electrical, chemical, mechanical, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise
The bombers, flying at low level, without prior written permission o f the copyright owner. Enquiries should be
were harried by flak and fighters. addressed to the Publisher.
Mark Postlethwaite's dramatic,
cover art depicts the m om ent that
Feldwebel Albert Palm of 3./JG 4 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
manoeuvred his Bf 109G-2 'Yellow 6'
to attack a B-24 of the 44th BG - the ISBN: 978 1 84908 438 3
'Flying Eightballs' - by diving from
e-book ISBN: 978 1 84908 439 0
astern as the low-flying bombers
emerged from the drifting clouds of
black smoke spiralling up from the Edited by Tony Holmes
burning refineries. Page design by Tony Truscott
3./JG 4, under the command of Cover Artwork by Mark Postlethwaite
the combat-seasoned Hauptmann
Aircraft Profiles by Jim Laurier
Manfred Spenner (formerly of JG 52)
and based at Mizil, northeast of
Index by Michael Forder
Ploesti, had been formed in Originated by United Graphic Pte Ltd
Rumania in early January 1943 and Printed and bound in China through Bookbuilders
built up w ith Rumanian personnel
under a Luftwaffe officer cadre. The
Staffel's prime duty at this tim e was 11 12 13 14 15 109 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
the air defence of the oilfields and
refineries, although the following www. ospreypublishing. com
year it relocated w ith the rest of
I./JG 4 to western Germany to
A ckn ow ledgem en ts
engage in the defence of the Reich.
During the bitter action over I would like to thank Erik Mombeek and Eddie J Creek for their kind and
Ploesti, Alfred Palm would account essential support to this project. I would also like to acknowledge the kind
for the destruction of a B-24. He had assistance o f J Richard Smith, Martin Pegg, Nick Beale and Donald Nijboer.
flown previously w ith 8./JG 77, and
Many years ago I interviewed and corresponded with a number o f former
at the tim e of leaving that Staffel to
join 3./JG 4 he had 28 victories to
German fighter pilots who experienced at first-hand what it was like to engage
his credit. In March 1944 Palm formations o f heavy bombers, including Adolf Galland, Oskar Bosch, Fritz
suffered severe injuries to his right Buchholz, Richard Franz, Klaus Neumann, W illi Reschke, Gustav Rodel, Franz
foot and ankle when he was forced Steiner, Franz Stigler and W illi Unger. The information that I was able to glean
to bail out over Italy after his Bf 109
from those exchanges is as important today as it was back in the late 1980s and
was attacked by Kittyhawks. Once
he had recovered, Palm served as an early 1 990s when I obtained it. I thank them for their patience and cooperation
instructor, before returning to JG 4 during my research o f some 20 years ago.
towards the end of the war. This book is dedicated to David Wadman, whose cheerfulness and fortitude
Thirty-three B-24s were lost to is an example to all. Looking back, I realise that the book has its origins in a
flak during the Ploesti raid and ten
discussion I had with Dave late one night 21 years ago in a bar in Mesa, Arizona
to fighters. Another 56 Liberators
were damaged —after one beer too many. I knew that was a mistake.
CONTENTS
C HAPTER ONE

HEAD-ON 6
C H A P T E R TWO

CORNERED WOLF 2 0
CHAPTER THREE

'BIG WEEK' AND BERLIN 3 4

C H A P T E R FOUR

BLOODY APRIL 45
C H A P T E R F I VE

'STOVEPIPES' AND DESTROYERS 62

CHAPTER SIX

ALL-OUT DEFENCE 70
CHAPTER SEVEN

STORMBIRDS 84
APPENDICES 90
COLOUR PLATES C O M M E N T A R Y 92
INDEX 96
 HEAD-ON
ONE
C HA P T E R

t the beginning of August 1942 the Luftwaffe fighter force

A was committed predominantly to two major theatres of war.

To the east, Gruppen drawn from six Jagdgeschw ader, fielding
around 500 single-engined fighters, were operating in the USSR,
deployed on a 2000-kilometre front engaging an enemy that, in terms of
size, matched them. By this stage of the war the Soviet air force had
recovered from setbacks it had suffered during the previous winter
and spring and was enjoying a period of qualitative and organisational
improvement. For the time being, as the long drive towards Stalingrad
loomed, more intuitive German commanders realised that an early
victory in Russia was a dim prospect.
In North Africa, a smaller force comprising six Jagdgruppen from two
Geschwader provided support to the Afrika Korps as it struggled to break the
line which the British held between El Alamein and the Qattara depression.
Thousands of kilometres away from these distant battlefronts, most of
the German population in its homes and factories, in its offices and
shops, its schools and hospitals, although placed on a war-footing, In a scene typical of its time, pilots
continued to function, in daylight hours at least, without much direct of 2./JG 2, clad in life jackets and
flare bandoliers, gather around
disruption from the enemy. For two years, RAF Bomber Command had one of the unit's Fw 190A-4s at
mounted a determined campaign of night raids using light and medium their airfield in France to be briefed
bombers to strike at shipping, the transport infrastructure and industry by their Staffelkapitan in early 1943.
in several major cities, including Berlin. In this, the British had been From the summer of 1942 to
mid-1943, this Staffel, along with
relatively successful. Equally, however, the Luftwaffe had built up an the others of JG 2 and JG 26, formed
effective and technologically sophisticated nightfighter and flak the Luftwaffe's first line of defence
organisation that inflicted an increasing toll on the night bombers. against the Allied bomber offensive

6
 Most of Western Europe was firmly under German occupation.
In one form or another, Hitler’s ‘Thousand-Year Reich’ spread
from Norway to the French Riviera, from the Channel Coast to
Czechoslovakia. Although America had joined the European war,
and its first P-38 Lightning fighters and B-17 Flying Fortress heavy
bombers were arriving in England, so secure did the Germans consider
their hold on Europe to be that responsiblity for guarding the skies over
the western ‘gateway’ to the occupied territories in the hours of daylight
was assigned, in the main, to just two Jagdgeschw ader (JG 2 and JG 26),
based in France and Belgium.
Fundamentally, there was nothing wrong with this state of affairs. Since
early 1941, the RAF had concerned itself with a ‘lean towards France’,
mounting a campaign of offensive fighter sweeps aimed - nominally —at
needling and testing the German air defences by strafing ground
installations, troop concentrations, railways and airfields, although as one
British historian has commented, ‘the Germans appeared to be largely
unimpressed’. During the Channel campaign of 1941-42, fighter pilots on
both sides had learned, developed and refined fighter-versus-fighter tactics.
Pitted against the RAF’s Spitfires, Hurricanes and Whirlwinds were
the trusty, but regularly re-engineered, Messerschmitt Bf 109Fs and,
following its introduction to the Channel Front in mid-1941, the much
vaunted radial-engined Focke-Wulf Fw 190A.
Flying these two fighter types, the France and Belgium-based German
ja gd flieger demonstrated impressive levels of combat dexterity, with a
number of pilots from both Geschwader notching up high personal scores,
and in doing so, becoming the darlings of the propaganda reporters and
film cameras for the benefit of German newsreels ‘back home’.
In Holland, another unit, JG 1, had been assigned the defence of the
northwestern approaches to Germany. As with its sister units to the
south, most of JG l ’s activity to mid-1942 had centred upon intercepting
Spitfires and probing formations of British twin-engined Bleinheims,
Whitleys, Hampdens, Hudsons, Beauforts and Wellingtons (known by
the Germans as ‘Z w eim ots’- ‘two-engines’). The latter attacked shipping
and coastal targets and the German ports, as well as some targets further
inland, during the hours of daylight. These raids, frequently mounted
without fighter escort or with an escort that was large but poorly
organised (known as ‘Circuses’), suffered casualties at the hands of a
German defence, which was wrongly assumed to have been significantly
weakened by a mass relocation to the USSR.
Between 11 November 1941 and 22 February 1942, the RAF had
mounted daylight bombing operations on 20 days (543 sorties), from
which 40 aircraft were lost (7.4 per cent), although the precise respective
figures attributable to flak and fighters are not known.
The RAF usually despatched formations of between 10-30 bombers
at a height of a little over 20,000 ft. If escorted, the fighters were ordered
to remain with the bombers, much as Luftwaffe fighter pilots had been
instructed to do over Britain in the summer of 1940. Initially, the
Germans, under orders to attack only the bombers, and to ignore the
escort, dealt with these formations by manoeuvring their fighters
above and behind the bombers before diving through any escort, opening
fire randomly at hastily selected targets and then diving away.
 In November 1941, the K om m odore of JG 26, Oberst Adolf Galland, Guarding the airspace over Holland
and the northern approaches to the
was appointed the G eneral der Ja gd flieger following the untimely and
Reich against Allied bombers in
unwelcome death of the previous incumbent, the revered Werner 1942-43 was JG 1. Here, Fw 190A-3
Molders. Galland successfully pushed for a revision of the prevailing 'W hite V of the Staffelkapitan of
bomber interception tactics and gained more freedom for his pilots to 10. Staffel, Oberleutnant Friedrich
Eberle, is rolled back towards it
take on the Spitfires that would pursue the Bf 109s as they broke away
dispersal by groundcrew at
from their pass over the bombers. Bergen-op-Zoom, in Holland,
Galland recalled the weight of fire from a Spitfire at this time as being in May 1942. Note the 12 victory
Very effective’. While with JG 26, his pilots had devised special tactics markings on the fighter's rudder

that saw them exploiting cloud cover to move slowly and carefully
towards the British escort without being noticed, before quickly assessing
a vulnerable or ‘covenient’ part of the formation to attack. The German
pilots would then climb slightly and dive quickly before the escort had a
chance to react. Galland also experimented with the method of deploying
a number of his fighters to the rear of and above an enemy formation,
thus diverting the attention of the escort while, alone, he would climb
slowly and gradually out of the clouds below the formation. Hopefully
remaining unseen, he would close in on one of the lower elements, select
a target, shoot it down and then quickly dive into the clouds to get away.
Such tactics occasionally brought success, but they could also result in
losses, such as on 13 October when, having attacked a formation of
Blenheims from below and shot one down in flames, Galland veered
away unscathed. His inexperienced wingman, however, was not so
fortunate, drawing fire from the turret gunner of the Blenheim he was
targeting. Leutnant Peter Goring, a nephew of Hermann Goring, crashed
to his death. Also, these methods depended to a great extent on weather
and an ineffective or slow-to-react escort.
Somewhat more ominous had been the appearance, in July 1941,
of a new British y*w-engined bomber —a ‘Viermot* (a contraction of
‘four-engines’) —the Short Stirling, which carried a crew of six protected
by no fewer than eight 0.303-in Browning machine guns housed in nose,
dorsal and tail turrets.
 On 10 July, three escorted Stirlings bombed

HEAD-ON
the Chocques power station in France. Hauptmann
Rolf Pingel, the K om m andeur of I./JG 26, a highly-
experienced veteran of the Spanish Civil War and
a Knight’s Cross-holder with 28 victories, pursued
one of them alone from France, across the English
Channel, to England, where he managed to inflict
damage on the Stirling’s tail section, before a burst of
fire from its upper gunner hit his Bf 109’s engine.
He was forced to descend to a lower-altitude,
whereupon he was attacked by a Spitfire and had
to force-land, thus presenting the British with their
first largely intact Bf 109F-2.
Six Stirlings had also been used to attack the
German battle cruiser Scharnhorst at La Pallice on
23 July, one of them tellingly, but erroneously,
claiming the destruction of two Bf 109s with its
defensive armament during the raid. Likewise, in an
indication of already heightened awareness of what
probably lay ahead in the air war, pilots of JG 2
reported the Stirlings as being ‘Boeing bombers’.
However, what really mattered to the Germans was
that they accounted for the destruction of a Stirling
when Leutnant Ulrich Adrian of 1./JG 2 shot down
one of the six, thus becoming the first pilot from JG 2 ■and possibly the Adolf Galland, the former
Luftwaffe - to account for a Viermot destroyed. Kommodore of JG 26, was
appointed General der Jagdflieger,
However, despite this unique success, a freshly trained German fighter in November 1941, just a few
pilot joining any of the western-based fighter units could justifiably months before the USAAF
expect to be primarily engaged in combat against enemy fighters and, commenced daylight bombing
on occasion, light and medium British bombers, often lacking in adequate operations over Europe. Not always
popular, especially w ith the lower
defensive armament. Although Galland noted that at this time ‘the strain ranks, Galland nevertheless placed
on the men and material of JG 2 and JG 26 was much worse than during great emphasis on honing the
the Battle of Britain’, providing a n ew jagdflieger followed the instructions Luftwaffe's response to the heavy
bomber threat. He is seen here in
of his more senior and experienced fellow pilots, he would stand a better
November 1943 during a visit to
chance in terms of life expectency than his colleagues flying in the USSR Achmer, where he met w ith Major
or North Africa. Indeed, such was the state of affairs by 17 June 1942 Hans-Giinther von Kornatzki (far
that the Commander-in-Chief of RAF Fighter Command, Air left), commander of the newly
formed Sturm staffel 1, and
Vice-Marshal Sholto Douglas, whose aircraft continued to suffer from
Hauptmann Horst Geyer (far right),
a lack of extension to their range, was forced to concede that the balance Kommandofuhrer of
of casualties had turned against him and in favour of the Germans. Erprobungskommando 25. An
But, for the Germans, there was to be a rude shock. On 1 June, Fw 190 w ith underwing mortars
can be seen behind the men
Maj Gen Henry H ‘Hap’ Arnold, the commanding general of the
US Army Air Force, displayed an ebullient and confident mood when,
having spent the previous night at the country residence of Winston
Churchill on the invitation of the British Prime Minister, he cabled the
US President, Franklin D Roosevelt. While at Chequers, Arnold had
become aware of the effects of mass bombing following the RAF night
raid on Cologne the night before, when 890 bombers had dropped
more that 1450 tons of bombs on the German city, killing 469 of its
residents and injuring 5027. More than 12,000 buildings were affected
in some way by the raid, and water and electricity supplies, telephone
communication and mail were inoperative or disrupted for two weeks. The wreckage of an RAF
‘England is the place to win the war’, proclaimed Arnold to Roosevelt. four-engined Short Stirling bomber
lies in open countryside in Denmark
‘Get planes and troops over as soon as possible’. following a minelaying operation
This, the Americans did with considerable endeavour, and by the end over the Baltic in May 1942. This
of August 1942, the US Eighth Air Force’s VIII Bomber Command (BC) aircraft, belonging to No 149 Sqn,
was lost during a night raid, but
in England had three bomb groups to its name, representing a force of
from the summer of 1942, RAF
119 B-17E Flying Fortresses. The latter was an all-metal, four-engined Bomber Command sent Stirlings,
aircraft with a range of 2000 miles, but it had been conceived essentially Halifaxs and Lancasters on
as a medium bomber. This meant that its range and endurance had been occasional day raids, making them
the first Viermots the Luftwaffe
optimised in a trade-off with bombload, which stood at just 4000 lbs.
intercepted in daylight
In terms of armament, even this early variant of the Flying Fortress
was well served. The rear fuselage featured a tail turret mounting twin
0.50-in Browning machine guns for anticipated defence against fighter
attack from the rear, these being hand-operated by a gunner in a sit-kneel
position. Additionally, a dorsal 360 degree-turn power-operated turret
was installed into the upper fuselage immediately aft of the cockpit, while
a remotely controlled ventral turret, fitted with a periscope sight to be
used by a gunner in a prone position, was built in under the central
fuselage aft of the bomb-bay. Both these turrets also fielded twin
Brownings, meaning that the B-17E was truly a ‘Fortress’, its crew of ten
being protected by eight 0.50-in guns in total and a single 0.30-in nose-
mounted gun in a framed nose cone.
The nature of the air war over Europe changed indelibly when, in the
late afternoon of 17 August, 12 Flying Fortresses of the 97th BG,
escorted by four squadrons of RAF Spitfire Mk IXs, bombed the
marshalling yards at Sotteville, near Rouen in France, dropping 18 tons
of bombs. ‘Going along for the ride’ as an observer was Gen Ira Eaker,
commander of VIII BC. Fw 190s from II./JG 26 (whose pilots ironically
identified the bombers as British Stirlings) and JG 2 launched an attack
over Ypreville. Two B-17s were lightly damaged by flak rather than
fighters, and there were no casualties. According to the Eighth Air Force,
there were ‘a few brief exchanges of fire with enemy fighters —mission
successful’. Just one American gunner ‘got a shot at an FW’.
Following this inaugural operation, and despite some sniping in the
British press over the comparatively light bombload of the B-17 when
compared with RAF bombers, as well as a perceived low speed and lack
of armament, Maj Gen Carl Spaatz, the commander of the Eighth Air
Force, was pleased with initial performance and results. Indeed, he made
it clear that he had no plans to substitute the Flying Fortress for any
British bomber in production. His commitment to the B-17 was
given some justification by Adolf Galland, who recounted to Allied
interrogators shortly after the war that even in this opening phase of the
battle against the Viermots ‘the defensive power of the bombers was
regarded as extremely effective, and actually instilled considerable
apprehension into the minds of the fighter pilots. The actual effect of
the weapons was more mental than material, and at first the German
fighter pilots simply would not attack’.
Throughout the rest of August the Americans launched more tentative
raids on marshalling yards, shipyards and airfields, but there was no
contact of any significance between German fighters and the American
bombers, although on the 20th Unteroffizier Jan Schild of 2./JG
26 claimed a ‘Stirling’ shot down over the Channel. The ‘kill’ went
unconfirmed, however, and there is no reported corresponding loss of
such an aircraft by the RAF. If anything, it is likely Schild damaged
a Flying Fortress from the small force that bombed the Amiens
marshalling yards that day.
All this changed on 6 September when Hauptmann Karl-Heinz
Meyer, the K om m andeur of II./JG 26, became the first German fighter
pilot to be credited with the destruction of a Flying Fortress when he
shot down a B-17F of the 97th BG near Amiens for his tenth personal
victory. The bomber had been one of a force of 51 aircraft sent by Eaker
to bomb the Potez factory at Meaulte, where Bf 109s were overhauled
and repaired. The Luftwaffe was presented with the opportunity to prove
just how menacing it could be when the bombers failed to rendezvous
with their Spitfire escort at the appointed time. The unprotected
formation pressed on to Meaulte, only to be bounced by the Fw 190s of
Meyer’s Gruppe.
When the Spitfires finally caught up with the B-17s, they in turn were
bounced by Fw 190s of JG 2. The accolade of the second Flying Fortress
to fall to German guns went to Oberfeldwebel Willi Roth of 4./JG 26,
who was credited with the shooting down of a 92nd BG aircraft after
a series of attacks by at least five Fw 190s. According to the Eighth Air
Force’s summary of operations, the German fighters had launched attacks
from ‘all directions’ and ‘out of the sun’.
From this point onwards, the Jagdwaffe and VIII BC joined in a battle
of steadily increasing attrition. In reviewing German fighter tactics
against B-17s to 15 September, a USAAF technical officer reported;
‘A running commentary of enemy fighter activity is kept up between
the fighter cover and the first pilots of the bomber formation. The
co-pilots and all other crew members of ships in the bombing formation
are on the inter-phone system to give and receive information on enemy
fighter attacks. Gunners are given sectors to search so that all fields of
view are covered. At least three guns may be brought to bear on any point
400 yards from a B-17F. Mutual firepower from ships in formation
greatly increases the number of guns that may be fired at enemy aircraft
attacking the formation.
‘Enemy fighter attacks from all angles have been experienced. They
started with astern attacks, went to quarter, beam, below, bow and,
on the last two missions, head-on attacks. The success of all these attacks Mechanics and armourers attend
has been about the same. The B-17s that have been shot down have been to an early Fw 190 of 4./JG 26 at
Abbeville in the summer of 1942.
from the usual causes of straggling and gunners getting killed. Damage This Gruppe was one of those that
to aeroplanes returning has been slight, and there have only been two bore the brunt of the Eighth Air
aeroplanes at any one time out of commission due to enemy gunfire. Force's earliest incursions over
‘Gunners have caused many fighters to decide not to attack by firing France

a burst just as the fighter begins the turn-in to attack. This has been done
on some occasions when the fighter was 1000 yards away or more.’
The foregoing indicates the still random and arbitrary style with which
the ja gd flieger were conducting their attacks on heavy bombers at this
time, although Eighth Air Force crews reported that from August to
November 1942 ‘tail attacks were the rule, and were the form of attack
our bomber armament and armour plate was primarily designed to
protect against’.
In the early afternoon of 23 November 1942, a force of 36 unescorted
heavy bombers attacked the St Nazaire U-boat base, and this time the
28 Flying Fortresses were accompanied by eight of the recently arrived
Consolidated B-24 Liberators of the 93rd BG - aircraft which were
superior to the B-17 in terms of performance and bombload. Like
the Boeing bomber, the B-24 bristled with defensive armament,
incorporating ten or eleven 0.50-in Browning machine guns housed in
nose, upper and tail turrets. As the B-17s made their bomb run, Fw 190s
from Hauptmann Egon Mayer’s III./JG 2 swept in to meet them.
Mayer had served with JG 2 since December 1939 and secured his
first victory in June 1940 during the campaign in France. After a brief
spell at the Jagdfliegerschule in Werneuchen, he returned to the
 Geschwader in the autumn of
1940. By November 1942 (the
month he was appointed to lead
III./JG 2) he had been credited with
52 enemy aircraft destroyed, many
of them Spitfires.
The attack provided Mayer with
the perfect opportunity to test a new
tactic that had been the subject of
discussion among German fighter
commanders for several weeks.
Forming into Ketten of three aircraft,
the Fw 190s went into attack
initially from ahead and to the left.
When in range, Mayer opened fire
with a no-deflection burst that gave
him the impression that his cone of fire was reaching the area in front Amidst a field of wheat in France
of the enemy aircraft. In pulling up to the left, he observed hits in the in the summer of 1943, the
Kommodore of JG 2, Major Egon
starboard wing area of the B-17. The wing broke away and the Flying Mayer, stands on the starboard
Fortress turned over and spun in, exploding as it went. wing of a B-17F that he has shot
Crucially, Mayer had experienced no defensive fire as he made his down. In late 1942 it was Mayer, at
the tim e Kommandeur of III./JG 2,
approach. Following their attack, the German pilots then made sharp
who convinced Galland that a
pulls up to the left or right and again, at first, there was no defensive fire, frontal pass against a B-17 offered
but this was followed by heavy fire as the Focke-Wulfs moved over or the best chance of bringing it down.
beneath and behind the bombers using a climb or half-roll. The relatively intact aircraft would
have been examined and stripped of
After this initial attack several more front low passes were made against
parts of tactical or technical interest
other Flying Fortresses in the formation, and on a final attack strikes and use
were seen in the fuselage areas and wing roots. Whilst turning under
one B-17 Mayer saw a ‘light ball of fire’ beneath the aircraft, moments
after which the bomber ‘spun in, twisting and turning and exploding
after receiving more hits from the rear’.
Next, Mayer aimed for the B-24s, attacking one from ahead and
to one side, keeping his speed as low as possible. As he opened fire on
the Liberator, Mayer’s Fw 190 ‘skidded’ in the direction of flight of the
bomber by applying simple rudder movement. Violent explosions were
seen from the first shots, and the American bomber ‘pulled up slightly
and dived straight down without spinning. No one bailed out’.
Despite this success, there was a loss on the German side when one of
Mayer’s wingmen, Unteroffizier Theodore Angele of 7. Staffel, was killed
over the Channel by return fire as he pulled his Fw 190 up behind the
bombers after his attack - another pilot sustained heavy damage to his
aircraft at a similar moment.
Following this encounter, however, Mayer believed that a frontal pass,
as opposed to the customary rearward attack, offered the best chance
to inflict damage on the bombers’ vulnerable cockpit area. Even more
importantly, the frontal arc of defensive fire was the weakest. Four
bombers had gone down following the attack for the loss of one Fw 190.
Indeed, as the HQ of the Eighth Air Force noted after the mission;
‘A change of enemy fighter tactics was observed in this operation,
nearly all attacks being frontal and apparently aimed at the right side
of the nose.’
 ONE
CHA P T E R

‘From that moment’, one historian recorded, ‘the B-17 was obsolete Engine oil is pumped from a bowser
as a self-defending bomber’. into the tank of Oberleutnant Egon
Mayer's Fw 190 'W hite 7' of 7./JG 2
Egon Mayer would receive the Knight’s Cross in August 1941 and be during the summer of 1942. Just
credited with 102 enemy aircraft destroyed by the time he was killed in visible is the Staffel's emblem of a
an encounter with P-47s over France on 2 March 1944. His first success thum b pressed down on a top hat

against a B-17 would not be his last, and, despite his death, Mayer would
remain one of the Luftwaffe’s highest-scoring aces against the Viermots,
with no fewer than 26 confirmed four-engined kills. This tally included
two on 3 January 1943, a feat he repeated on 5 January 1944, followed
by three B-24s and one B-17 destroyed 48 hours later.
Encouraged by Mayer’s initial success, Galland issued a circular to all
Luftwaffe fighter units;
‘A. The attack from the rear against a four-engined bomber formation
promises little success and almost always brings losses. If an attack from
the rear must be carried though, it should be done from above or below,
and the fuel tanks and engines should be the aiming points.
‘B. The attack from the side can be effective, but it requires thorough
training and good gunnery.
‘C. The attack from the front, front high, or front low, all with low
speed, is the most effective of all. Flying ability, good aiming and closing
up to the shortest possible range are the prerequisites for success.
‘Basically, the strongest weapon is the massed and repeated attack
by an entire fighter formation. In such cases, the defensive fire can be
weakened and the bomber formation broken up.’
Senior unit commanders issued instructions to their pilots to firstly
14 determine a bomber formation’s direction of flight, then to fly on a
 course parallel to and to one side of the bombers until they were about

HEAD-ON
4000-5000 metres ahead of them so that the formation could be seen
over either of the horizontal stabilisers. This was usually about five
to seven minutes after overtaking the formation. The pilots were then
to bank around tightly with their engines throttled back, immediately
after which they were to turn in by Schwarm e and attack head-on.
During this final approach to the target, the fighters were to fly level
with the bombers for the last 1400 metres, open fire at 825 metres
and then get away by flying flat over the formation. The key aiming
points were the cabin area of the target aircraft and the No 3 engine.
In executing the head-on attack, it was calculated that, on average,
it required 20 hits with 20 mm shells from an MG 151 cannon to bring
down a heavy bomber. But as the fighter closed in on its target, the
combined approach speed would be approximately 805 km/h at
183 metres per second, and this allowed only a half-second burst from the
fighter before it would be forced to break away in order to avoid collision
with the bomber. However, in practice, not many German pilots had
the nerve to make their exit flat over the bombers, with most using
a split-S to dive away many metres in front of the B-17s or B-24s, thus
reducing firing time and shooting down fewer bombers. After a successful
head-on attack the ja gd flieger were to turn and complete the destruction
of any bomber that had been knocked out of formation and isolated,
or which was ‘straggling’.
Despite this new doctrine - based on sound principles - German
tactics against the bombers continued to sway between attacks from the
rear and from head-on, although the Eighth Air Force admitted that
‘from December 1942 through to the end of January 1943, nose attacks
predominated —in fact on some missions no other form of attack was
reported. When nose attacks became a serious threat, the nose defence
The view seen by a Luftwaffe fighter of our bombers was weak’.
pilot as he would have approached In cases when rearward attacks were made, however, they were to be
a pair of B-17Fs for a frontal attack.
executed in a concentration of at least Schwarm strength in rapid
Egon Mayer believed that a frontal
pass, as opposed to the customary succession, from slightly high or low, with the fighters getting away
rearward attack, against heavy flat over the formation. A diving exit behind the bombers was to be
bombers offered the best chance performed only if the fighter’s speed was so low that a dive was necessary
to inflict damage on the vulnerable
in order to evade defensive fire. Speed was essential, since the relative
cockpit area. Even more
importantly, the frontal arc of speeds of the fighters and bombers were so low that the marksmanship
defensive fire was the weakest of the bomber gunners’ was found to improve quite noticeably. Those
pilots persisting in rearward attacks
found that the most vulnerable
spot on a bomber was the wing
area between the fuselage and
the in-board engines. Again, the
No 3 on a B-17 was considered
particularly important because it
powered the hydraulics system.
USAAF crews noted that in
February and March 1943, beam
attacks increased (from the ‘two’,
‘three’ and ‘four o’clock’ and ‘eight’,
‘nine’ and ‘ten o’clock’ positions), 15
 while between April and June, tail attacks increased, beam attacks
ONE

decreased and nose attacks ‘held their own’.

However, in August 1943, the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL)
CHA P T E R

ordered that all attacks were to be made from the rear, rather than by
a frontal pass chiefly because a large percentage of the young pilots
equipping the Ja gdgeschw ader from the fighter schools encountered
difficulty in undertaking the latter type of attack. The frontal pass
involved a high combined closing speed which, in turn, demanded great
skill in gunnery, range estimation and flying control. The slightest evasive
action on the part of the bombers made this type of attack even more
difficult. In contrast, evasive action taken against attacks from the rear
was thought to be ineffective. This was picked up the USAAF;
‘The period from July through to December was marked by a high
percentage of tail attacks and a decrease in the proportion of nose attacks.’
The gradual switch from head-on back to rear-mounted attacks
was timely, as September 1943 saw the appearance of the new B-17G
fitted with a twin-gun ‘chin’ turret in the nose. This in turn provided
the Flying Fortress with the vital forward armament it needed to counter Following his return from a mission
over the Channel coast,
frontally-mounted attacks.
Oberleutnant Josef Wurmheller,
Nevertheless, there were a select few among the ja gd flieger who Staffelkapitan of 9./JG 2, chats with
demonstrated early on the ‘prerequisites’ of ‘flying ability, good aiming’ a technical officer of his Gruppe.
and a suitable degree of courage to enjoy noteworthy success against the The yellow rudder of Wurmheller's
Fw 190A-6 'Yellow 2' (Wk-Nr
Viermots. Included in this elite and pioneering group was Oberleutnant 530314) is adorned with an emblem
Josef Wurmheller, Staffelkapitdn of 9./JG 2, who is known to have shot of the Knight's Cross and a marking
down two B-17s in one day over Brittany on 16 February 1943. This denoting 60 victories, a figure
was, in itself, considered to have been an unusual and remarkable feat reached in August 1942. The second
row of additional victory bars and a
of skill and bravery. part of the third row - eight in all -
By this date Wurmheller already had a formidable reputation, having show American stars, all of which
accounted for the destruction of more than 50 Spitfires over the Channel denoted B-17s shot down

■ ■

16
Front between September 1940 and October 1942, as well as nine Soviet

HEAD-ON
aircraft while serving with 5./JG 53 in Russia in mid-194l. He had been
awarded the Knight’s Cross on 4 September 1941 while an oberfeldwebel
with 31 victories, and the Oak Leaves followed on 13 November 1942.
During May 1943, Wurmheller shot down a further four B-17s and
another three in July. He would remain with 9. Staffel until 8 June 1944,
when he was appointed K om m andeur of III./JG 2 in its operations on the
Normandy invasion front (replacing Hauptmann Herbert Huppertz who
had been killed, having accounted for 17 Viermots). Fourteen days later,
on 22 June, ‘Sepp’ Wurmheller was shot down and killed during combat
with Allied fighters. His final score of four-engined bombers amounted
to at least 20 out of a total of 102 victories. He had repeated his feat of
knocking down two Flying Fortresses in one day on 3 September 1943
and again on the 15th of that month. Eighteen of his victories were B-17s
and two were B-24s. Wurmheller was awarded the Swords to the Knight’s
Cross posthumously on 24 October 1944.
Standing alongside him in this early phase of operations against the
‘heavies’ was the redoubtable Oberleutnant Georg-Peter Eder, the
Staffelkapitan of 12./JG 2, who was instrumental in working with Egon
Mayer to develop the principle of the head-on attack. Despite being shot
down and wounded in Russia, as well as having suffered a fractured
skull following a collision on the ground with a Ju 52/3m in the East,
‘Schorsch’ Eder quickly proved his abilities in this tough new form of
warfare in the West when he shot down a B-17 on 30 December 1942,
with another following four days later.
Oberleutnant Georg-Peter Eder
Following the destruction of a Flying Fortress on 28 March 1943, (right) with his wingm an upon
his Bf 109G-4 was hit in the engine and somersaulted upon landing, returning from a sortie in which he
as a result of which Eder was seriously injured again. He recovered to fly shot down a Viermot. A veteran of
the Eastern Front, he became one
and fight once more, and by 14 July 1943Eder hadclaimed eight Flying
of the Luftwaffe's earliest specialists
Fortresses. On that day, during Eighth Air Forceraids onGerman
against American Viermots, and
airfields in France, he shot down two more during the early morning. would go on to accumulate 36 four-
The last of his B-17 claims while with JG 2, on 30 July 1943, was engined victories. This tally made
Eder the highest-scoring German
classified as a ‘H errauschuss’ (HSS) —the ‘cutting out’ or shooting away pilot in such operations, with the
of a bomber from its combat formation, thus rendering it damaged and last of his successes being scored
vulnerable to attack. On 5 November Eder had to take to his parachute while flying the Me 262
following combat.
In March 1944, after leading
5./JG 2, Eder was transferred to
6./JG 1, his victory score standing
at 33, including 11 B-17s. His
record for ‘invincibility’ held when,
firstly, he was forced to bail out of
his Fw 190 after being attacked by
a P-47 over Gottingen on 19 April,
and then when he had to make an
emergency landing at Vechta on the
morning of 8 May, having shot
down a B-24 southwest of Verden.
By mid-May 1944 Eder had been
appointed Kom m andeur of II./JG 1,
having achieved 43 victories. He 17
 remained in this post until 11 August, when he assumed command of
ONE

6./JG 26, before being appointed Gruppenkommandeur of II./JG 26 on

4 September when its previous CO, Emil Lang, was killed in action.
C HA P T E R

Days later however, Eder was transferred to oversee the build-up of the
first Me 262 jet fighter trials unit, Erprobungskommando 262. By then
he had shot down 21 four-engined bombers —16 B-17s (two HSS) and
five B-24s. Although Eder’s days flying conventional fighters were now
at an end, his culling of heavy bombers was far from over.
Then there was Hugo Frey, a native of the Neckar region of
Wiirttemberg. Frey had flown with l.(J)/LG 2 in the Polish campaign
in 1939, where he had scored his first victory on 4 September. Aside
from the claiming of a Potez 63 in France in May 1940, Frey enjoyed
no further success until he joined 10./JG 1 and shot down a Boston on
4 September 1942.
However, the following year, leading 2./JG 1, Frey began to notch
up an astonishing scoreboard of four-engined bombers, and he became
one of the Luftwaffe’s earliest and leading proponents in combat against
them. His first such success was a B-17 shot down in clear blue skies on
27 January 1943 —the day the USAAF first launched a mission against
a target on German soil when it attacked the ports of Wilhelmshaven
and Emden with 55 bombers. Any joy at his success was dissipated,
A smiling Oberleutnant Hugo Frey,
however, by the draining shock of engaging in head-on combat against
Staffelkapitan of 7./JG 11, jumps such monstrous aircraft, as well as the losses incurred in such missions.
from the cockpit of his Fw 190 Although eight of his fellow pilots in JG 1 lodged claims for Viermots
following a sortie over Germany
that day, the USAAF reported the loss of only three B-17s. The
in the autumn of 1943. Frey was one
of the Luftwaffe's highest-scoring
Geschwader lost eight pilots - a grim portent of things to come.
'bomber-killers' w ith 25 Viermots Throughout the rest of 1943 Frey, who had been appointed
to his credit. He was killed by Staffelkapitan of 7./JG 11 on 1 April that year, accounted for a further
defensive fire from a B-17 while in
twelve B-17s and five B-24s and one unidentified four-engined aircraft,
action over Berlin on 6 March 1944.
He had shot down four Flying including two B-17s downed on 26 November 1943 plus a P-47 escort
Fortresses minutes earlier fighter. But his zenith was to be reached on 6 March 1944 when the
Eighth Air Force attacked Berlin for the first time (see Chapter Two).
During the mid-afternoon, as the American force made its way west
back to England, Frey, leading one of two pairs of Fw 190s of III./JG 11,
shot down no fewer than four B-17s at close range (all witnessed by
his wingman). These aircraft, probably from B Formation of the
45th Combat Wing (CW), were downed in the space of ten minutes
over Assen-Alkmaar. Moments later the leader of the other pair of
Focke-Wulfs, Hauptmann Anton Hackl, heard Frey cry over the R/T
cI’ve been hit!’ These were the last words heard from the ace, who had
almost certainly been hit by defensive fire from a fifth bomber that he had
targeted flying with the Low Box of the 45th CW. Several gunners from
B-17s in this formation reported downing a persistent Fw 190 near
Coevorden, in Holland, close to the German border. Frey perished in
the subsequent crash near Sleen, 30 kilometres west of Meppen.
Oberleutnant Hugo Frey was credited with 32 victories, of which 25
are known to have been four-engined bombers. Despite his relatively
short time spent on operations against the ‘heavies’, this tally places Frey
in the top-ten highest-scoring recorded Viermot Experten. Also, despite
these accomplishments, the award of the Knight’s Cross was made only
posthumously on 4 May 1944, when he was promoted to hauptmann.
 Finally, there is one other outstanding Figure among the early 'Viermot
killers’. On 20 December 1942, two B-17s of the 1st Bombardment
Wing had fallen over France to the guns of veteran fighter pilot Major
Walter Oesau during a mission against the airfield at Romilly-sur-Seine.
As G eschwaderkom m odore of JG 2, Oesau had enjoyed an illustrious
career from his service with the Legion Condor during the Spanish Civil
War, then as K om m andeur of III./JG 3 on the Eastern Front at the time
of Operation Barbarossa, to being only the third fighter pilot to claim
100 victories, which he achieved on 26 October 1941. He had been
awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross on 6 February 1941 and
was only the third man to be awarded the Swords in July 1941 for his
80th victory. The second of the B-17s shot down on 20 December 1942
represented Oesau’s 112th victory, and his third four-engined kill.
The mission to Romilly on 20 December was costly to VIII BC, with
German flak and fighters causing the loss of six out of 60 Flying
Fortresses. A seventh aircraft suffered irrepairable damage, while a further
29 B-17s and one B-24 were also shot up to varying degrees. Two crew
were killed and 58 reported missing, with 12 wounded. This represented
the worst losses suffered by the Eighth Air Force in its bombing campaign
so far.
Oesau had actually claimed an RAF Lancaster in daylight over France
Obersleutnant W alter Oesau, one of on 17 April 1942 as his first V ierm ot- a relatively rare feat given Bomber
the Luftwaffe's most tenacious unit Command’s nocturnal bombing policy - during a period when he was,
commanders and Egon Mayer's
predecessor as Kommodore of JG 2
theoretically, ‘banned’ from flying because his exemplary record deemed
from July 1941 to June 1943. 'Guile' him to be too valuable. He got around this by claiming that he had been
Oesau was the third serviceman to on a routine ‘test flight’ when he intercepted the bomber! Oesau’s victim
be awarded the Swords to the had been one of a small force of 12 Lancasters on their way across France
Knight's Cross and the third German
pilot to secure 100 victories. He
to carry out an experimental low-level raid on the MAN diesel engine
would account for 14 Viermots by factory at Augsburg, in Bavaria. Oesau had claimed he had shot the
the tim e of his death following British bomber down in a case of spirited self-defence as the aircraft had
combat with an American bomber
flown close to his G eschwader s airfield at Beaumont-le-Roger. It was his
formation and its escort in May 1944
110th victory. Another B-17 followed on 4 February 1943 to bring his
score of Viermots to four by the end of that year. This would be his last
victory claim until early the following year, Oesau being sent to occupy
a number of fighter staff positions, including the role ofJagdfliegerfuhrer
(Fighter Leader) in Brittany.
For all his accomplishments, he failed to impress British Air Intelligence
officers who, in a summary of early 1943 recorded that Oesau ‘is said to
have a palatial HQ at Beaumont-le-Roger, where he lives in great style,
wears extravagant clothes, has three aircraft for his personal use (all of them
marked with the Oak Leaves) and where in general an incredible degree
of ceremony is maintained. He appears to be a rather unpleasant character,
vain of his looks, position and achievement, a stickler for efficiency and
etiquette and yet quite willing to leave the real work of running the
Geschwader to his subordinates’.
Irrespective of any such flaws to his personality and qualities of
leadership, Oesau would confound the Allied intelligence officers in the
grim days of February 1944 as the Eighth Air Force mounted its relentless
campaign of bombing attacks on the German aircraft manufacturing
industry. As we shall see, he would take a heavy toll of Viermots in the
coming air battles that month.
CORNERED WOLF
t an air power symposium in the USA in 1968, 176-victory

A Luftwaffe ace Johannes Steinhoff, told his audience: ‘The

appearance of the bombers in mass in 1943 was the turning
point in the aerial warfare of World War 2. The era of sportsmanlike,
chivalrous hunting had ended. The air space over Europe had turned
into a battleground with fortresses and trenches —and it was our duty
to storm these fortifications and break through’.
Steinhoff s analogy of air warfare in 1943 is perhaps best encapsulated
by the events of 17 August. That day - the anniversary of its first raid
on northern Europe — VIII BC launched an attack against the
ball-bearing industry located around Schweinfurt. At 0645 hrs, the first
B-17s took-off from England for a mission which, in terms of size,
surpassed anything that had gone before. The attack was carried out by
two large formations. The first, comprising 146 B-17s from seven bomb
groups, would attack the Messerschmitt works at Regensburg-Priifening
and continue across southern Europe to land at bases in North Africa.
The second formation, consisting of 230 aircraft from the 1st Bomb
Wing had, as its objective, the ball-bearing works at Schweinfurt.
However, unsettled weather over England hampered take-off and the Hauptmann Hermann Staiger,
mission lost its synchronisation. It took more than an hour for the first Staffelkapitan of 12./JG 26 in
August 1943, claimed a B-17 shot
wave bombers to join up and assemble into combat formation. The down west of the village of Pesch,
fighter escorts joined them over the North Sea. Shortly after 0930 hrs northwest of Aachen, during the
the complete formation crossed the Dutch coast. afternoon of the 17th of that month.
Every one of his five kills the
JG 26 established contact with the bombers over Antwerp. From this
previous month had been Flying
moment, German fighters harried the ‘heavies’ along their entire route Fortresses. With an eventual score
over Europe. From its position up sun and slightly above the loosely of 26 Viermots, he was one of the
dispersed American formation, I./JG 26 pounced in a classic head-on leading anti-bomber pilots

attack and inflicted fatal damage on several B-17s. The Kapitdn of 1.

Staffel, Oberleutnant Artur Beese, a veteran of the Channel Front and Know your enemy - an NCO pilot
from JG 2 leans down to study a
one of the small number of JG 26 pilots sent to the USSR earlier in 1943, table-top model of a B-17 fitted with
was one of the first to score, knocking down a B-17 near Berendrecht at wire cones to indicate the fields of
1130 hrs for his 16th victory, but his first Viermot kill. of fire from the defensive guns
A co-pilot aboard a Flying
Fortress heading for Regensburg
recorded;
‘Near Woensdrecht, I saw the
first flak blossom, light and
inaccurate. A few minutes later, two
Fw 190s appeared at “one o’clock
level” and whizzed through the
formation ahead of us in a frontal
attack, nicking two B-17s in the
wings and breaking away beneath us
in half-rolls. Smoke immediately
trailed from both B-17s, but they
held their stations. As the fighters
passed us at a high rate of closure, the guns of our group went into action.

CORNERED
The pungent smell of burnt powder filled our cockpit and the B-17
trembled to the recoil of nose and ball-turret guns. I saw pieces fly off the
wing of one of the fighters before they passed from view. There was
something desperate about the way those two fighters came in fast right

WOLF
out of their climb without any preliminaries.
‘I watched two fighters explode not far beneath us, disappearing
in sheets of orange flame, B-17s dropping out in various states of distress,
from engines on fire to control surfaces shot away, friendly and enemy
parachutes floating down. The sight was fantastic —it surpassed fiction.’
Beese would score again, claiming another B-17 in the afternoon over
Belgium.
Hauptmann Hermann Staiger, Stajfelkapitdn of 12./JG 26 claimed
his sixth heavy bomber shot down. The previous month he had been
credited with five. Staiger had formerly led 7./JG 51 in Russia, where
he proved his skill in anti-bomber work when he accounted for the
destruction of three Tupolev SBs in one day on 22 June 1941, with
a further four in one day on the 30th of that month. Staiger was shot
down by Soviet flak and wounded on 13 July 1941, but was rewarded
with the Knight’s Cross three days later.
He joined JG 26 in July 1943 following a period as an instructor,
and shot down five B-17s in a matter of days, including two from the
306th BG over Kiel on 29 July. But even this would be surpassed on
24 April 1944 when, leading a combined force of aircraft from III./JG 26
and III./JG 3, he attacked a formation of 141 B-17s from the 1st Bomb
Division (BD) heading for Oberpfaffenhofen. Flying a Bf 109 fitted with
a 30 mm MK 108 cannon in the nose, he shot down two B-17s in the
space of just one minute over Donauworth. Twenty-five minutes later,
he claimed an HSS for two B-17s, before destroying another south of
Munich - again all within one minute.
Staiger would end the war having destroyed 26 four-engined bombers,
making him one of the Luftwaffe’s leading specialists in their destruction.
In the final weeks of the conflict he flew Me 262s as a major in command
of II./JG 7, having by then achieved a total of 63 victories.
Seven confirmed bombers went down to the guns of III./JG 26 An Fw 190 fitted with underwing
that day, including two credited to Hauptmann Klaus Mietusch, the 21 cm W Gr air-to-air mortars was
captured on film as it banked away
Gruppenkommandeur, and two to Oberfeldwebel Heinz Kemethmiiller past a bomber formation during the
of 7. Staffel. Mietusch accounted for his pair when his Gruppe intercepted Eighth Air Force attack on Kassel
the bombers over Aachen during the afternoon and attacked them for and Oschersleben on 28 July 1943.
More than anything else, the
30 minutes. His victims fell southeast of Schleiden and Lake Laacher.
mortars were intended to disrupt
Mietusch had gained his first victory in May 1940 over Dunkirk after and scatter a bomber formation,
having spent a brief period as a PoW of the French when he was shot reducing defensive fire power and
down by a Hurricane and force-landed behind French lines. increasing the vulnerability of lone
bombers
A true frontline veteran, he subsequently flew with 7./JG 26 over
Sicily, Malta, North Africa, Dieppe and the USSR. Mietusch’s score
stood at 29 victories when he was injured in a crash in the East, the
engine of his fighter having failed shortly after take-off. Subsequently,
appointed to lead III./JG 26 back in the West in July 1943, Mietusch
went on to account for 13 four-engined bombers, his last claim being
for a B-17 shot down near Paris on 14 June 1944 for his 66th victory.
However, he was shot down and killed by a US fighter on 17 September
 1944. Mietusch’s final victory tally was 75, and he was posthumously
awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross.
Also demonstrating his capabilities in the Schweinfurt raid was the
colourful K om m odore of JG 26, Oberstleutnant Josef Priller. He had two
B-17s to his credit (both scored in June) by the time he downed his third
late in the day as the Americans made their return from Schweinfurt.
His Stabsschwarm and the Fw 190s of Wilhelm-Ferdinand Galland’s
II./JG 26 met to intercept the Flying Fortresses over the German-Belgian
border. Attacking head-on, Priller’s B-17 burst into flames and went
down north of Liege.
‘Pips’ Priller’s career is well documented, and he is particularly well
known for his exceptionally high score against Spitfires, but in context
here it is worth noting that of this Knight’s Cross-holder’s (with Oak
Leaves and Swords) 101 victories scored in 1307 combat flights, 11 were
known to be Viermots. Indeed, his penultimate victory was a B-24 of the
492nd BG shot down west of Dreux in France on 15 June 1944.
In the wake of the 17 August 1943 raid, however, a frustrated Priller
was moved to register a complaint to the Staff of the G eneral der
Jagdflieger about the combat effectiveness of III./JG 1. Its Bf 109s, led
by Hauptmann Robert Olejnik, had intercepted the bombers just as Major Klaus Mietusch,
Gruppenkommandeur of III./JG 26,
the escorting fighters, at the limit of their range, turned back over the
claimed tw o B-17s shot down
Belgian-German border. Priller had noted how JG 1 failed to make a during the USAAF mission to
concerted mass attack, preferring to pick on lone ‘stragglers’ - easier prey. Schweinfurt on 17 August 1943.
Priller denounced such tactics as those o f‘corpse-looters’. Mietusch was one of the 'old hares'
of JG 26, having been with the
It is fair to say that only two pilots of III./JG 1 scored that day,
Geschwader since 1938. Accredited
Olejnik claiming a B-17 for his 41st victory at 1545 hrs and Feldwebel with 75 victories, including ten
Hans Meissner shooting one down 15 minutes later. Olejnik’s account four-engined kills, scored in more
of his kill does, to some extent, verify Priller’s point, but equally indicates than 450 missions, Mietusch had
been shot down on ten occasions,
determination on behalf of the assailant;
but he was finally killed when his
‘I attacked a bomber to the left of the formation from behind and Bf 109G-6 was attacked by a P-51
slightly below. After my third attack, black smoke escaped from its right over the Dutch-German border
engine. Little by little, the enemy aircraft became detached from its on 17 September 1944

group, but managed to correct itself 100 m behind, losing 80 m of height

in the process —a very uncomfortable position for it. The bomber could
no longer count on the protection of its colleagues. It released its bombs,
which was the prudent thing to do.
‘During my fourth attack the aircraft went out of control. Engulfed
in flames, it made three large turns to the left. Seven crewmen bailed out.
At 4000 m, the turns became tighter. The right wing broke off, followed
by the left wing. The fuselage continued to dive and hit the ground in a
wood near Darmstadt. Three men were probably still in the aircraft.’
Claiming two B-17s that day was Leutnant Hans Ehlers of 2./JG 1.
He had already downed a B-17 on 6 December 1942 for his 17th victory.
The HSS which was credited to him on 17 August represented his
24th kill, with a second B-17 following 17 minutes later. Ehlers had
served as groundcrew with the Legion Condor in Spain, before joining
2./JG 3, with whom he flew in France. Shot down by a Hurricane and
posted missing, he returned to fight over England in the summer of
1940, increasing his score to four. He then saw service in Russia. In the
East, Ehlers suffered injuries following a serious ground accident, but
returned to the West in September 1941 with his score at 14.
 CORNERED
Joining JG 1, Ehlers’ tally rose
steadily. On 8 October 1943,
during USAAF raids on Bremen
and Vegesack, he shot down a
B-17 before colliding with another

WOLF
and being forced to bail out of his
Focke-Wulf. Ehlers subsequently
received the German Cross in Gold
from Reichsmarschall Goring, and
on 29 November he again claimed
another Flying Fortress. Although
wounded by defensive fire from a
Boeing bomber on 13 April 1944,
Ehlers downed the Flying Fortress
over Darmstadt for his 48th victory
prior to crash-landing his Fw 190 near Giitersdorf. He returned to service Pilots of 3./JG 11 w ait at cockpit
to take command of I./JG 1 and was awarded the Knight’s Cross on readiness in their Fw 190s at Husum
in the late summer of 1943. The
9 June 1944. Ehlers was one of six pilots killed during a ground-cover nearest machine, 'Yellow 9', carries
operation for troops in the Dinant-Rochefort area on 27 December, his the Staffel emblem of a cartoon
18-aircraft formation being attacked by P-51s from the 364th FG. He pistol imposed on a red heart
would be credited with 24 four-engined kills and an overall score of 55. against a yellow background, with
the m otto ' Wer zuerst schiesst hat
Also scoring a ‘double’ over B-17s during the Schweinfurt mission mehr vom Leberi ('He who shoots
was Berliner Hauptmann Erwin Clausen, K om m andeur of I./JG 11. He first lives longest')
had shot down no fewer than eight Boeings the previous month, his Among the pilots seen here about
record displaying a pattern of double-claims for B-17s on three occasions to fly another mission over France
- on 26, 27 and 29 July. After successful service in Poland, the Balkans is Major Wilhelm-Ferdinand Galland,
Kommandeur of II./JG 26 (second
and Russia, Clausen was given the Knight’s Cross for 52 victories on
from left), who was killed in action
22 May 1942 while flying with 1./JG 77. The month of July 1942 would over Holland during the 17 August
see Clausen’s air combat skills on the Eastern Front reach meteoric levels 1943 USAAF mission to Schweinfurt
when he shot down 45 enemy aircraft, claiming four in one day three when he was shot down by a P-47
w hile attacking bombers. Galland
times, five in one day twice and six in a day on one occasion. Clausen had been awarded the Knight's
finally achieved 132 victories, and was awarded the Oak Leaves. During Cross and had 55 confirmed
his service with JG 11 in the defence of the Reich, he accounted for 12 victories, including eight Viermots
four-engined bombers destroyed.
In total, 60 B-17s were shot
down and 168 damaged during the
Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission.
And the destruction inflicted upon
the German factories did not
compensate for the loss of more than
600 USAAF airmen, as production
was interrupted for only a few weeks.
The Jagdwaffe was able to celebrate
a cautious victory, despite the
fact that losses for all participating
Geschwader amounted to 17 killed
and 14 wounded, with 42 fighters
destroyed. The losses incurred
included that of Major Wilhelm-
Ferdinand Galland, Adolf Galland’s
brother and Kom m andeur of II./JG 23
 26. A most respected formation leader, he had 55 victories to his credit,
TWO

including eight ‘heavies’.

The war against the bombers ground on —and it grew tougher.
C HA P T E R

Schweinfurt provided the Luftwaffe with valuable lessons in tactical

deployment, and on 3 September Galland issued revised directives to
every unit engaged in the defence of the Reich;
‘The head-on attack is, from now on, to be the exception, and is to
be flown in only exceptionally favourable circumstances and by
formations especially successful in it. As the standard method of attack,
the attack from the rear with a small angle of approach is now ordered.
‘From now on, only bombers in formation are to be attacked (without
regard to whether they are on the way to the target or on the way out).
Only when the entire bomber formation has been broken up or when
there is no further possibility of getting to the formation are separated
or damaged bombers flying alone to be destroyed.
‘Fire will be opened during frontal attacks at a maximum range of
730 metres, and in all attacks at 365 metres. The goal of every attack is
one aircraft. Aiming at the centre of a bomber formation or spraying the
whole formation with bullets never results in success. Attacks from an
angle of approach greater than 30 degrees are ineffective. Combat will be
continued even in the strongest flak zones.’
By October 1943 the daylight battle over the Reich had reached its
zenith, forcing the Americans to accept that unescorted, deep penetration
formations could not adequately protect themselves. Many Luftwaffe
pilots were now accumulating noteworthy scores against the Viermots.
Typical of this period was Oberleutnant Gerhard Sommer of 4./JG 11,
whose score of 14 victories included just two that were not four-engined.
Sommer had first demonstrated his prowess when he shot down an RAF As testimony to the resilience of
Wellington in August 1942, but his aforementioned Viermots were the Flying Fortress, The Sack from
the 379th BG made it back from the
claimed in the nine months between February and October 1943,
raid to Kassel and Oschersleben on
including two on one day on 27 August. He was killed in combat with 28 July 1943, despite having been hit
P-47s on 12 May 1944 and awarded the Knight’s Cross posthumously. by a 21 cm mortar fired by a German
JG 50 was commanded by the redoubtable Major Hermann Graf, the fighter, which struck the aircraft
below the upper gun turret. The
acclaimed fighter ace from the Eastern Front and holder of the Diamonds bomber's oxygen cylinders exploded
to the Knight’s Cross. This small G eschwader had originally been formed when hit by mortar fragments,
in June 1943 as a high-altitude interceptor unit equipped with just eight blowing a hole in the fuselage
Bf 109G-6s. It had been planned to
equip JG 50 with the Bf 109G-5,
which boasted a pressurised cockpit
and GM-l/Nitrous-oxide boost to
enhance performance so as to deal
with the threat posed by fast British
Mosquitoes, but delivery of this
variant had been delayed. In the
meantime, a greater threat had been
presented by the American ‘heavies’,
so the high-altitude ‘Mosquito-
chasers’ were thrown into the battle.
By mid-July, JG 50 had received
12 Bf 109G-5s, and by month-end
24 the unit had shot down its first
 CORNERED
Flying Fortress. On 6 September,
during a raid on Stuttgart, Graf
accounted for two of four B-17s
claimed by his unit that day —these
were his 204th and 205th victories.

WOLF
Although the Eighth Air Force lost
45 bombers in total to JG 50 to
the end of 1943, the latter’s small
complement of aircraft was reduced
by three and one pilot during this
period. Graf, however, would go
on to take command of JG 11 in
January 1944, and shoot down
four more Viermots with the unit. Of
his 212 victories, just six were four-
engined. This statistic is perhaps indicative of the challenging difference A typical airfield scene from the
between combat in the East and fighting the bombers in the West. autumn of 1943 as pilots and
groundcrew of II./JG 2 w ait at
The year 1943 saw Hauptmann Gunther Specht’s victory tally of readiness. Bf 109G-6 'W hite Y is
18 consist almost exclusively of B-17s and B-24s - just four of his successes fitted with underwing MG 151
were fighters. The wiry K om m andeur of I I . /JG 11 had lost an eye as a 20 mm cannon
result of defensive fire from an RAF Wellington that he sent crashing into
the North Sea in December 1939, but this had affected neither his
tenacity nor his gunnery skills. Like Ehlers and Clausen, Specht shot down
two B-17s during the cull of the Schweinfurt raid on 17 August 1943.
Through 1944, however, he would claim just one B-17 on 22 February,
but was awarded the Knight’s Cross on 8 April that year. The next month
he was appointed Kommodore of JG 11, but was posted missing during the The diminutive Hauptmann Gunther
Specht, Kommandeur oi II./JG 11,
infamous Operation Bodenplatte on 1 January 1945. Specht was promoted toasts Hauptmann Egon
to the rank of oberstleutnant and awarded the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Falkensamer at Jever on 26 May
Cross posthumously. He had claimed 34 victories in total. 1943 upon the occasion of his
Former flying instructor Oberleutnant Rudolf Klemm of 7./JG 54 departure as Staffelkapitan of
6./JG 11 to an assigmnent with
suffered a similar fate to Specht when, on 14 May 1943 during Jagdgruppe W est That year, Specht
the Eighth Air Force attack on the Kiel shipyards, he shot down shot down 14 four-engined bombers
his second Viermot —a B-24 of the 44th BG that went down just despite the loss of one eye
after midday at Rieseby, east of
Schleswig. Moments later, in an
environment of heavy flak,
Klemm’s Bf 109G-4 was hit by a
shell burst and he was wounded and
blinded in one eye. Overcoming
this handicap, however, he returned
to operations weeks later, and
in February 1944 was appointed
Staffelkapitan of 7./JG 54. To
8 April 1944, Klemm’s next seven
victories were all heavy bombers,
including two B-17s in one day on
20 February and a Flying Fortress
(unconfirmed) and a B-24 on
6 March during the attack on
Berlin. He survived the war with 25
42 victories, including eight confirmed four-engine kills, and was
awarded the Knight’s Cross on 18 November 1944.
On 10 October 1943 the USAAF struck the marshalling yards at
Munster with 206 B-17s, escorted by 216 P-47s. Some 250 buildings
were destroyed and a further 3000 damaged, including the railway station
and the cathedral. More than 300 inhabitants were killed and 602 injured.
In the skies above the city, the Americans encountered vicious and
determined aerial opposition —the 100th BG lost 12 of its 14 aircraft.
Thirty bombers were downed altogether. Bf 109s from II./JG 3 reached
the formation first, and in accordance with Galland’s directive, prepared
to make an attack from the rear, but they were repelled by the heavy
escort. Nevertheless, VIII BC later reported that the attacks mounted
by JG 1 and JG 26 against the 3rd BD were ‘the most violent and
concentrated attack yet made on this Division by enemy aircraft. Attacks,
from every clock position, appeared to have a definite method’.
Four days later, 229 of 291 B-17s despatched managed to reach
Schweinfurt —a return to attacking aircraft industry targets, which had
proved so costly to the Americans in August. It was planned that the
bomber force would include 20 B-24s from the 2nd BD, but these - and
their escort —were forced to abandon the mission due to bad weather
and cloud. Another fighter group had to turn back because of fog, leaving
just two groups to escort the B-17s. Over western Germany the weather
had cleared, and in cloudless skies I. Jagdkorps committed all of its
daylight fighter units - a total of 567 aircraft from nine Jagdgeschw ader,
as well as twin-engined Zerstorer and some fighter training school aircraft
and nightfighters. By the time the 1st BD entered the target area, it had
lost 36 bombers, with one group alone losing just under half its strength.
Once the mission was over, the division’s losses had increased to
45 machines. One combat wing of 37 aircraft had lost 21 machines.
German fighters claimed 149 enemy aircraft destroyed, while losses to the
Jagdwaffe during this mission totalled 31 aircraft shot down, 12 written
off and 34 damaged —between 3.4 and 4 per cent of available fighter
strength in the West.
For the Americans, the battering absorbed by their bombers had been
immense. In total, the second Schweinfurt raid had cost 60 B-17s and
600 aircrew. Seventeen more bombers were seriously damaged and
a further 121 were damaged but repairable. Despite the catastrophe,
Eaker wrote to Arnold the next day with a sense of success, claiming that
the Luftwaffe’s response was ‘pretty much as the last final struggles of
a monster in his death throes’. Arnold remained unconvinced, replying,
‘The cornered wolf fights hardest’.
The commanding general of the I. Jagdkorps recorded that ‘the units
of the German R eichsverteidigung achieved a great defensive success on
14 October 1943’.
Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean in the summer of 1943, German
forces were locked in an increasingly marginalised campaign against the
Allied air forces operating over Sicily. On 13 May the Axis armies in
Tunisia had capitulated, leaving the Allies free to use airfields along the
North African coast as a springboard from which to mount air attacks
not just on Sicily but on the Italian mainland as well, which was seen as
a new frontline. The German fighter force based in the area, comprising
 CORNERED
elements o f J G3 , J G 2 7 , J G 5 1 , J G 5 3 and JG 77, fought against a large
and varied Allied bomber fleet made up of RAF Bostons, Baltimores,
Wellingtons, Marauders, Halifaxes and Liberators of the North West
African Air Forces, joined by A-20s, B-25s, B-26s, B-17s and B-24s of
the US Ninth and Twelfth Air Forces.

WOLF
Initial tactics deployed against RAF bombers in North Africa were
haphazard in nature. Up to 1942, the Luftwaffe had not found it necessary
to devise specific tactics against bombers since they were considered to be
no great menace in the air. Mainly the ja gd flieger attempted to use
whatever sized force it deployed to a given engagement to firstly attack
the fighter escort so as to draw away the cover from the bombers and then
to tackle the latter. At first, this basic tactic offered some success. Later,
however, as the RAF increased its fighter screens, a greater proportion of
the increasingly slender German fighter force was committed to engaging
the escort, whilst a small element went for the bombers.
Mass head-on attacks involving at least six aircraft were attempted
occasionally, approaching at high speed in a shallow dive, opening fire
at 640 metres, closing to 180 metres and aiming at the cockpit. It was
hoped to scatter the escorts in the process, but such methods demanded
an aircraft and a degree of training and confidence on the part of the
pilot not readily found in Africa.
A Bf 109G-6/R2 of 12./JG 3 fitted A variation of this method consisted of an approach at height,
with loaded underwing 21 cm WGr
mortar tubes photographed at
followed by a steep dive, the fighter coming up under the bomber’s tail
San Severo, in central Italy, in while opening fire in the climb at the belly of the target aircraft. All such
August 1943. This aircraft is known attacks were to be carried out at speed to lessen the time within the range
to have been flown by Leutnant of the bombers’ defensive armament.
Herbert Kutscha, Kapitan of
12./JG 3, and he may have scored
The Bf 109F/Gs used by the African Jagdgeschw ader were considered
some of his six Viermot victories by unit commanders to be ‘quite inadequate for the purpose since their
in the fighter, lt was intended manoeuvrability was not sufficient to allow the last-minute violent turns
that aircraft so armed should
and dives that were an essential part of the tactics’. The Fw 190, better
be deployed to break up enemy
bomber formations attacking Italian
suited for this kind of work, never arrived in sufficient numbers in the
targets from North African bases theatre. The tipping point came with the arrival in strength of American

27
 heavy bombers in numbers in North Africa at the time when the
TWO

Germans were in retreat.

Major Johannes Steinhoff had arrived in Tunisia from Russia in early
C HA P T E R

April 1943 as K om m odore of JG 77. He recalled;

‘It was in April 1943 that I first came in contact with the “four-engine
jobs” as we called the B-17s. At that time the battle for North Africa was
already lost. On one occasion, after a dogfight with some Spitfires,
we were prepared for landing when a glittering armada of bombers of
a type we had never seen before, passed above us in the bright midday
sun. It was too late to make an attack at that moment, but I would soon
have an opportunity to see those giant birds close-up. This occurred after
we had regrouped fragments of our G eschwader in Sicily and were
bringing them back to operational status. The G eneral der Ja gdflieger
had showered us with pamphlets, all concentrating on one subject: “How
to attack close-up a formation of bombers”.
‘The finer points of the doctrine for attacking these bombers had not
yet been worked out in the air, but a few principles had nevertheless been
established. These were;
‘1. Attempt to break up the formation - single aircraft are easy to
shoot down.
‘2. If you succeed in leading your concentrated fighter force in frontal
attack, on collision course, right into the bomber formation, you will be
sure to break it up.
‘3. Maintain your fighter force in the closest formation possible and
do not open fire except at shortest range, but then “fire from all
buttonholes” as we used to say.’
Throughout the summer of 1943, the US 5th BW, based in North
Africa, used its B-17s to bomb targets in ‘softening up’ missions on Sicily,
Pantelleria, Sardinia and the Italian mainland. In preparation for
the invasion of Sicily, which took place on 10 July 1943, the 5th BW
launched a series of strikes against the port of Messina, the island’s
easternmost hub and possibly one of the most heavily defended targets in
Europe at that time. On 25 June, in their heaviest raid of the month,
120 B-17s attacked Messina with 300 tons of bombs. In a lecture delivered
in 1968, Steinhoff recalled his frustrations with the effort made by Stab,
I. and II./JG 77;

Know your enemy - under the

Mediterranean sun, Sicily-based
German fighter pilots receive open
air instruction on how to attack a
B-24 in 1943. The Liberator has
been fitted with wire 'fire cones' to
indicate the dispersal of defensive
fire, while the fighter model is a
28 Bf 109
 ‘On 25 June our radar stations reported an enemy bomber formation
approaching from the Mediterranean about halfway between Sardinia and
Sicily, heading for Naples. During the preceding days we had drilled in
the new tactics, and I had attempted to prepare our various Gruppen,
comprising about 120 aircraft, for their first encounter with the
four-engined bombers. After we had received take-off orders it was
determined that the bombers had not, as expected, attacked Naples port
but had instead bombed the ferry traffic between Messina and the Italian
mainland. At this point the bombers were already flying in the direction
of North Africa, returning to base, and it was almost impossible to make
them out on the radar screens because they had gone down to low altitude.
‘My formation was able to take off with about 100 aircraft, and it was
directed to proceed to the area between Sardinia and Sicily. As we were
approaching the area I was advised that the enemy had disappeared from
the radar screens and was probably proceeding at almost surface altitude.
Visibility was restricted due to strong haze, but just at the moment when
I decided to return to base because of fuel shortage, the armada appeared
below me.
‘The Fortresses were flying in a wide front, only a few metres from
the sea, in a formation so huge you could hardly see from one end to the
other. It seemed virtually impossible to launch a well-coordinated attack
This photograph of Leutnant Ernst
—we had never practiced attacking bombers near the surface. The result
Borngen was taken in December was terrible. There was not a single kill, and then the entire German
1941 while he was serving in North formation went into panic because the majority of the pilots had to be
Africa with 5./JG 27. Borngen left
directed back to base by radar. We were also very short of fuel.’
this theatre with 18 victories to his
credit and, from the spring of 1944, Steinhoff s recollections provide an insight into how it would often
went on to serve with distinction ‘go wrong’ for the defenders, but equally they do not seem consistent
in various command positions with with the facts. In fact, Steinhoff is recorded as scoring his 158th victory
JG 27 in the defence of the Reich.
that day, when he shot down a B-17, while I. Gruppe is believed to have
On 19 May 1944, he shot down his
16th - and last - Viermot, with accounted for two bombers and II./JG 77 for at least two more, and
dramatic results possibly as many as eight. Such is the ‘fog of war’.
As the battle for Italy intensified, so several German pilots performed
well in the theatre. For example, in May 1943 Hauptmann Ernst
Borngen, Staffelkapitan of 5./JG 27, destroyed three bombers over Sicily
—a B-25 and two Viermots (a B-17 and a B-24). Borngen had been with
JG 27 since June 1940, and he flew in operations over England, the
Balkans and Russia, before relocating to North Africa in September 1941.
He was wounded in air combat on 11 July 1942, having shot down
a Spitfire, after which he was forced to land near El Alamein.
Returning to operations, Borngen was made commander of 5./JG 27
and led that Staffel during the bitter fighting over southern Italy. On
16 July 1943 he shot down a B-24 east of Bari for his fifth Viermot,
but his Bf 109G-6 Trop was hit by defensive fire and he was once again
forced to land. Following a period of recovery, Borngen served as an
instructor with Jagdgruppe Siid, before returning to JG 27 in the spring
of 1944. He was briefly attached to the Geschwaderstab and then III.
Gruppe, with whom he flew in the Reichsverteidigung.
Appointed Staffelkapitan of 2./JG 27, Borngen scored his 34th victory
—another B-17 (his sixth) —on 23 April 1944 over Willendorf. On 13 May
he was appointed to command I./JG 27, and six days later accounted for a
pair of Liberators during a mission against 272 B-24s of the 2nd BD that
were targeting Braunschweig. Having shot down the first of his Liberators
east of Helmstedt at 1315 hrs, Borngen rammed a second bomber over the
same town five minutes later and then took to his parachute. Although
he had lost his right arm in the collision, Borngen nursed back to health in
the Luftwaffe hospital at Helmstedt. Awarded the Knight’s Cross on 27 July,
he would see no further operational flying. Borngen’s final tally of
38 victories included 16 Viermots, seven of them B-24s.
Franz Stigler had also flown with JG 27 (as Staffelkapitan of 12. Staffel,
then with 8./JG 27), and he remembered that ‘B-24s suffered from
fuel fumes in the fuselage, and that was their weak point. We found that
they were easier to shoot down because they burned’. Stigler, who flew
480 combat missions over North Africa, Sicily, Italy and in the defence
of the homeland, shot down 28 enemy aircraft flying the Bf 109.
He claimed 17 kills over North Africa, followed by five four-engined
bombers over Italy and Austria. Stigler was shot down on no fewer than
17 occasions, from which he had bailed out six times. When comparing
the Flying Fortress to the Liberator, he recalled;
‘The B-17s took a lot more punishment. It was terrifying. I saw them
in some cases with their tail fins torn in half, elevators missing, tail gun
sections literally shot to pieces, ripped away, but they still flew. We found
them a lot harder to bring down than the Liberators. The Liberators
sometimes went up in flames right in front of you.
‘Attacking bombers became a very mechanical, impersonal kind of While Gruppenkommandeur oi
warfare —one machine against another. That’s why I always tried to count II./JG 27 from late April 1943 to
3 March 1944, Major Werner Schroer
the parachutes. If you saw eight, nine or ten ’chutes come out safely, then (with his arm in a sling) was
you knew it was okay, you felt better about it. credited with the destruction of no
‘When you flew through a formation, the B-17s couldn’t miss you. fewer than 23 four-engined bombers
If they did something was wrong. I never came back from attacking during the battle over Sicily and
later in the defence of the Reich.
bombers without a hole somewhere in my aircraft.’ This photograph shows him some
By the time he left the Mediterranean in August 1943, Major Werner tim e between November 1944 and
Schroer, the G ruppenkom m andeur of II./JG 27, had claimed the February 1945, whilst employed in
a senior training capacity with the
destruction of 13 four-engined bombers - his first, a B-24, going back
Kommandeursschule des Generals
to 4 November 1942 over Libya. Schroer, like Borngen, was a JG 27 der Jagdflieger
veteran, and he too flew against the B-24s on 16 July 1943, shooting one
of them down over Bari —15 minutes after he had shot one down over
Santeramo. His first aerial victory had been over a Hurricane in the desert
while flying with 2./JG 27, but he force-landed from that encounter with
48 bullet holes in his Bf 109E. Over Africa, Schroer soon demonstrated
an impressive combat record, and was awarded the Knight’s Cross on
21 October 1942 for his 49th victory. His ferocity in attacking bombers
was demonstrated on 11 February 1943 when he downed a pair of RAF
Beauforts in four minutes over Karpathos, followed by two B-24s in one
week over Sicily in early May.
This illustrious pilot would go on to claim another 13 Viermots in the
defence of the Reich, flying as K om m andeur of II./JG 27 and III./JG 54,
before assuming command of JG 3. With a score of 26 bombers, he
would rank as the joint fifth highest-scoring four-engined ace. Schroer
ended the war with 114 victories from 197 combat missions, and he was
awarded the Swords to the Knight’s Cross on 19 April 1945.
Oberleutnant Wilhelm Kientsch served under Schroer as Staffelkapitan
of 6./JG 27 from June 1943 to January 1944. He had opened up his
 CORNERED
four-engined tally with a B-17 claimed off Trapani on 14 April 1943,
but his ‘bomber-killing’ expertise was demonstrated to the full in May
when he shot down four more Boeings in the fighting over Sicily. Kientsch
had flown with II./JG 27 since May 1941, and had claimed 16 victories
over Africa, 14 of them P-40s. He would shoot down three B-24s in four

WOLF
days between 16-19 July 1943 and, II./JG 27 having later returned to the
Reich, claimed a pair of B- 17s in one day on 6 September 1943 during
an VIII BC attack on aircraft industry targets in the Stuttgart area.
‘W illy’ Kientsch perished when his Bf 109 struck the ground near
Wiirrisch/Hunsriick, in Germany, after he had become disorientated
in cloud during an aerial engagement on 29 January 1944. Of his
53 victories, 20 were over four-engined - an unusually high number for
a total of his size. He was posthumously awarded the Oak Leaves to the
Knight’s Cross on 20 July 1944.
JG 51 numbered among its ranks Hauptmann Karl Rammelt, who
had joined the Luftwaffe as a technical officer and been transferred
to 4./JG 51 in Russia in May 1942. He scored 15 victories while in the
East, including the destruction of five Soviet aircraft in one mission on
5 July 1942. When II./JG 51 was sent to Tunisia in November of that
year, Rammelt claimed three Spitfires in 48 hours within days of arriving
in the new theatre. His first four-engined kill did not take place until
the second Schweinfurt raid on 14 October 1943, however, some
five months after he had taken command of his Gruppe, and during its
brief sojourn in the Reich - he shot down a B-17 over Frankfurt as the
USAAF formation made for the target. Rammelt’s Messerschmitt was in
turn hit by return fire from the bombers, and he was forced to bail out.
Final checks are carried out to the
It was a pyrrhic 30th victory. Bf 109G-6 of Leutnant Gunther
Once back in Italy, Rammelt shot down two B-24s south of Rovigo Seeger of 7./JG 53 at a muddy
on 28 December during Fifteenth Air Force raids on railway targets in Reggio airfield, in Italy, in October
1943. The aircraft is fitted with a
the north of the country. However, the bomber gunners took their toll,
drop tank and underwing MG 151
blanketing Rammelt’s Bf 109G-6 with defensive fire as he made a 20 mm cannon, with each gun
close-range attack over Padova. Once again the German pilot had to bail installation holding 142 rounds.
out, although this time he suffered serious wounds. Following his return Seeger, seen here in the cockpit,
would end the war w ith eight
to action, Rammelt was awarded the Knight’s Cross on 24 October 1944 four-engined victories, five scored
for his 41st victory. In an all too familiar pattern, he shot down a B-24 in the Mediterranean and three in
over Hungary on 23 December 1944, took return fire and bailed out the West
again from his Bf 109G-14. Rammelt was so gravely
wounded on this occasion that he did not return to
combat duty, the B-24 being his 46th, and last,
victory. By then he had shot down 11 Viermots, most
of them Liberators.
Another pilot to make an impact on USAAF
bombers in the Mediterranean was Oberleutnant
Gunther Seeger of JG 53. Having flown initially
with 3./JG 2 on the Channel Front in 1941—42,
where he notched up 23 victories, ‘Hupatz’ Seeger
joined 6.1JG 53 in North Africa in late 1942 and shot
down a pair of Bostons on 3 January 1943. His first
Viermot kill came on 22 March when he claimed
a B-17 over Cap Vito, by which time he had
transferred to 7. Staffel. Seeger had accounted for 31
 three more B-17s and a B-24 over Italy by October, at which point he
was sent back to Germany with malaria.
In October 1943, Seeger experienced at first hand the destruction and
tragedy of the Allied bombing offensive, when his family home
in Offenbach was destroyed in a raid. His mother was killed and his
father hospitalised. He returned to duty, and in 1944 was appointed
Staffelkapitan of 4./JG 53, after which he was awarded the Knight’s Cross
on 26 March. By war’s end Seeger’s tally stood at 56 victories, of which
eight were four-engined bombers.
In the Balkans, December 1943 saw Hauptmann Ernst Diillberg’s
III./JG 27, equipped with Bf 109s, engaged in defending the
Mediterranean, Ionian and Adriatic Seas against RAF Spitfires and
Beaufighters. In the final months of the year, however, the unit had also
been countering incursions by the US Twelfth and newly-formed
Fifteenth Air Forces. On 20 December, for example, Diillberg, who had
flown with JG 27 since the Channel campaign in 1940, shot down
two B-17s over Eleusis and Megara. His Gruppe had first clashed with
the heavy bombers of the Twelfth Air Force on 5 October, when B-24s
set out to bomb airfields in Greece, Crete and Rhodes. Diillberg had
destroyed a Liberator near Lidorikion, while Leutnant Emil Clade
and Unteroffizier Rudolf Moycis of 7./JG 27 claimed one each and
Oberfeldwebel Fritz Gromotka of 9. Staffel also accounted for one.
Altogether Diillberg registered five Viermots downed in the Balkans
Hauptmann Ernst Diillberg stands and a further five in the battles over the Reich following III. Gruppe’s
beside his Bf 109 (possibly a G-2) return to Germany in the spring of 1944, bringing his score to ten. He
marked w ith the chevrons of the
was awarded the Knight’s Cross on 27 July 1944 and was appointed
Gruppenkommandeur of III./JG 27 -
the position he held from 11 K om m odore of JG 76 in October of that year. Diillberg spent the final
October 1942 to 30 September 1944, months of the war in Hungary coodinating the operations of JG 76,
when he assumed command of II./JG 51, II./JG 52 and III./JG 53, before being assigned to conversion
JG 76. Diillberg would destroy
to the Me 262. He was credited with 45 victories.
16 Viermots while w ith JG 27,
including several double-victories Fritz Gromotka shared Diillberg’s propensity for knocking down
in one mission Liberators in late 1943, scoring a ‘double’ on 6 December over Eleusis
and Milos. He had already displayed
his skill at combating light and
medium bombers by shooting down
two Blenheims in the Balkans on
14 April 1941 and another over
Sidi Barrani, in North Africa, on
23 February 1942. A Baltimore, shot
down over the Aegean, followed on
4 December 1943. Gromotka served
in the Balkans, North Africa and
Russia, and like many of his fellow
ja gd flieger, force-landed having
run out of fuel, was posted missing
on one occasion in the East,
crash-landed in the desert and bailed
out on five occasions in his service
career. Gromotka ended the war
having been awarded the Knight’s
Cross on 29 January 1945 with
 a total of 29 kills, nine being four-engined, including one B-24 and five

CORNERED
B-17s (two HSS) over the Reich between March and May 1944.
Meanwhile, the Luftwaffe was beginning to adopt increasingly
desperate measures against the bombers in northwest Europe. On
8 November 1943, Galland informed his unit commanders;

WOLF
‘German fighters have been unable to obtain decisive successes in the
defence against American four-engine formations. Even the introduction
of new weaponry has not appreciably changed the situation. The main
reason for this is the failure of formation leaders to lead up whole
formations for attack at the closest possible range. Goring has therefore
ordered the establishment of a Sturmstajfel, whose task will be to break up
Allied formations by means of an all-out attack with more heavily-armed
fighters in close formation and at the closest range. Such attacks that
are undertaken are to be pressed home to the very heart of the Allied
formation whatever happens, and without regard to losses until the
formation is annihilated.’
This was the brainchild of Major Hans-Giinter von Kornatzki, a
long-serving officer who had studied gun camera film, combat reports,
tactics and weapons intended for close-range work against enemy bombers.
Kornatzki advocated adopting radical new tactics involving massed rear
attacks against the bomber Pulks by tight formations of heavily-armed and
armoured Fw 190s. He reasoned that during a rearward attack against
a bomber formation, a German fighter was exposed to the defensive fire
of more than forty 0.50-in machine-guns, resulting in only the slimmest
chance of escaping damage.
Under such circumstances it was unlikely that a lone fighter could
bring down a bomber. However, if a complete Gruppe could position itself
for an attack at close range, the bomber gunners would be forced to
disperse their fire, and thus weaken it, allowing individual fighters greater
opportunity to close in, avoid damage and shoot a bomber down. The
loss of speed and manoeuvrability incurred by the extra armament and
Know your enemy - by mid-1943, armour carried by these Sturm aircraft would be countered by the presence
German fighter pilots based in the of two regular fighter Gruppen, which would keep any enemy escorts
West and the Reich were never
at bay. Kornatzki also suggested that, if necessary and as a last-ditch resort,
allowed to forget their priority
target. Here, the formidable frontal in instances where pilots were close enough, and if ammunition had been
view of a B-17 has been painted in expended, a bomber could be rammed in order to bring it down. He
scale on the doors of a hangar for further proposed that a Staffel rather than a Gruppe first be established
range and gunnery purposes.
Groundcrew standing below the
to train up volunteer pilots who would evaluate the new method under
starboard wing lend scale to the operational conditions. Sturmstajfel 1 was established in October 1943
artwork and Kornatzki appointed as its commander.
'B IG WEEK' AND
BERLIN
etween November 1943 and January 1944 volunteers trickled in

B to Sturm stajfel 1’s successive bases at Achmer and Dortmund.

By the time of the unit’s first combat mission on 5 January, there
were some 30 pilots on strength, many of them from the training schools
eager for action in their unit’s heavily armed and armoured Fw 190s,
which had been specially adapted for close-quarter work against bomber
formations. Operations in January got off to an inauspicious, if not
discouraging, start when only four missions were flown throughout the
month and just four Viermots were shot down.
The pattern of American bombing throughout January was dictated
to a great extent by the prevailing overcast weather over northwest
Europe, which necessitated pathfinder-led missions against German ports
and industrial areas. The only major visual operation occurred on
11 January when the weather was expected to be fine. It was, however,
to prove fickle, but the American bomber force of 663 aircraft pushed
on in deteriorating conditions to hit several aviation and industrial targets
in the heart of the Reich (Oschersleben, Halberstadt, Braunschweig
and Osnabriick) on a mission that was to mark the commencement of
Operation Pointblank - the strategic air offensive against Germany that
was designed to bring about ‘the progressive destruction and dislocation
of the German military and economic system’.
The Luftwaffe was to put up the fiercest opposition since the last
Schweinfurt raid, although German fighters would fly only 239 sorties.
However, the day saw the first Viermot to fall to the guns of Sturmstajfel 1
when it mounted a rear attack against a ‘P ulk’ (a group or herd) of Flying
Fortresses and Oberleutnant Othmar Zehart claimed a kill.
By the end of the mission the USAAF had lost 60 bombers - almost
11 per cent of the total force - with one formation losing 19 per cent of
its strength to enemy action. I. Jagdkorps reported 21 aircraft lost and
a further 19 with more than 60 per cent damaged.
Othmar Zehart, an Austrian, was one of the few pilots believed to
have signed an oath to the effect that if a bomber could not be shot down
with ammunition he would resort to ramming. Oberleutnant Richard
Franz of Sturmstajfel 1 recalled;
‘At that time we were the only unit which attacked the Viermots from
the rear, and all the other pilots who flew in the R eichsverteidigung
thought we were a little crazy. They all preferred to attack head-on, with
the advantages and disadvantages that came with it. The Sturm staffel
pilots, on the other hand, voluntarily bound themselves to bring down
one bomber per engagement, either with their weapons or by ramming.
I never had to ram, thank God.’
Two B-24s and another B-17 would be claimed on the 30th, the latter
by one of the more experienced and senior officers of the unit, another
The pilots of Sturmstaffel 1 line up Austrian, Major Erwin Bacsila. A respected officer, he had frontline
in front of an Fw 190 at Salzwedel experience stretching back to the Polish and French campaigns.
on 29 April 1944. Seen first left is
Oberleutant Othmar Zehart and
In France Oberleutant Artur Beese, Staffelkapitan of l./JG 26, struck
third from left is Leutnant Siegfried again on the 21st when he shot down two of the five B-24s from the
Muller, then Leutnant Rudolf Metz, 44thBG credited to his Staffel over Poix during a major Eighth Air Force
Major Hans-Gunther von Kornatzki, attack against VI sites. They would be Beese’s last victories, for he was
Leutnant Werner Gerth, Feldwebel
Kurt Rohrich, Leutnant Richard
killed when he hit the tail of his Fw 190 as he bailed out following
Franz, Feldwebel Wolfgang Kosse combat with P-47s over Melun on 6 February. Of his 22 victories, six were
and Oberfeldwebel Gerhard four-engined bombers.
Marburg. Fourth from right is
Eight days later, a former member of l./JG 26, Leutnant Wilhelm
Unteroffizier Willi M axim owitz
and third from right Feldwebel
Hofmann, serving with 8./JG 26, shot down a B-17 north of Lutrebois
Oscar Boesch when the USAAF despatched 863 B-17s and B-24s to targets in the
Frankfurt area, escorted by 632 fighters. It was Hofmann’s third Viermot
kill that month. He had been with JG 26 since June 1942, and shot
down his first victim, a Spitfire, exactly four months later. Hofmann was
hospitalised for four months following a crash-landing after his Fw 190
had suffered engine failure on 9 December, but on 31 March 1943 he
journeyed to the East where, on 14 May, he downed a LaGG-3.
Returning to the West, Hofmann was given command of 8./JG 26 in
February 1944. Following the Allied invasion of June, he demonstrated
a formidable combat proficiency, claiming 11 US fighters in the month
following the landings, including six Thunderbolts. On 26 March 1945,
by which time he was wearing an eye-patch due to a gunnery accident on
the ground, it is believed Hofmann was accidentally shot down by his
wingman during an engagement with RAF Tempests near Hasseliinne.
He bailed out but his parachute failed to deploy. Hofmann recorded
44 victories and was a recipient of the Knight’s Cross. He had accounted
for six Viermots destroyed.
In February 1944, prompted by Gen ‘Hap’ Arnold’s directive the
previous month to ‘Destroy the enemy air force wherever you find them
- in the air, on the ground and in the factories’, the Eighth Air Force
launched Operation Argument, better known as ‘Big Week’. This took
the form of an intensive bombing campaign against fighter production
plants in Germany, commencing on the 20th against the factories at
Leipzig-Mockau, Halberstadt and Regensburg.
The offensive was intended to do two things - destroy German
aircraft on the ground, and the means of replacing them, and force the
Luftwaffe into the air to defend vital installations against aerial attacks.
In all, 1000 aircraft were committed to the operation, together with
fighter protection from all available fighter groups in both the Eighth
and Ninth Air Forces. It was to be the largest force ever assembled in the
history of American strategic air power. In comparison, between them,
I. and II .Jagdkorps could muster approximately 750 serviceable aircraft.
Nevertheless, this imbalance in numbers did not prevent the Luftwaffe
from showing its teeth intermittently during ‘Big Week’. The first raids
mounted against objectives in the Braunschweig and Leipzig areas saw
‘unaggressive’ and ‘remarkably weak’ reaction from the defenders, but
the later raids provoked an angry response.
At 1516 hrs on 20 February, during the opening raid of thz Argument
offensive, the newly appointed commander of III./JG 2, Hauptmann
Herbert Huppertz, shot down a B-17 northwest of Mons, in Belgium.
He would claim a B-24 two days later and two B-17s in March.
Huppertz had joined JG 2 from his command of 9./JG 5. Before that
he had been a long-serving member of III./JG 51, with whom he had
been awarded the Knight’s Cross on the occasion of his 34th victory and
in recognition of a string of aerial successes claimed on the Russian Front,
including the destruction of multiple twin-engined DB-3 bombers in
one day on three occasions. Huppertz served briefly in Norway in early
1942 as Staffelkapitan of 12./JG 1, and claimed a Spitfire shot down
during Operation D onnerkeil (the famous ‘Channel Dash’).
He was credited with his first V ierm ot- a B-17 —on 4 July 1943, but
it would be four months until his second such kill. In December 1943,
while with 1 l./JG 2, all four of his victories were American heavy
bombers, including two B-17s in one day on the 30th during a raid on
Ludwigshafen and a B-24 shot down on the last day of the year. In 1944,
Huppertz would go on to claim another eight four-engined bombers
destroyed. On the first day of the Allied landings in France - 6 June 1944
- he recorded a remarkable five victories over Allied fighters between
midday and 2100 hrs, but two days later his Fw 190 was shot down and
he was killed during an action with American fighters near Caen. Herbert
Huppertz was posthumously awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s
Cross and promoted to major. He had 78 victories to his name, 17 of
them four-engined bombers.
On 22 February, in the first successful coordinated attack,
1396 bombers from the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces, with 965 escort
fighters, attacked targets across Germany simultaneously. The operations
of the three bomb divisions from the Eighth, however, all of which were
attacking airfield targets, were hampered badly by cloud during assembly
over England as well as around many of the primary targets. The entire
3rd BD of 333 B-17s was recalled, having travelled 100 miles into enemy
airspace, while 100 B-24s of the 2nd BD turned around as well. In all,
 'BIG
544 of the 799 bombers were recalled or forced to abort. According to the
Eighth Air Force’s post-mission narrative;

WEEK'
‘ 1st BD formations became quite badly scattered, making it
impossible for fighters to cover all boxes adequately. Leaving Germany
far north of their brief route, these wings were severely attacked by

AND
as many as 80 enemy aircraft in the vicinity of Munster and for 50 miles
northwest to the Dutch border. The majority of opposing fighters were

BERLIN
Fw 190s and Me 109s maintaining ceaseless attacks, coming in at B-17
formations from the nose abreast and following each other through
formations again and again.’
Waiting for the bombers as they crossed the Dutch-German border
shortly before 1300 hrs was II./JG 26. Leading the Fw 190s of 5. Staffel
was veteran ja gd flieger Oberfeldwebel Adolf Glunz, who had shot down
a B-17 just 24 hours earlier over Holland. This day, however, would
mark a rare personal accomplishment for Glunz. The bomber stream had
Oberfeldwebel Adolf Glunz, already been attacked by I./JG 26 and II./JG 1 over the coastal area,
Staffelkapitan of 5./JG 26 and one of leaving the escort scattered and much of the formation vulnerable.
the most successful German fighter
At 1250 hrs II. Gruppe struck, with Glunz shooting down a B-17,
pilots in the West, hoists himself
from the cockpit of his Fw 190A-7
probably from the 91st or 384th BGs, which went down west of Dorsten.
at Cambrai-Epinoy on 22 February The Focke-Wulfs made repeated passes and Glunz claimed an HSS
1944. Glunz had just led 5. Staffel five minutes later, followed by another northeast of Wesel at 1310 hrs,
against an American bomber raid on
this being his 56th victory of the war.
factories in central Germany. During
his unit's attack, he shot down three During the afternoon, as the bombers made for home, Glunz was
B-17s and claimed Herrausschiisse in the air again from his Dutch base, harrying them with his Gruppe. He
against tw o others, as well as downed a P-47 escort at 1530 hrs and two more B-17s ten minutes later.
downing a P-47 - this proved to be
Glunz had therefore claimed five Flying Fortresses on this day.
his most successful day as a fighter
pilot. Glunz would end the war with He had commenced his Luftwaffe career with 4./JG 52 on the
19 four-engined kills to his name Channel Front in 1941 and then moved with the Staffel to Russia, from
where he returned with three aerial victories and credit for the destruction
of two enemy tanks. Glunz joined 4./JG 26 in early July 1941, and from
27 August of that year to 14 March 1943, his 23 victories were all
Spitfires. He received the Knight’s Cross on 29 August 1943 - the only
NCO in JG 26 to wear the decoration. Glunz was appointed
Staffelkapitan of 5./JG 26 on 15 January 1944 and ended the war with
71 victories to his name, 19 of them Viermots. He was never shot down
or wounded in combat, and from March 1945 he flew the Me 262.
Also successful that day was Oberst Walter Oesau, now commanding
JG 1, when he shot down a B-17 during the bombers’ approach and another
on their exit for his 120th and 121st victories. By the end of February Oesau
had claimed six heavy bombers during the course of the month. However,
he would be shot down and killed by P-38s on 11 May 1944 as he mounted
an attack with his Stabsschwarm against Viermots bombing marshalling yards
in France, Belgium and Luxembourg. His Bf 109 crashed in countryside
a few kilometres from St Vith and his body was found close by. Of Oesau’s
final score of 127 kills, 14 were Viermots.
Following its mission to Gotha on 24 February, the 2nd BD reported
its B-24 Liberators as ‘being attacked almost the entire period over
Germany’. It seemed that the Jagdwaffe fighters had gained a new
confidence, the Fw 190s of JG 1 and JG 26 ‘pressing home vicious nose
attacks’, whilst elsewhere ‘some groups were forced far off course, and
these formations, and especially stragglers, were attacked unceasingly’. 37
 That day, the 2nd BD alone lost 33 four-engined
THREE

bombers, two falling to Feldwebel Franz Steiner

of 2./JG 11.
Described as ‘a passionate flier’, Steiner had flown
C HA P T E R

with JG 27 from the summer of 1940, serving in the

Balkans and North Africa. Posted back to Europe in
early 1942, he joined 8./JG 1 and was almost
immediately moved to Trondheim, in Norway, as
part of Kom m ando ‘Losigkeit’, a special unit formed
from pilots of JG 1 intended to offer air protection
to vessels of the Kriegsmarine seeking shelter on the
Norwegian coast and in the fjords following the
‘Channel Dash’ out of France. Steiner continued his
duties with JG 1 until the summer of 1944, when
he spent a brief spell as a fighter instructor with
an Erganzungsgruppe in Markisch-Friedland, before
joining 2./JG 11 to fly Fw 190s over the homeland.
He subsequently claimed seven B-17s, three B-24s,
a P-38 and a B-26 shot down.
The Fifteenth Air Force ‘twisted the knife’ into the
German defences on 24 February, however, when it
launched a simultaneous raid on aircraft components
factories at Steyr, in Austria. Mortar-equipped
fighters from JG 3, JG 27 and ZG 1 attacked B-17s of
the 2nd BG, shooting down a ‘box’ of ten bombers.
III./JG 3 did particularly well, claiming six bombers
and three HSS.
This photograph of Feldwebel Franz As to the effects o f‘Big Week’, on 23 February, during a conference
Steiner was taken during his tim e
on aircraft production in Berlin, Generalfeldmarschall Erhard Milch
with l./JG 11 in 1944, the pilot
performing Reich defence duties
confessed;
over Germany. Steiner was an ‘The effect on our day fighter production has been very severe and
accomplished fighter pilot who was we are faced with great difficulties. If you go into a fighter plant —I have
credited w ith the destruction of nine
seen Erla-Leipzig and Oschersleben - there is nothing to be seen but bent
four-engined bombers. In early 1945
he was selected by Adolf Galland to wires, like a bombed block of flats here in Berlin. Outside there are bomb
join JV 44, w ith whom he flew the craters eight to nine metres deep and 14-16 metres across. But the
Me 262 struggle is not hopeless, it can be managed. We should reach a monthly
output of 2000 fighters by the end of February.’
I. Jagdkorps generated 2861 sorties in February, and losses in its
operational area at month-end stood at 299 aircraft, or 10.3 per cent of
the total number of aircraft committed. The death toll for February was
devastating, and included yet more valued experten. Oberstleutnant Egon
Mayer, K om m odore of JG 2 and the architect of the classic head-on
attack, fell prey to American fighters. His loss was especially hard to bear,
since he had become one of the highest scorers against the bombers,
with 25 Viermots to his credit.
Following the attacks on the aircraft manufacturing centres, the
Americans next concentrated their efforts on Berlin. The ‘hub’ of
Germany’s war effort, the city was both home to the headquarters of the
armed services and a major rail centre. The first strike was mounted on
4 March when 500 ‘heavies’, escorted by 770 fighters, headed for the
capital. The concept behind the ‘Big-B’ missions was not solely to bomb
 'BIG
WEEK'
AND
BERLIN
Bf 109Gs of Major W alther Dahl's major industrial targets, nor even to dent civilian morale, but rather to
III./JG 3 undergo engine coax the Jagdwaffe into the air in order to inflict further losses. The
maintenance at Leipheim in March
Eighth Air Force’s trump card was the dreaded Merlin-engined P-51.
1944. The aircraft in the foreground
is 'Black 9', and it features a typical Equipped with underwing drop tanks, the Mustang could now escort
spinner spiral and the white bombers all the way to their targets deep in the heartland of Germany.
fuselage band of the Geschwader, Despite this new, but not unexpected, menace, German response to
as well as the black vertical bar of
III. Gruppe
this first, crucial raid was light, and the American losses incurred were
more as a result of poor conditions rather than the sporadic reaction by
Luftwaffe fighters. Luckily for the city, adverse weather prevented all but
30 aircraft from reaching their primary target, inflicting little damage.
Of this force, five aircraft were shot down.
Two days later, however, the story was different. On 6 March, the
Americans despatched 730 bombers, with an escort of796 fighters, from
the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces to bomb the capital. The Luftwaffe
had been expecting the raid and had prepared itself by practising the
assembly of large formations of fighters —so-called G efechtsverbande —
several days before in an attempt to meet mass with mass. So it was that
on this day no fewer than 19 Jagdgruppen, three Zerstor er gruppen and
four Nachtjagdgruppen, together with a handful of miscellaneous units,
were available to take on the Viermots. Bitter fighting waged from the
moment the bomber streams crossed the Dutch coast, and it lasted all
the way to Berlin and back.
For the seven Fw 190s of Sturm staffel 1 operating as part of a
G efechtsverband made up of I., II. and IV./JG 3, JG 302, the J asta ‘Erla’
works defence flight and some Zerstor er gruppen, it was to be the most
successful day since the unit’s formation.
Moving in to attack a formation of 112 B-17s of the 1st and 94th
CWs of the 1st BD, the Staffel closed in on bombers of the 91st BG from
the rear just after 1230 hrs. In the space of one minute Unteroffizier Kurt
Rohrich scored his third victory, while Unteroffizier Willi Maximowitz
claimed an HSS and Leutnant Gerhard Dost downed his first bomber. 39
Three minutes later, Feldwebel Hermann Wahlfeld, who had shot down
two bombers 48 hours earlier, added to his personal score and recorded
his third victory. Oberleutnant Othmar Zehart followed at 1255 hrs
when he scored his second victory. One Fw 190 collided with a B-17G.
In all, by the time the G efechtsverband broke off its attack, having
expended both fuel and ammunition, eight B-17s had been shot down
and three more destroyed in collisions. Four P-51 escorts also went down
in the Berlin area.
Elsewhere, Channel and Eastern Fronts veteran Leutnant Eugen-
Ludwig Zweigart of 7./JG 54 managed to send down three B-17s in
engagements during the morning and afternoon. Except for a spell as an
instructor in early 1943, Zweigart flew for his entire service career with
III./JG 54, and had been awarded the Knight’s Cross on 22 January 1943
on the occasion of his 54th victory. Most of his success had been in Russia
where, in 1942, he regularly scored multiple kills in one day. Returning
with his Staffel to the Reich in May 1943, Zweigart went on to down
14 aircraft, only three of which were not Viermots. However, his Fw 190
was shot at by Allied fighters over Normandy on 8 June 1944 and he was
forced to bail out. He was then apparently shot and killed while descending
in his parachute. Zweigart is credited with 69 victories.
Flying into the very centre of the US combat ‘boxes’ on 6 March,
Leutnant Karl Willius, Kapitan of 2./JG 26, claimed a B-17 north of
Koblenz during the afternoon as the bombers returned to England.
‘Charly’ Willius had claimed a Spitfire over England for his first victory
while flying with 8./JG 51, with whom he remained until July 1941,
having scored seven victories while on his first tour of duty in Russia.
In a portent of things to come, all these victories were bombers. As an
unteroffizier, Willius was assigned to 3./JG 26, and between 8 December
1941 and 12 December 1942 he shot down 11 Spitfires. Awarded the
German Cross in Gold on 15 October 1942, he returned to Russia with
his Staffel and claimed four victories in one day on 13 May 1943.
W illius’ subsequent service in the West with 2./JG 26 saw him
credited with the destruction of 11 Viermots. On 8 April 1944 he made
a head-on attack in his Fw 190A-8 against B-24s of the 2nd BD sent to
attack aero industry and airfield targets in central Germany, Willius
downing one in flames. As the stricken Liberator fell away from its
formation, the German ace flew past the bomber and started to climb
back into the sun to regroup with his Staffel. As he did so, however, he
was bounced by P-47s, shot down and killed. Willius’ fighter was seen to
spin into the ground and explode. By the time of his death he had exactly
50 kills to his name, and was awarded the Knight’s Cross posthumously.
However, for the Germans, the price of their ‘success’ on 6 March
was high —87 single- or twin-engined fighters were lost or damaged.
Thirty-six pilots were killed and another 27 wounded.
On the American side, 53 B-17s and 16 B-24s failed to return,
293 B-17s and 54 B-24s were damaged and five B-17s and one B-24
were written off. Seventeen crew were killed, 31 wounded and 686 were
listed as missing. It was the highest loss rate for a mission to date. And yet,
there was to be no let-up. On 8 March, 320 B-17s and 150 B-24s
attacked the VKF ball-bearing plant at Erkner. In addition, targets of
opportunity were bombed in the German capital. As an indication of the
 dramatic odds now facing the Luftwaffe defence, a record 891 USAAF
fighters provided escort.
JG 26 was again in action shortly after midday as part of a
G efechtsverband with JG 1 and JG 11. The German fighters performed
an in-trail attack against the B-17s of the 45th CW over the Steinhuder
Meer, west of Hannover. Oberleutnant Walter Matoni was leading
the Fw 190s of 5./JG 26 into battle, and he shot down a Boeing bomber
over the Mittelandkanal at 1330 hrs, followed by a second ten minutes
later near Nienburg for his 15th and 16th victories. The USAAF
later recorded;
‘3rd BD reported enemy aircraft, mostly single-engined. On the route
to Berlin, enemy aircraft were first encountered by this division near
Nienburg, and they remained with the formation to the target area.
Attacks were directed againt lead CW, the 45th, which lost 17 aircraft.’
Matoni’s first victory had been a Hurricane over southern England
on 30 September 1940 while flying with 9./JG 27, but as a result of
severe wounds, he had spent time in 1942—43 as an instructor with
Jagdgruppe West. However, he was no stranger to tackling bombers.
Matoni had claimed his first Viermot during the final stages of the
Schweinfurt raid on 27 August 1943 with 6./JG 26. Of the 11 victories
he scored between 30 December 1943 and 13 April 1944, just one was
Major Walter Matoni accounted for a Spitfire. The rest were Viermots —six B-17s (3 HSS) and four B-24s
14 Viermots shot down during a (2 HSS). Walter Matoni survived the war with the rank of major. He
career that saw him fly more than
was credited with 34 victories in total and was awarded the Knight’s
400 operational missions. He is seen
here during the final months of the Cross on 2 January 1945.
war, having received the Knight's At the same time Matoni claimed his first B-17 on 8 March, further
Cross for around 30 victories. to the east, not far from Leitzkau, Knight’s Cross-holder Oberleutnant
Matoni was commanding II./JG 2
Karl-Heinz Bendert was manouevring his Bf 109 of 5./JG 27 for an
at this time
attack on Flying Fortresses heading for Erkner. At 1335 hrs his first
victim crashed, followed by a second Boeing west of Coburg 35 minutes
later. He would claim a B-24 (HSS) a month later on 8 April, taking his
final tally of four-engined bombers to ten. Overall, Bendert would claim
55 victories on all fronts, including several multiple P-40, Spitfire and
Hurricane kills scored in one day in North Africa between June and
August 1942. He also survived the war.
But one of the most prolific bomber-slayers of them all would enter
the arena later in the afternoon. Hauptmann Rolf-Giinther Hermichen,
G ruppenkommandeur of I./JG 11, led his Fw 190s into a tough
engagement with an outward bomber stream at around 1520 hrs north
of Hannover. Within 20 minutes, beginning at 1526 hrs, two B-17s and
two B-24s had fallen to the guns of Hermichen, the Flying Fortresses
north of Grossburgwedel and the Liberators in the Celle area.
Hermichen had shot down his first enemy aircraft on 10 May 1940
with 6./ZG 1 during the French campaign, and with 9./ZG 76 he took
part in the Battle of Britain. On 25 April 1941 9./ZG 76 was
redesignated 6./SKG 210 and he was a participant in Operation
Barbarossa, flying fighter-bomber missions. Hermichen then joined
III./JG 26 in November 1941, and in March 1942 was made adjutant to
the Gruppenkommandeur of III./JG 26, Hauptmann Priller.
After moving to the Eastern Front in January 1943, Hermichen
added eight Soviet fighters to his tally. He was appointed temporary
 G ruppenkommandeur of III./JG 26
THREE

on 15 June 1943, but relinquished

command to Klaus Mietusch on
4 July 1943 and returned to
C HA P T E R

3./JG 26 as Staffelkapitan. On
16 October 1943, Hermichen was
appointed Gruppenkommandeur of
I./JG 11, based at Husum. He led
this unit successfully until April
1944, after which he took over
command of the fighter training
unit, II./JG 104.
Hermichen was a true ‘bomber-
killer’, for in addition to his 8 March
achievement, he shot down two B-24s in one day on 1 December 1943, In late October 1943 Rolf-Giinther
Hermichen, seen here (left) being
four B-24s on 20 February 1944 and three B-17s during the raid on Berlin
interviewed for a propaganda radio
on 6 March. His final tally of Viermots stood at 26. Hermichen was broadcast, was appointed
awarded the Knight’s Cross on 26 March 1944, followed by the Oak Gruppenkommandeur of l./JG 11 at
Leaves on 19 February 1945. He survived the war with 64 victories. Husum. He led this unit successfully
until April 1944, after which he took
Hermichen’s fellow Gruppenkommandeur in JG 11 was Hauptmann
over command of the fighter
Anton Hackl, commander of III. Gruppe. Ten days after the American training unit II./JG 104. Hermichen
raid on Erkner, the Eighth Air Force mounted an attack with 678 was a true 'bomber-killer', and his
bombers in clear weather against aircraft industry targets and airfields in tally of Viermots eventually stood at
26. He was awarded the Oak Leaves
the south of Germany. III./JG 11 was one of 20 fighter Gruppen
to the Knight's Cross on 19 February
deployed to counter the incursion, and it had transferred from the north 1945 and survived the war
to Wiesbaden-Erbenheim by early afternoon so as to catch the bombers
as they approached their targets. With Hackl leading, the Fw 190s of
III./JG 11 made an Alarmstart at 1415 hrs and, accompanied by
I. Gruppe, they intercepted the B-24s of the 14th CW south of Freiburg.
The wing was already on the first stage of its return flight, having bombed
Friedrichshafen. The Liberators were flying without escort.
Carnage followed. At 1515 hrs, making a rear attack, Hackl shot
down a B-24 northeast of Freiburg, and within ten minutes another two
had fallen to his guns in the same area for his 137th to 139th victories.
Hackl was not alone, however, for 16 pilots from JG 11 made claims
against the Liberators during a 15-minute period, including a pair in two
minutes to Oberfeldwebel Laskowski of 8. Staffel. Many other bombers
were damaged in the Focke-Wulfs’ attack.
Anton Hackl wore the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s Cross, and by
8 March, with 136 victories to his credit (including ten Viermots), was one
of the Luftwaffe’s principal tacticians and a leading ‘bomber-killer’. Most
of his combat career had been spent with 5./JG 77, and he had scored his
first victory with that unit over a Hudson in Norway on 15 June 1940.
Moving to Russia, between the opening of Barbarossa and 14 January
1943, Hackl accounted for the destruction of 119 aircraft, with many daily
multiple claims. He was appointed Staffelkapitan of his unit on 23 January
1942 and was awarded the Knight’s Cross in recognition of his 51st victory
on 25 May 1942, with the Oak Leaves following in August. In July of
that year alone Hackl downed no fewer than 37 enemy aircraft.
After a brief spell in North Africa, where he was wounded in action,
42 he was posted to Stab III./JG 11 in the defence of the Reich, and weeks
 'BIG
later he was given command of the Gruppe. Hackl led III./JG 11 until
July 1944, and for the rest of the war he held various command positions,

WEEK'
including acting Kom m odore of JG 11, Kommodore of JG 76, commander
of II./JG 26 and acting K om m odore of JG 300. Hackl flew more than
1000 combat missions, was awarded the Swords to the Knight’s Cross

AND
and was credited with 192 enemy aircraft destroyed, including no fewer
than 34 four-engined bombers, making him the second highest-scoring

BERLIN
Viermot ace after Georg-Peter Eder.
The 23 March saw Sturmstaffel 1 return to the fray with a vengeance
when a total of 707 B-17s and B-24s headed for the cities of
Braunschweig and Munster and the airfields at Achmer (Sturmstaffel l ’s
original base) and Handorf - all secondary targets and targets of
opportunity due to bad weather. The Sturmstaffel led by von Kornatzki,
together with aircraft from IV./JG 3, took off from Salzwedel and set
Major Anton Hackl, Kommodore of
course for Magdeburg, where it assembled at 1015 hrs with more aircraft
JG 76 (right), assists in rolling out
his Fw 190 during the summer of
from II./JG 3. Once split up into composite battle groups, this force
1944. In addition to his leadership headed west towards Munster.
of JG 76, Hackl was an acting At 1100 hrs contact was made with the 296 B-17s of the 1st BD,
Kommodore of JG 11, Kommandeur
which were flying due west after bombing their target at Munster.
of II./JG 26 and acting Kommodore
of JG 300. He was a recipient of the Although the Flying Fortresses appeared to be well covered by a heavy
Swords to the Knight's Cross, escort of P-51s, the German formation overflew the bomber Pulk from
and was credited with 192 enemy the left, wheeled ahead and at 1120 hrs, from north of Hamm, launched
aircraft destroyed, including
a massed frontal attack. Within the space of ten minutes Sturmstaffel 1
34 Viermots, ranking him as the
second highest-scoring bomber- accounted for six B-17s shot down or forced out of formation.
killer after Georg-Peter Eder Kornatzki claimed an HSS (his fifth victory), as did Berliner Flieger
Wolfgang Kosse. An experienced
fighter pilot, Kosse had suffered the
ignobility of being demoted from
oberleutnant in the summer of
1943 to the lowest rank. He had
been relieved of his command of
1 ./JG 5 in Norway as a result of
making an unauthorised flight and
damaging an aircraft in the process.
Kosse had claimed 11 victories with
II./JG 26, the first on 17 May 1940,
and later became Staffelkapitan of
5./JG 26 on the Channel Front. He
was subsequently appointed as the
Staffelkapitan of 1./JG 5. Perhaps as
a means of regaining his reputation
and rank, Kosse volunteered for the
Sturm staffel, where he claimed six
Viermot kills. Eventually regaining
his rank, he was given command of
13.(Sturm)/JG 3 in October 1944,
but was posted missing on 24
December 1944. Kosse was credited
with at least 28 kills (the last two on
the day of his death), of which six
were known to have been Viermots.
 Also scoring against the bombers
THREE

on the 23rd was Unteroffizier

Gerhard Vivroux when he downed
CHA P T E R

a B-17 between Hamm and

Dortmund at 1115 hrs. Vivroux
was one of the original cadre of
the Sturm stajfel joining the unit
in November 1943. Assigned to
IV./JG 3 in mid-1944, he made a
claim with the unit on 12 May 1944
but his Focke-Wulf was hit in the
engagement and he was forced to
bail out and was seriously wounded.
Back at the front by August 1944,
his tally reached 11 kills, all but one
of which were four-engined. Vivroux died of wounds on 25 October Wolfgang Kosse (second from right)
1944, these having been inflicted by defensive fire from a bomber on of Sturmstaffel 1 describes his
shooting-down of a B-17 north of
6 October 1944 whilst he was serving with 14./JG 3. Hamm on 23 March 1944 to one of
The attrition meted out in March forced the Eighth Air Force to write the Sturm staffel1s senior officers,
off 349 bombers over a period of 23 operationally active days, 13 of Major Erwin Bacsila (right). To the
which involved all-out effort. ‘The total number of bombers hit by or left of Kosse is Unteroffizier Kurt
Rohrich, who also claimed a B-17
lost to enemy fighters on deep penetrations under visual conditions during the mission. Listening to
remains at high levels’, the HQ of the Eighth Air Force warned, ‘With Kosse third from left is Leutnant
increased firepower and attacks pressed to close range, the enemy has Rudolf Metz
made his attacks at least twice as effective in loss and damage per attack’.
Yet, for the Luftwaffe, the months of February and March 1944
marked a grim chapter in its history. Pilot losses had been crippling, and
were no longer confined to the younger and less experienced, hurriedly
trained replacements. The dilemma was now the increasing loss of
valuable, experienced and virtually irreplaceable unit leaders. As an
example, in the four days from 15-18 March 1944, III./JG 3 flew four
missions stretching from Holland to Augsburg and lost five pilots, with six
more wounded and another seven forced to either make emergency
landings or bail out. Its losses included 108-victory Knight’s Cross-holder
Hauptmann Emil Bitsch, Stajfelkapitan of 8. Staffel.

Unteroffizier Gerhard Vivroux and

Feldwebel Hermann Wahlfeld pose
for the camera in front of an
Fw 190A-7 at Salzwedel in early
1944. All but one of Vivroux's
11 victories were four-engined
bombers. The Focke-Wulf has been
fitted with armoured glass panels to
the cockpit for defence during close-
44 range attacks on bomber formations
BLOODY APRIL

BLOODY
APRIL
hroughout April 1944, the American bomber offensive ground

T on, targeting aircraft production plants in central and southern

Germany, while Eighth Air Force fighters and tactical fighters
of the Ninth Air Force started strafing airfields. No airspace was safe.
Typical of the units committed to the frontline defence against
the USAAF bombers at the beginning of April was II./JG 1 under the
command of Major Heinz Bar at Stormede, 11 km southeast of Lippstadt.
The Gruppe had been formed in January 1942 and had fought its war
exclusvely in the defence of Holland and the northwestern approaches
to the Reich. Initially equipped with Bf 109s, it had converted to the
Fw 190 in mid-1942. Heinz Bar had assumed command upon the death
of his predecessor, Hauptmann Hermann Segatz, who had been killed
in action during the raid on Berlin on 6 March.
The Gruppe had moved its 45 Fw 190s and a single Bf 109 to
Stormede from Rheine during the first week of April.
Heinz Bar was one of the Jagdwaffe’s most experienced and
accomplished pilots. His service career stretched back to 1939, when he
scored his first kill in the west. Concluding the Battle of Britain with
17 confirmed victories, he subsequently flew in Russia with JG 51, and
within two months had accumulated 60 kills. The award of the Knight’s Major Heinz Bar was one of the
Cross came in July 1941, followed by the Oak Leaves in August. Leaving Luftwaffe's most accomplished
jagdflieger and unit commanders
Russia in 1942, Bar was given command of l./JG 77, with whom he by war's end, having achieved
flew over the Mediterranean, claiming another 45 victories (and gaining around 220 aerial victories. His
the Swords to the Knight’s Cross) despite contracting a punishing bout bluntness brought him into conflict
w ith Goring who, later in the war,
of malaria and being stricken by gastric ulcers. Some sources also state
quietly transferred him away from
that his fighting spirit took a dent. frontline command and assigned
In the summer of 1943, after a difficult relationship with Johannes him to lead the Me 262 training
Steinhoff, the Geschwaderkommodore of JG 77, Bar was transferred to and conversion Gruppe, lll./EJG 2

France for apparent ‘cowardice before the enemy’, where he took command A pair of Fw 190As of 6 ./JG 1 in
of operational training unit Jagdgruppe Siid. One airman commented of their crude earth revetments at
Bar, ‘Actually, from what one has heard about Bar, he was a “tough” who Stormede in April 1944. The aircraft
in the foreground bears the winged
was avoided as much as possible by the officer corps’. ‘V emblem of Jagdgeschwader 1
Ill and exhausted by endless combat, Bar returned to Germany for and the red fuselage identification
a period of convalescence, before embarking on a long, hard stint as one bands of the Geschwader

45
 of the foremost operational commanders in the defence of the Reich.
FOUR

However, once home, his plain speaking on tactical policies did

not enamour him to Goring, who saw fit to ‘demote’ him. Thus, his
C HA P T E R

first posting in Germany was as a ‘mere’ Staffelkapitan. Tenacity and

an undeniable combat record, however, meant that it was not long before
Bar was once again entrusted with more senior command and appointed
K om m andeur of II./JG 1. Bar’s Staffelkapitane were all experienced men.
leading 4. Staffel was Oberleutnant Eberhard Burath, while 5./JG 1 was
commanded by Oberleutnant Rudiger Kirchmayr and 6. Staffel led by
Oberleutnant Georg-Peter Eder (see Chapter One).
On 8 April fog prevented a large part of the 1st BD from taking off
to attack its assigned airfield target at Oldenburg. The 3rd BD
despatched 255 B-17s to airfields across northwest Germany and the
Liberators of the 2nd BD headed for aircraft plants at Braunschweig, as
well as Langenhagen airfield and other targets. The whole force was
protected by 780 fighters. At 1250 hrs, II./JG 1 was given the Alarmstart
order and 36 Fw 190s scrambled from Stormede to rendezvous with
I. and III. Gruppen. Ordered towards Brocken, shortly after 1330 hrs the
Gruppe sighted a formation of approximately 300 B-17s and B-24s with
around 30-40 escorts on its inbound course between Braunschweig and
Magdgeburg. Twenty minutes later, II./JG 1 made a mass attack on a
formation of some 50 Liberators of the 2nd BD from ahead and below.
Heinz Bar scored first, knocking a B-24 down at 1350 hrs for his 198th
victory, while Georg-Peter Eder claimed his 34th victory a minute later
when he targeted one of two bombers flying to the outer right-hand side
Major Heinz Bar, the of the Pulk. He observed hits in the fuselage and starboard wing and the
Gruppenkommandeur of II./JG 1, Liberator burst into flames, falling away from its formation and crashing
addresses his pilots at Rheine in southwest of Salzwedel. Flying alongside Eder at 7000 metres in 6. Staffel
March 1944. Pilots who claimed
was Feldwebel Wolfgang Brunner in Fw 190A-7 ‘Yellow 6’. At 1352 hrs
Viermot victories in April 1944
included Rudiger Kirchmayr (far left), he also selected a bomber to the right of the formation and opened fire
Eberhard Burath (second from left), with two bursts of his MG 151 20 mm cannon at 600 metres, closing to
Otto Bach (front row, eighth from 200 metres. ‘On the second burst’, wrote Brunner, ‘the Liberator began
left), Leo Schuhmacher (front row,
ninth from left) and Kurt
to burn in the rear half of the fuselage and the wing broke away. The
Niedereichholz (front row, burning fuselage plunged perpendicularly to the ground’. Brunner’s victim
tenth from left) also came down southwest of Salzwedel. It was his second victory.
In the space of just two minutes,
II./JG 1 shot down nine B-24s. A
tenth claim, by Unteroffizier Zinkl
of 6. Staffel, was unconfirmed.
Altogther, the 2nd BD lost 30
Liberators to enemy action that day.
Twenty-four hours later, the
USAAF targeted aircraft plants and
airfields in northeast Germany.
More than 400 Viermots were
effective over the range of targets,
escorted by 719 fighters. Eleven
fighter Gruppen were sent to
intercept them, with II./JG 1 in
operation as part of a larger
46 G efechtsverband during the
 BLOODY
morning. Oberleutnant Eder
claimed a B-24 (his 35th victory),
followed by a P-47, and Feldwebel
Heinz Kahl of 6. Staffel also

APRIL
accounted for a B-17 and a B-24
for his sixth and seventh victories.
However, Zinkl, victor in the
previous day’s operation, was shot
down but bailed out, as did Flieger
Georg Blech of 5./JG 1. The
Gruppe lost Leutnant Meinhard
Quack of 4. Staffel when he was hit by defensive fire from the bombers Major Heinz Bar visits the wreckage
of B-17F MISS OUACHITA of the
and crashed into the Ostsee, while a wounded Unteroffizier Willi Sievers
91st BG, which he shot down on
crash-landed at Rheine. 21 February 1944. He is accompanied
Following the action of the morning, Oberfeldwebel Leo by his tw o usual wingmen,
Schuhmacher of Stab 11./JG 1 and Feldwebel Kurt Niedereichholz of Oberfeldwebel Leo Schuhmacher
and Feldwebel Max Sauer (killed
5. Staffel both landed at Rothenburg, along with aircraft of I./JG 11.
on 29 March 1944). Bar insisted on
Here, their Fw 190s were rearmed and fitted with drop tanks. At the fact that his wingmen were
1450 hrs these two pilots, with Schuhmacher leading the JG 1 Rotte in sufficiently experienced to be able
his Fw 190A-7 ‘Red 22’, took off on znAlarmstartWixh six aircraft from to lead the Gruppe themselves in
case of his absence
I./JG 11 and headed north for Schleswig-Holstein, where they were
vectored to intercept returning bombers of the 1st and 3rd BDs.
Spotting ‘50-60 B-17Fs’ north of Schleswig, the JG 1 pilots lined up
to attack the Flying Fortresses to the right of the formation head-on,
following in the wake of JG 11. In his Fw 190A-7 ‘Black 12’,
Niedereichholz, who had been suffering from a failed R/T, closed in from
500 metres to the ‘closest possible range’ and opened fire on a bomber
with all guns. He scored hits in the cockpit area, a part of which flew away,
after which the aircraft went into a steep spiral to the left. At 3500 metres
the tail unit and horizontal stabilisers broke away, and Niedereichholz
observed three parachutes exit before the burning B-17 smashed into the Wearing a prized American flying
ground north of Schleswig. It was his 16th victory. jacket, Oberfeldwebel Leo
As the Focke-Wulfs flew through the enemy formation Schuhmacher Schuhmacher (left) of Stab II./JG 1
joins his commanding officer, Heinz
attempted to jettison his drop tank in order to be able to manouevre
Bar (centre), and Feldwebel Max
effectively against the P-47 escorts, but it would not fully disconnect and Sauer in examining the top turret
he had to escape down and away from the formation. As he did so he of B-17F MISS OUACHITA
saw fragments of Niedereichholz’s
victim fall around him.
On the 11th the Americans
launched an all-out assault against
centres of aircraft production in
eastern Germany. A record-breaking
force of 917 B-17s and B-24s was
assembled to strike at the Focke-Wulf
plants at Poznan and Sorau, the
Junkers plants at Bernburg and
Halberstadt, aero-engine works at
Stettin and Cottbus and various
assembly plants at Oschersleben. This
enormous armada was protected
by more than 800 fighters drawn 47
from 13 groups from the Eighth Air Force and four from the Ninth Air
Force’s 3rd Division, although with bombers stretched over such a wide
range of deep penetration targets, even this escort was barely adequate,
especially in poor weather conditions.
In response, I .Jagdkorps sent up 432 single- and twin-engined fighters
drawn from 1., 2. and 3. Jagddivision. Twenty-four Fw 190s of II./JG 1
had been waiting at Sitzbereitschajt - cockpit readiness - for eight minutes
at Stormede when, at 0958 hrs, Alarmstartvras ordered. The Gruppe flew
over Lippspringe to assemble with I. and III./JG 1 over Paderborn,
after which the Geschwader was to link up with elements of JG 27, but this
did not happen. Led by Bar in his Fw 190A-7 ‘Red 23’, the Gruppe then
passed from 3. to 2. J agddivision and was directed towards a stream of
200+ B-17s and B-24s heading on a northeasterly course. Upon visual
contact with the enemy formation north of Braunschweig, II./JG 1 swung
to the left and formed up to make a mass head-on attack against a Pulk
of approximately 15-18 Flying Fortresses.
At 1059 hrs, approaching Fallersleben, and at an altitude of6000 metres,
Bar selected the lowest squadron to the left of the Pulk and closed in ahead
and slightly below from 400 to 50 metres, opening fire with both MG 151s
and MG 131s. His targeted Boeing took hits in the cabin area and fuselage
and immediately veered over to port, entering into a sharp spin. The
presence of escort fighters prevented Bar from observing the bomber hit
the ground, but it would be his 199th victory.
Flying with Bar as his wingman in ‘Red 22’, Leo Schuhmacher aimed
at the same area of the formation and, one minute later, opened fire at the
same range with 160 rounds of incendiary and armour-piercing
ammunition. ‘His’ B-17 took hits in both starboard engines and its cockpit,
whereupon a stream of white smoke trailed back from beneath the bomber’s
right wing. Seconds later, as Schuhmacher passed the Boeing he also saw
flames. He claimed a B-17 for his 13th kill.
5./JG 1 proved equally deadly. At 1100 hrs in Fw 190A-7 ‘Black 2’,
Oberfeldwebel Otto Bach, who had joined JG 1 from l./JG 2 in 1942
with four victories to his credit, fired at a B-17 at close range and its left
wing came away, followed quickly by pieces of the cockpit canopy. Bach
saw three men bail out, but the aircraft then plunged into the earth north
of Fallersleben. The Boeing was Bach’s 13th victory. Flying as his wingman
was Flieger Georg Blech in Fw 190A-7 ‘Black 6’, who had been forced
to bail out two days before. Blech was now about to issue retribution on
the bomber flying alongside Bach’s target for his his first aerial victory.
Opening fire from 200 metres to close range, Blech scored hits along the
left underside section of the fuselage and the inner section of the left wing,
both of which began to burn. The B-17 turned over and went down in
a steep descent, crashing north of Fallersleben.
At precisely the same moment, at 6000 metres, veteran jagdjlieger and
Stajfelkapitdn of 6./JG 1, Georg-Peter Eder, had closed in to within
100 metres of a B-17 in Fw 190A-7 ‘Yellow 4’. Opening fire, he raked the
bomber with cannon fire from slightly below, sending strikes into its
starboard wing as well as along the fuselage. Although the Boeing was seen
falling towards the earth by four of Eder’s fellow pilots, he was himself
attacked by the escorts as he came out of the Pulk and had to veer away
quickly in an evasive manoeuvre. The bomber came down 10-15 km north
 of Fallersleben for Eder’s 37th victory. Flying as wingman to Eder was
Oberfeldwebel Kurt Brodbeck in Fw 190A-7 ‘Yellow 15’, and he also sent
a Boeing falling away to port, its fuselage and left wing burning. Although
Brodbeck was unable to see the B-17 crash, he was awarded a victory for
an enemy aircraft that came down north of Fallersleben. It was Brodbeck’s
second victory.
After the Gruppes pass through the bombers, due to the strength of the
fighter escort it was not possible to reassemble for a second attack, and the
subsequent combat broke down into indivdual engagements fought at
Rotte and Schwarm -strength.
By the time II./JG 1 returned to Stormede, it had downed seven
bombers in 60 seconds, including an unconfirmed kill to Oberleutant
Eberhard Burath. Four pilots were lost to the escorts, but the Gruppe
also lost seven Fw 190s during a strafing attack on Stormede.
According to the Eighth Air Force, the Luftwaffe performed ‘one of its
most severe and well coordinated defences, marked by skilful handling
of a considerable number of single-engined fighters in the Hannover-
Oschersleben area. Twenty B-17s were lost to fighters out of a total of
52, plus 12 B-24s, whereas I. Jagdkorps reported the loss of 36 aircraft.
Thirteen German pilots were killed, 17 wounded and a further 24 missing.
The 1st BD reported, ‘Severe opposition was concentrated against the
leading combat wing, which lost 12 aircraft to enemy aircraft or flak.
The second fighter attack began at 1102 hrs north of Braunschweig when
about 40 enemy aircraft in four-abreast made vicious sweeps through the
formation during a gap in fighter support’.
On 13 April, aircraft plants were again the targets for the Eighth Air
Force as theoffensive switched to southern Germany. This time it was to
be the turn of the ball-bearing factories at Schweinfurt, the Messerschmitt
plant at Augsburg, the Dornier plant at Oberpfaffenhofen and Lechfeld
airfield. Of 626 bombers despatched, 566 were effective over the targets,
escorted by nearly 900 fighters.
Oberfeldwebel Otto Bach (centre) II./JG 1, already on Sitzbereitschaft, was given an Alarmstart at 1247 hrs
of 5./JG 1 with his groundcrew in and assembled with the rest of the Geschwader at 1000 metres over
front of his Fw 190, which bears the
Paderborn, heading on a southerly course to intercept the incoming
winged 'V emblem of JG 1. Bach
shot down a B-17 near Fallersleben bombers. At 1350 hrs visual contact was made with an enemy formation
on 11 April 1944 for his 13th victory at 6500 metres —elements of the 1st BD - in the Frankfurt area with
a strong P-47 escort. Five minutes
later, I. and II./JG 1 launched a
mass frontal attack on a Pulk of
approximately 50 B-17s. Once again,
Georg-Peter Eder was in the fray
in his ‘Yellow 4’ at 1357 hrs;
‘I attacked a Boeing on the right
wing of the Pulk from the front
and below from a range of 600-100
metres. It took hits in the fuselage
and in the cabin, veered off course,
went straight down 100 metres and
then blew apart in the air.’
Leading a Rotte from 5. Staffel
was Unteroffizier Hubert Swoboda.
 At the same moment Eder shot down his B-17, Swoboda, who was flying
FOUR

Fw 190A-7/R2 ‘Black 4’, opened fire from 300 metres. Closing in on a

bomber flying in the second to right position on the right of the Pulk,
C HA P T E R

Swoboda recorded that ‘the cabin and part of one of the right-hand
engines flew away and the Boeing burned, going steeply down’. It was
Swoboda’s sixth victory. Both Eder’s and Swoboda’s targets had crashed
in an area 20 km southwest of Aschaffenburg. In this attack, II./JG 1
knocked down three Viermots, including one that went unconfirmed by
Unteroffizier Alfons Schulz of 4. Staffel. There were no losses.
Following this operation, aircraft returned to various airfields around
Frankfurt and Darmstadt. At Wiesbaden-Erbenheim, fighters from
I. and II./JG 1, having been rearmed, were formed into a Gefechtsverband
and sent up on a second Alarmstart at 1505 hrs to engage returning
bombers. Contact was made at 1530 hrs south of Heidelberg, but the
‘200’ bombers heading on a northwesterly course were protected by a
strong escort. Only one success was possible when, for the second time
that day, Swoboda managed to break through at 6500 metres altitude;
‘I positioned myself for an attack from the rear and below and fired
at the outer right-hand Boeing in the rearmost Pulk from a range of
200 metres down to almost ramming range, at which point sections
of the left wing and tail assembly flew away. I also saw three of the crew
bail out with parachutes. The Boeing went steeply over onto its right
wing and down, exploding in flames on the ground. During my exit
I received hits, and I was wounded and had to bail out.’
Swoboda’s victim crashed near the village of Ittlingen, northeast of
Eppingen, while he landed about a kilometre northwest of Eppingen. Taken
to hospital in the town by a Luftwaffe officer, he was treated for a head
wound. Swoboda’s aircraft had crashed 200 metres from the headquarters
of a Luftwaffe ground unit.
The Eighth AF recorded, ‘Of the three bomb divisions, the 1st met the
heaviest air opposition. At around 1400 hrs, another series of attacks was
launched ten minutes before Schweinfurt, and these continued for about
half an hour. The lead combat wing, which sustained the heaviest losses,
was first attacked at about 1350 hrs near Klingenberg. Eight B-17s of the
high group were shot down in about three minutes’.
During the afternoon of the 22nd, 638 bombers from all three bomb
divisions were despatched against the marshalling yards at Hamm, while
Smoke clouds around a B-17 as it
smaller forces attacked Bonn, Koblenz and Soest. As part of the German takes hits from a Luftwaffe fighter
response, the Gruppen of JG 1 were given aw Alarmstart just after 1745 hrs, during a rear-mounted attack
and on this occasion set off to
tackle the bombers individually.
I. and II./JG 1 made contact with
the B-17s of the 3rd BD north
of Hamm at 1850 hrs. I./JG 1
mounted a close frontal attack and
shot down four Viermots, as well
as claiming a HSS. From II. Gruppe,
it was Flieger Blech in Fw 190A-8
‘Black 10’ who opened the account
when he claimed two B-17s at
50 700 metres at 1910 hrs;
 ‘I attacked, with my Rotte, the second Boeing Pulk from behind and
from the left, firing at the left outer wing of a Boeing at the closest possible
range - both left-hand engines and the inner wing soon began to burn.
During my exit to the right, I rammed the tail assembly of another Boeing
and had to bail out. From my parachute I observed the Boeing I had
attacked going down steeply, and at an altitude of 4000 metres its left
wing came away. Seven men bailed out with parachutes.’
The first B-17 came down near the village of Hilbeck, east of Unna,
while the Flying Fortress Blech collided with crashed in the same area.
He landed by parachute near Altenbogge.
Meanwhile, Unteroffizer Heinz Weber of 5./JG 1 had targeted ‘the
fourth aircraft from the left’ in the Pulk. The B-17 quickly started ‘to trail
flames from the left wingroot and the left-hand inner engine. The blaze
grew big very quickly’. Weber was credited with his second victory, but
as he made his exit he was attacked by Thunderbolts, which forced him
to bail out of his Fw 190A-8 ‘Black 8’.
II./JG 1 accounted for three of the eight B-17s that were destroyed in
the action by both Gruppen, while pilots from II. Gruppe also claimed
four P-47s. In addition to the loss of Blech’s and Weber’s aircraft, Gefreiter
Heinrich Born of 4. Staffel was shot down and killed in combat with the
escorts, while his Staffelkamerad, Unteroffizier Johann Froschhauer, was
also shot down and badly wounded.
The day’s action was still not quite over for II./JG 1. As the unit
reassembled at Stormede that evening, a lone B-24 straggler, trailing
smoke, was spotted flying to the northwest of the airfield. Despite the
lateness of the day, it was a tempting target. At 1953 hrs Bar and
Schuhmacher took off to administer the coup de grcice. Bar approached
from behind and opened fire at 400 metres, closing to 100. The Liberator
suddenly jettisoned its bombs and four men were seen to bail out. Seconds
later flames erupted along the fuselage, the aircraft veered to the left and
exploded in mid-air, with the wreckage raining down in the area north
of Ahlen. Heinz Bar had just scored his 200th victory.
On 24 April the Eighth Air Force launched a major strike on airfields
and aircraft industry targets in southern Germany involving 716 bombers
accompanied by 867 fighters. The Luftwaffe sent up 18 day fighter
Gruppen to engage, and those of JG 1 would again operate independently
of each other. Shortly after 1130 hrs, II. Gruppe was scrambled, led by
Georg-Peter Eder, and assembled into battle formation over Paderborn
before heading towards Darmstadt. At 1240 hrs a vast inward armada of
400-500 bombers was sighted with strong fighter escort at 6000 metres.
Contact was made five minutes later with a Pulk of about 70-80 B-17s, and
in one attack Oberfeldwebel Georg Hutter, who had joined the Gruppe in
1942 and who was leading 4. Staffel in the air, opened fire from head-on
at 600 metres, closing to 200. He saw hits strike both left-side engines,
which began to trail smoke, and the bomber fell back 500-800 metres
behind the rest of the formation. Enemy fighters prevented him from
observing the fate of the Boeing, however, and he claimed an HSS as his
14th victory.
Meanwhile, Eder shot down a B-17 over Hagenau for his 40th victory.
He was to be successful again on 29 April when Berlin was to be the target
once more. The Eighth Air Force committed 368 B-17s and 210 B-24s
for its attack on the German capital, whilst 38 B-17s were to strike various
targets of opportunity in the Berlin and Magdeburg areas. Escort was to
be provided by 814 fighters. To meet the Americans, I. Jagdkorps was
ready to deploy 275 single- and twin-engined fighters.
At 0940 hrs 27 Fw 190s of II./JG 1 were given the Alarmstart and, led
by Major Bar, assembled with the other Gruppen of the Geschwader over
Paderborn. The formation firstly made for Kassel, but was then directed
towards Braunschweig to intercept an incoming force of 200 Viermots
heading east past Hannover with escorts. At 1055 hrs JG 1 intercepted the
enemy at an altitude of 7500 metres in the Braunchsweig area. Because
of the strength of the escort, the Geschwader was forced to break up, and
combat ensued in Rotten and Schwdrm e, although II. Gruppe was, initially
able to make a Gruppe-stvength. frontal attack on a Pulk of 60 Flying
Fortresses and Liberators.
At 1058 hrs, Georg-Peter Eder, leading 6./JG 1, targeted a Boeing to
the right of the formation and opened fire from 600 metres. He observed
hits on the left wing, then the bomber entered into a spin and the left
wing broke away. The B-17 crashed into Braunschweig. Schwarmfuhrer
Kurt Brodbeck in Fw 190A-8 ‘Yellow 1’, also of 6. Staffel, fired at a
bomber, striking the cabin area, the left wing and the inner port engine.
The stricken engine burst into flames and began to trail thick smoke.
The B-17 then rolled over to the left and fell away from the formation. It
too crashed in the Braunschweig area.
Within the space of eight minutes, I. and II./JG 1 had shot down or ‘cut
out’ eight B-17s and one B-24. II. Gruppe lost two pilots, including Eder’s
wingman, Obergefreiter Werner Triebel. Low on fuel and ammunition,
the unit’s aircraft landed at various airfields between Braunschweig and
Berlin either singly or in Rotten.
Hauptmann Rudiger Kirchmayr, the 23-year-old Austrian leader of
5./JG 1 with 13 kills to his credit, found himself at Salzwedel following
the morning mission in his Fw 190A-7 ‘Black 1’. As he recorded;
‘I took off at 1245 hrs with a Schwarm from Salzwedel, heading for
outward-bound bomber units flying on a west-northwest course. In Grid
GB I caught sight of around 200 B-17Fs and Liberators. I attacked the
furthest left rearward-flying Liberator of a Pulk of30-40 bombers, coming
in behind it from out of the sun and opening fire from close range. The
left outer engine began to burn immediately, pieces flying away from
the fuselage and left wing and two crewmembers bailing out. Then the
Liberator went down into a steep spiral to the right, fire spread over the
whole left wing and another three crewmembers bailed out. The impact
of the Liberator followed, close to a small village east of Fallersleben and
north of the canal, at 1310 hrs.’
Two minutes later, Kirchmayr flew over a Pulk of B-17s at 5500 metres,
with the sun still behind him. He opened fire on a bomber to the left of
the formation;
‘Following the first burst the left inner engine remained in place,
a crewmember bailed out with a parachute and the Boeing veered
down steeply to the left and out of formation. Shortly after, two more
crewmembers jumped out with parachutes and the left wing of the
Boeing began to burn fiercely. The aircraft fell steeply and disappeared
into clouds.’
 It is believed that the bomber crashed around Fallersleben, the kill
being witnessed by Feldwebel Arnold Jansen of 5. Staffel. Kirchmayr was
awarded his 14th and 15th victories, adding two more to II./JG l ’s tally
of eight Viermots that day.
On 11 August 1944 Kirchmayr suffered a head injury when P-51s
attacked his Fw 190 in France as he was landing. On 19 September
he was posted to Stab!JG 11 and then assumed command of I./JG 11 on
25 November, which he led until his posting to Adolf Galland’s
Me 262-equipped JV 44. By war’s end, Kirchmayr had flown nearly
400 missions and had been accredited with 46 victories, including as
many as 14 four-engined bombers (including two on one day on 6 March
and 8 May 1944). He was duly awarded the Knight’s Cross for this
success in February 1945.
Altogether, the Berlin raid had cost the Americans 38 B-17s and
25 B-24s, with a total of 18 crewmen killed and 606 missing. The war
diary of I. Jagdkorps recorded;
‘In spite of good visibility and high numerical strength, the large-scale
attack on Berlin was, for the American Air Force, no success of great
importance in respect to the overall war effort. Industry in Berlin
sustained only slight damage. Damage to buildings and the loss of
personnel was not heavy. The strafing attacks on airfields showed
no results.’
The German press was quick to exploit what had been perceived as
a failure for the Eighth Air Force and a victory for the Luftwaffe. ‘One
of the biggest air battles ever fought!’ proclaimed a Luftwaffe reporter.
‘US fighters inferior to Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs. The fierce
onslaught by German fighters only increased in violence when the enemy
bombers reached the Berlin area’.
By mid-1944 Heinz Bar had been appointed to lead JG 3, flying
Fw 190A 'Yellow 13' prepares to regular missions against heavy bombers. On 1 January 1945, the day
start up at Stormede in the spring of of Operation Bodenplatte, Bar led his Geschwader successfully to attack
1944. lt is believed that this aircraft Eindhoven airfield in Holland, home to a number of Typhoon, Spitfire
may have been one of those flown
and Mustang squadrons of the 2nd Tactical Air Force. On 13 February,
by Hauptmann Rudiger Kirchmayr,
Staffelkapitan of 5./JG 1 and victor however, he was transferred away from operations to take command
over 14 four-engined bombers of the Me 262 training unit, III./EJG 2, in the relatively ‘quiet’ area of
Lechfeld, in southern Germany,
after which he assumed nominal
command of JV 44.
Of Bar’s final tally of around
220 aerial victories at war’s end,
as many as 22 are believed to have
been USAAF Flying Fortresses
and Liberators.
When summarising operations
for April 1944, Generalleutnant
Schmid, commander of I. Jagdkorps,
noted that, ‘The attention of all
responsible commanders in the
R eichsverteidigung was focused on
only one danger - the Flying
Fortresses and their bomb loads’.
 COLOUR PLATES

i
Bf 109F-4 'Black Chevron and Bars' of Major W alter Oesau, Geschwaderkommodore JG 2, Beaumont Ie Roger,
France, April 1942

2
Fw 190A-4 'Double W hite Chevron' of Hauptmann Egon Mayer, Gruppenkommandeur III./JG 2, Brittany, France,
late 1942/early 1943

3
Fw 190A-6 'Brown 1' of Hauptmann Johannes Naumann, Staffelkapitan 6./JG 26, Lille-Vendeville,
France, July 1943

4
Bf 109G-6 W k-Nr. 18 216 'Black 10' of Feldwebel Hans-Gerd Wennekers, 5./JG 11, Monchen-Gladbach,
54 Germany, June 1943
5
Bf 109G-6 'W hite 10' of Leutnant Franz Ruhl, Staffelkapitan 4./JG 3, Schiphol, Holland, w inter 1943/44

7
Bf 109G-6 Wk-Nr. 18 105 'Black 12' of Unteroffiziere Karl-Heinz Bottner and Helmut Schwarzenholzer,
 Geschwaderkommodore JG 11, Oldenburg, Germany,
April 1944

10 (starboard side)
Fw 190A-6 'Double Chevron' of Major Anton Hackl,
Geschwaderkommodore JG 11, Oldenburg,
Germany, April 1944

11
Fw 190A-7 Wk-Nr. 430172 'Black 1'of Leutnant Rudiger
Kirchmayr, Staffelkapitan 5./JG 1, Rheine, Germany,
January 1944

12
Fw 190A-8 Wk-Nr. 680143 'W hite 9' of Gefreiter W alter Gehr,
4 ./JG 1, Stormede, Germany, May 1944
 13
Fw 190A-7 'Yellow 5' of 6./JG 1, Stormede, Germany, May 1944

14
Fw 190A-7 'Red 22' of Oberfeldwebel Leo Schuhmacher,
Gruppenstab II./JG 1, Stormede, Germany, April 1944

15
Bf 110G-2 3U+KR of 7./ZG 26, Konigsberg-Neumark, Germany, late 1943/early 1944

16
Bf 110G-2/R3 2N+EM of 4./ZG 76, Konigsberg-Neumark, Germany, early 1944
 Me 210A-0(1) W k-Nr. 2100110049 2N+FR of

18
Me 410A-1/U4 Wk-Nr. 420481 3U+LP of 6./ZG 26,
Konigsberg-Neumark, Germany, April 1944

19
Me 410A-1/U4 WNr. 420292 3U+CC of Stab ll./ZG 26,
Konigsberg-Neumark, Germany, May 1944

20
58 Bf 109G-2 'Yellow 6' of Feldwebel Albert Palm, 3./JG 4, Mizil, Rumania, August 1943
21
Bf 109G-6 'W hite 17' of 7./JG 53, Villaorba, Italy, December 1943

22
Bf 109G-6 'W hite 8' of I./JG 27, Fels am Wagram,
Austria, early 1944

23
Fw 190A-7 Wk-Nr. 642559 'W hite 3' of Unteroffiziere Erich
Lambertus and Gerhard Vivroux, Sturmstaffel 1,
Salzwedel, Germany, February 1944

24
Fw 190A-8/R2 'Yellow 17' of Unteroffizier Willi Unger, 12./JG 3,
Barth, Germany, May 1944 59
25
Fw 190A-8/R2 'Double Chevron' of Hauptmann Wilhelm Moritz,
Stab IV .(Sturm )/JG 3, Memm ingen, Germany, July 1944

26
Fw 190A-8/R2 'Black 13' of Lt Werner Gerth, 11.(Sturm)/JG 3,
Memm ingen, Germany, July 1944

27
Fw 190A-8 'Blue 14' of Feldwebel W alter Loos, Stab/JG 300,
Bad Worishofen, Germany, August 1944

28
Fw 190A-8 W k-Nr. 171641 'Red 3' of Feldwebel Konrad 'Pitt'
Bauer, 5./JG 300, Erfurt-Bindersleben, Germany, August 1944
 Me 262A-1a 'Green 4' of Major Theodor
Weissenberger, Geschwaderstab JG 7, Brandenburg-
Briest, Germany, February-March 1945

Me 262A-1a Wk-Nr. 110800 'White 7' of

Unteroffizier Giinther Engler, 3./JG 7,
Brandenburg-Briest, Germany, February 1945

31
Me 262A-1a 'Green 3', Geschwaderstab JG 7,
Brandenburg-Briest, Germany, February-
March 1945

61
 'STOVEPIPES' AND
F I VE
CHA P T E R

DESTROYERS
he deployment of Messerschmitt Bf 110, Me 210 and Me 410

T twin-engined heavy fighters - or Zerstdrer (destroyers) —in the

R eichsverteidigung was founded, essentially, on expediency.
At the end of July 1943, having been engaged in bombing and
ground-attack operations over Sicily since being pulled out of Tunisia in
May, the Bf 110s of III./ZG 26 were moved from Ciampino, near Rome,
back to Quakenbriick, in northern Germany. While in Africa, the Gruppe
had sparred with B-24s in some of the first contacts with American
Viermots, and had achieved sporadic successes. In October 1943,
III./ZG 26 was joined by II./ZG 1, which had been transferred to Weis,
in Austria, from the Bay of Biscay, where the unit’s Bf 110s had made little
impact in the anti-shipping war. From the Eastern Front, where it had
been deployed on ground-attack and tank-busting operations at Kursk,
I./ZG 1 arrived at Wiinstorf in July.
The plan was to urgently ‘refresh’ these units and implement a process
of transition from ground-attack and bomber escort to operations against
the rapidly increasing threat of USAAF four-engined bombers. Senior
figures, including Reichsmarschall Goring, believed that the Bf 110 and
the new Me 410 would have the extended range needed to fight long air
battles against the Viermots, as well as being able to serve as a capable
platform to carry the heavier armament required to ‘destroy’ bombers
when enemy escort fighters were not present.
To do this, two Zerstdrer schools provided newly-trained crews, and
an entirely new Geschwader was formed at the end of August 1943 with
three Gruppen in the shape of ZG 76, its ranks drawn from various
reconnaissance, nightfighter and school units. By mid-November, the
Zerstdrer units could field 340 Bf 110s, but achieving adequate training
was still a challenge.
In terms of armament, the Bf 110G-2, which had entered frontline
service in May 1942, carried a standard fitting of four forward-firing
7.9 mm MG 17s and a pair of 20 mm MG 151 cannon, but the two
underwing bomb racks could each be replaced with a weapons tray
containing a pair of MG 151s. This was supplemented by a twin 7.92 mm
MG 81Z installation in the rear cockpit.
The Me 410, which superseded the problematic Me 210, reached the
Luftwaffe in January 1943, and by year-end some 460 machines had been
delivered, with II./ZG 26 re-equipping from the Me 210 in September.
The Me 410 could be adapted to accept a wide range of armament options
for anti-bomber work, but in its basic form the aircraft was fitted with
two forward-firing MG 17s and two MG 151s, with single 13 mm
MG 131 machine guns in rearward-firing remotely-controlled barbettes
62 on either side of the fuselage.
An Me 210A-1 of ZG 26 seen From a tactical perspective, the real value in the Zestdrer came in their
at Diepholz, in Germany, in ability to fire heavier weapons, such as large calibre cannon and air-to-air
August 1943 following its return
mortars. In the case of the latter, admittedly, these had not been restricted
to the Reich from North Africa. The
aircraft has been adapted for its new to use on twin-engined fighters, but the Zerstdrer were able to carry heavier
home defence role by the fitting of weapons loads than the single-engined machines. In early June 1943,
underwing tw in 21 cm WGr mortar upon orders from the G eneral der Ja gdflieger, 30 21 cm N ebelwerfer
tubes intended for breaking up
enemy bomber Pulks
42 mortar tubes, together with 200 mortar shells, were issued to I./JG 1
in Holland, with a further 34 tubes and 200 shells going to II./JG 26
in France.
Designed as an infantry weapon for use in ground warfare, the intention
was to suspend the 1.3-metre-long rifled mortars from lugs under the
wings of Fw 190s for use as an air-to-air weapon against formations
of four-engined bombers. The theory was that the blast effect from
a 112-kg shell with its 40-kg warhead exploding within the confines of a
formation would scatter the Viermots, thus weakening their defensive
firepower and rendering individual bombers more vulnerable to attack.
The mortars were controlled from a cockpit armament panel and a Revi
16B reflector sight. Spin-stabilised shells were fired simultaneously when
the pilot depressed a button on his control column, and in an emergency,
the launching tube could be jettisoned by activating an electrically-primed
explosive charge, which severed the central hook.
The mortar shells were fitted with a time fuse, pre-set at 800 metres
prior to delivery to an operational unit and not subsequently adjusted.
The firing range was therefore invariable, and the weapon’s low velocity
meant that to be effective it had to be aimed 60 metres above its target,
and a shell had to detonate within 28 metres of a bomber.
Redesignated the W erfergranate (WGr) 21, but less formally known
as ‘stovepipes’ because of the shape of the tubes, initial experiments with
the weapon were conducted by Zerstdrer ace Hauptmann Eduard Tratt,
the K om m andeur of Erprobungskommando 25. Seconded to I./JG 1, he
was assigned four Fw 190A-4s specifically to carry out the task.
At JG 26, 5. Staffel was assigned to conduct similar experiments. Firing
practice took place over the North Sea, and on 13 June three B-17s were
 claimed by mortars over the German Bight, while on the 22nd, two pilots
F I VE

from I./JG 1 claimed a further two Viermots shot down and two damaged.
These initial results proved sufficiently satisfactory for trials to continue
C HA P T E R

using Fw 190s of both JG 1 and JG 26, as well as Ekdo 25 at Achmer and

the Erprobungsstelle at Tarnewitz.
The weapon was used in numbers for the first time operationally on
28 July 1943 during a raid to Kassel and Oschersleben, and results were
acceptable in as much as blast fragmentation did break up the bombers
and a number were claimed destroyed as an indirect result. In a report
prepared in late August 1943, the Headquarters of the Eighth Air Force
warned, cIt would appear to be the most dangerous single obstacle in the
path of our bomber offensive’.
The WGr 21 was perhaps used to its greatest effect against the
Schweinfurt raid on 14 October 1943, when 62 bombers were shot down,
many as a result of being dispersed from their formations by mortar shells.
Mortars were also fitted to Bf 109G-6s of IV./JG 3 ,1., II. and III./JG 53,1,
and III./JG 77 and I./JG 5 and used to varying effect in the Mediterranean
and over Rumania from August 1943 until early 1944. Other Bf 109s
of 7./JG 3, 5./JG 11, 2./JG 27 and 6./JG 51 so-equipped operated in
the defence of the Reich, while a small number of Bf 110G-2/R-3 Zerstdrer
of ZG 76 and Me 410A/Bs of ZG 26 carried pairs of twin mortar sets
in addition to an array of cannon and machine guns, operating as
heavily-armed bomber-destroyers.
Although further trials continued until mid-1944, with the aim of
improving the WGr 21, it was found that the launch tubes robbed
German fighters - particularly the heavier Zerstdrer—of their performance
and made them vulnerable to Allied fighters. Luftwaffe commanders
recognised the psychological effect of the mortars on bomber crews, but
equally that when fitted to a single-engined fighter, a loss in speed of
40-50 km/h was incurred, plus a loss of ceiling and manoeuvrability.
There was also a lack of a range-measuring device, and therefore an
inability to control the point of detonation. Over the Italian front on Two 21 cm WGr air-to-air mortar
tubes suspended beneath the wing
30 January 1944, the Staffelkapitan of 2./JG 77, Hauptmann Armin
of an Me 410. The fuse tips of the
Kohler, flying a Bf 109, recorded how on one mission against US bombers loaded shells are visible. The mortar
over Udine, ‘I took hits in the starboard wing and the (WGr 21) tube was was adapted from an infantry
shot away’. The next day, when the Allied bombers returned, Kohler weapon, and was designed to blow
up individual bombers through blast
complained that ‘The mortars overshot’.
or scatter their formations to break
In the early stages of their deployment as bomber-destroyers in the down cohesion and defensive
second half of 1943, the Bf 110s of ZG 1, ZG 26 and ZG 76 enjoyed firepower
a comparatively ‘safe’ operational
environment, free from fighter
escort, during the USAAF deep
penetration raids. Where possible,
individual Gruppen would be based
on airfields close to each other,
and upon receiving an Alarmstart,
each Gruppe of about 20-30 aircraft
would take off in Schwarme. The
Gruppe would then assemble in
a column of Staffeln during a wide
64 left-hand curve over the airfield,
A pair of Bf 110G-2 Pulkzerstdrer and then climb to the G eschwader assembly point, located either over
of 3./ZG 76, fitted with underwing a prominent geographical point or, in bad weather, over a radio beacon.
twin 21 cm WGr mortar tubes for
breaking up enemy bomber
At the assembly point the aircraft formed into a column of Gruppen.
formations. Although enjoying Upon sighting enemy bombers, the Bf 11 Os would deploy into a line in
the relative comfort of being able to which the stepping up of the Gruppen was crucial if WGr 21 mortars were
fire such weapons from a distance, to be fired. Upon orders from the formation leader over the R/T, the
in reality, the slow Bf 110s were
relatively easy prey for Allied
Zerstorer crews discharged their mortars, which took place at a range of
fighter escorts 730-900 metres, before closing up again and mounting a close-range attack
using cannon and machine guns. The column formation was then resumed
and the Geschwader made for home. In frontal or side attacks, overshooting
was the common tendency, while in the case of rearward-mounted attacks,
undershooting was frequent. The most practical and ballistically perfect
method of attack was from dead astern.
Such was indeed the case on 10 October 1943, when the Kom m odore
of ZG 26, Major Karl Boehm-Tettelbach, led his Bf 110s, together with
Me 4 10s of III./ZG 1, against B-17s of the 3rd BD during the attack on
the marshalling yards at Munster (see Chapter Two). The division, left
without any escort due to bad weather over England, had already been
mauled by single-engined fighters, but the 14th BW had been particularly
badly hit near Munster when the Zerstorer made a mass attack from the
rear, inflicting considerable damage. As the American post-mission
synopsis recorded;
‘The fighters appeared to stay out of range, Me 110s firing at the
formation with long-range weapons slung under each wing and lobbing
explosive. Ju-88s [sic] attacked from 800-1000 yards, firing rockets from
under each wing (two distinct puffs were seen from each ship). Their
formation resembled our defensive formation.’
 Furthermore, Bf 110s were seen to \ .. hit a B-17
FI VE

by rocket, tail came off, plane broke in two. It then

collided with another B-17 near Saerbeck. Both
CHA P T E R

went down. No chutes’.

Nine Zerstdrer were lost during the Munster raid,
and this was exceptional - losses usually ran at 5-10
per cent per mission. Success levels were considered
good not just if bombers were shot down, but also
where formations were scattered and disorganised,
leaving them prey to the single-engined Jagdgruppen.
In the early afternoon of 22 December 1943,
Oberleutnant Peter Jenne of l./ZG 26 shot down a
B-24 of the 2nd BD over the island of Texel, in
Holland, following an Eighth Air Force raid on
Bremen. A second Liberator followed 30 minutes
later over Bolsward. Jenne had destroyed a B-17
two days earlier for his first Viermot kill.
Commencing his flying career with l./ZG 1 in
Russia in the summer of 1942, he had flown
ground-attack operations in which he destroyed
12 tanks, ten artillery pieces and eight rocket
launchers. On 9 October 1943, by which time his
Blast and fragmentation from Staffel had been redesignated l./ZG 26 and was flying defensive missions
a 21 cm W Gr mortar shell has over the Reich, Jenne was appointed Staffelkapitan. On 10 February 1944
damaged a B-17 during a frontal
attack by Bf 110s of I./ZG 26 in
he is known to have claimed at least one more B-17, and he may well have
the summer of 1944 scored additional victories while flying the Bf 110.
In July 1944 l./ZG 26 was redesignated l./JG 6, and Jenne converted
Hauptmann Peter Jenne of 1./ZG 26 to the Fw 190. He was appointed Staffelkapitan of 12./JG 300 in
ranks alongside Leutnant Rudolf
September and Gruppenkommandeur of III./JG 300 on 1 January 1945.
Dassow, also of ZG 26, as one the
tw o highest-scoring Zerstdrer pilots Jenne received the Knight’s Cross on 2 February in recognition of his
against four-engined day bombers 17th victory, but he was killed in action flying a Bf 109G-10 during an
with 12 such victories out of a total engagement with enemy fighters over Schmerwitz on 2 March. He is
of at least 17. Jenne claimed tw o
known to have accounted for at least 12 Viermots.
B-24s shot down on 22 December
1943 - a feat he repeated on Towards the end of 1943 the presence of American escort fighters
17 December the following year became a problem, and tactics were adapted accordingly. There was an
attempt to loosely assign one fighter Gruppe to each Zerstor er gruppe. For
operations where escort was anticipated, the Zerstdrer units often removed
their underwing mortar tubes in order to increase manouevrability.
Where coordination worked, the assigned Jagdgruppe, whose leader
would be in contact with the Zerstdrer leader, would fly close escort to the
Zerstdrer, with two Staffeln flying in Schwarm e to each side and behind,
while the third Staffel flew as top cover, 1800 metres higher. During early
operations, the fighters were ordered not to attack the bombers until the
Zerstdrer had undertaken their attack.
The Zerstdrer would then attack head-on in a column of Schwarme.
After passing through the enemy formation once from the front, the next
Pulk back would be attacked in a similar way, or the Zerstdrer would
curve back in and attack it from the rear, continuously in Schwarme.
Such partnerships was especially successful between l./ZG 26 and the
Bf 109s of Gunther Specht’s II./JG 11, as well as between II./ZG 26 and
66 Walther Dahl’s III./JG 3.
 'STOVEPIPES'
Eduard Tratt was probably the most successful
Zerstdrer pilot of the war. He joined the Luftwaffe as
a Fahnenjunker (officer cadet) in 1937 and went on
to serve with l./ZG 1 during the Polish campaign,
in which he was promoted to leutnant. Over
Dunkirk on 1 June 1940 he was able to shoot down

AND
three Hurricanes. In July 1940 Tratt was assigned to
1J Erprobungsgruppe 210, and flew many missions

DESTROYERS
over England. The unit was subsequently renamed
1 ./SKG 210 and moved to the Eastern Front. There,
Tratt was not only successful in ground-attack
operations, destroying 24 tanks, he also shot down
20 aircraft. In January 1942 he joined 4./ZG 26 and
in March was made Staffelkapitan of 6./ZG 26. Tratt
led 2./ZG 2 from 1 May 1942, and then held the
same position with l./ZG 1 as of 27 July 1942. He
received the Knight’s Cross on 12 April 1942 after
20 aerial victories. On 30 January 1943 Tratt was
badly wounded in a crash caused by engine failure,
his radio operator being killed and his Bf 11OG-2
written off.
After his recovery he was appointed Kommandeur
of Erprobungskommando 25, the weapons-testing
Hauptmann Eduard Tratt (left), the and evaluation unit that played a key role in the development of the
Gruppenkommandeur of II./ZG 26, R eichsverteidigung, especially in the battle against the Viermots. On
clad in a captured British leather
11 October 1943 Tratt was named Kom m andeur of the Me 410-equipped
flying jacket, talks with one of his
pilots on 22 February 1944. Tratt II./ZG 26. His 30th (29 November 1943) and 38th (20 February 1944)
ranks as the most successful victories were B-17s. This total made Tratt the highest scoring Zerstdrer
Zerstdrer pilot of the war with pilot. On 22 February his Me 410A-1 was shot down over Nordhausen
38 victories, which include four
four-engined aircraft. The day this
and he and his gunner, Oberfeldwebel Gillert, were killed. Tratt was
photograph was taken, however, promoted to major posthumously.
Tratt was shot down and killed Another notable heavy weapon that appeared in the armoury of
while in combat with B-17s
the Me 410 was the 5 cm BK 5 cannon, adapted from a tank cannon.

Me 410B-1/U4s of 5./ZG 26 gathered

at Konigsberg-Neumark in the
spring of 1944. The aircraft are fitted
with the long-barrelled 5 cm BK 5
cannon, a weapon adapted from a
tank gun. lt was known that when
used effectively, a hit with one 5 cm
round was enough to bring down a
heavy bomber 67
 The Luftwaffe Technical Office had issued a requirement for a gun
FI VE

with a muzzle velocity of at least 600 m/sec, with a rate of of fire of

300 rounds/min. A hit with one 5 cm round was thought to be enough
C HA P T E R

to bring down a bomber. Following three months of testing, during

which various belt-feed and jamming malfunctions had been ironed out,
the resulting weapon was fitted to aircraft of II./ZG 26 from early
February 1944. By the 8th, 5. Staffel had 12 aircraft equipped with the
cannon, and trial operations duly commenced over southern Germany
and Austria.
On 22 February, during a major raid involving nearly 1400 bombers
from the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces against targets across Germany
(see Chapter Three), the Staffelkapitan, Oberleutnant Fritz Stehle, led
ten Me 4lOA-l/U4s from Oberpfaffenhofen against 183 Flying Fortresses
and Liberators of the Fifteenth Air Force that were heading for
Regensburg. Shortly before 1300 hrs, Feldwebel Baunicke opened fire
with his cannon and shot down the BK 5’s first bomber. Around
ten minutes later, Stehle claimed another south of Dachau.
On 24 February, the crew of Oberfeldwebel Willi Fros and Unteroffizier
Gerhard Brandi of 5./ZG 26 shot down a B-17 of the Fifteenth Air Force
at 6000 metres over Steyr during an attack on the aircraft plant there.
Fros would be accredited with three Viermots shot down. More missions
with the BK 5 would be flown throughout the spring and summer of 1944,
but they brought virtually no success.
Also on 22 February 1944, Hauptmann Egon Albrecht, Kom m andeur Having just returned from an
of II./ZG 1, managed to shoot down a Liberator south of Pilsen for his operational flight, Oberfeldwebel
first four-engined victory. The next day, he claimed a second B-24 of the Willi Fros of 5./ZG 26 stands on
the wing root of his Me 410B-1 at
Fifteenth Air Force downed south of Weis, in Austria, during an attack
Konigsberg-Neumark in May 1944
on Steyr. to be greeted by his groundcrew.
Albrecht, who had been born in Brazil, flew missions in Russia Visible is the Zielfernrohr 4A
with 6./ZG 1, which subsequently became 9./ZG 76, then 6./SKG 210 telescopic sight in the armoured
windscreen. Fros is holding a
and, finally, 6./ZG 1. He was appointed Staffelkapitan of l./ZG 1 on
bandolier of flare cartridges in his
12 June 1942. By 25 May 1943 he had achieved 15 victories, and was hand, lt is believed he accounted
responsible for the destruction of hundreds of enemy vehicles as well for five Viermots shot down
as troop and gun positions and
locomotives in the East, for which
he was awarded the Knight’s Cross.
Leading II./ZG 1, Albrecht flew
operations over the Bay of Biscay,
and after defensive operations over
Austria from late 1943 to mid-1944,
he returned to Germany in July
1944, where his Gruppe converted
to the Bf 109 and was redesignated
as JG 76.
On 25 August, Albrecht became
yet another victim of Allied air
superiority when his Bf 109G-14 was
shot down over Normandy by enemy
fighters. He bailed out but was found
dead on the ground. Albrecht was
68 credited with 25 victories, of which
 'STOVEPIPES'
at least six are believed to have been Viermots, including two B-24s in one
day on 26 June 1944.
From March 1944, the sheer numbers of American escort fighters
outnumbered, outgunned and outperformed the Zerstorer. The first
major setback came on 16 March 1944 when ZG 76 lost a devastating
26 aircraft shot down by P-51s out of 43 in the air. The Mustangs had

AND
struck just as the Bf 110s were about to attack bombers in the Augsburg
area, and there was no time to form a defensive circle. III./ZG 76 never

DESTROYERS
flew a mission again and was disbanded. It was the beginning of the end
for the Zerstorer.
Ten days earlier, against the Eighth Air Force attack on Berlin, the
Luftwaffe had fielded a large G efechtsverband comprising a lead element
of 41 Bf 110s and Me 4 10s from II. and III./ZG 26 and I. and II./ZG 76.
Many of these aircraft were equipped with underwing batteries of four
21 cm mortars that were to be used to break up the approaching enemy
formation, followed by 72 Bf 109s and Fw 190s. However, Mustangs
dived out of the sun to intercept the German fighters, and in doing
so forced the Zerstorer to break off their attacks early. This caused many
of the mortar shells to explode way off target. By the end of the mission,
of the seven Bf 110s of III./ZG 26 that had gone into action, five had
been destroyed and the remaining two damaged. Eleven further Zerstorer
were destroyed and at least two more damaged.
But even at the eleventh hour there were isolated successes brought
about by the determination of the crews. During a major attack on
Budapest by the Fifteenth Air Force on 2 July 1944, having failed to
form up into a G efechtsverband, 20 Me 4 10s of I./ZG 76 nevertheless
attacked a lone combat wing of B-17s and claimed 13 shot down for the
loss of just one Me 410. In fact, the Fifteenth Air Force reported the loss
of only four B-17s, but others were badly damaged.
This was not enough, however, and as losses began to exceed successes,
from July 1944 the Gruppen of ZG 26 and ZG 76, as well as II./ZG 1,
A Bf 110G of III./ZG 26 stands ready
for its 21 cm WGr mortar tubes to were converted to new single-engined fighter Gruppen, thus fulfilling
be rearmed a long-felt wish of the Zerstorer crews themselves.

69
ALL-OUT DEFENCE
s we have already seen, the

A pilots of II./JG 1 fought

a determined and often
successful battle against the Viermots
during April 1944. But their
comrades in JG l ’s other Gruppen
were also active. Best illustrating this
is Hauptmann Alfred Grislawski,
who was Staffelkapitan of 8./JG 1.
On 9 April, this illustrious fighter
pilot, who had 121 victories to his
name (most of them scored over the
USSR while with JG 52) as well
as the Knight’s Cross, shot down
two B-17s over Schleswig during the
large attack on northeast Germany. Grislawski knew what was entailed Hauptmann Alfred Grislawski,
in fighting bombers - on three previous occasions he had brought down Staffelkapitan of l./J G 1, watches
a mechanic work on the wing of his
two Boeings in one day, but had been shot down himself and forced to Fw 190A-7 'W hite 9' at Dortmund in
bail out with wounds as recently as 24 January 1944 when hit by defensive January 1944. The aircraft is fitted
fire. But two days after his double in April, he was awarded the Oak Leaves with flame suppressors over the
engine-mounted 13 mm machine
and would go on to shoot down another three Viermots, taking his final
guns so that it could be flown on
total to 18. night operations. The fighter also
Also accounting for two Liberators and two Flying Fortresses in April boasts an armoured windscreen.
was Leutnant Walter Kohne of 3./JG 1. Of his 30 victories, half were This Focke-Wulf would be lost on
22 February 1944 in combat with
four-engined bombers scored between June 1943 and May 1944.
USAAF heavy bombers while being
On 12 April, to the west, Feldwebel Gerhard Vogt of 7./JG 26 led the piloted by Gefreiter Alfred Martini
scoring when he claimed two B-24s from the 445th BG over Belgium. of 2./JG 1
Awarded the Knight’s Cross in November 1944, he was killed exactly
a fortnight after the Bodenplatte New Year’s Day mass fighter operation
when his Fw 190D-9 was shot down by Allied fighters near Koln. Of
Vogt’s 48 victories, eight would be Viermots.
The Eighth Air Force lost 398 bombers to Luftwaffe fighters in March
and April 1944, compared with 361 in the first 12 months of its
operations. It seemed that the tactics adopted by the Germans were
working. Indeed, the total number of combats in the first four months
of 1944 was higher than any other similar period for the Eighth. One
Eighth Air Force report warned, ‘Even extensive escort cover cannot
prevent a relatively small but determined enemy fighter force from
avoiding or swamping the cover and attacking the bombers at some point
on the long formation’.
The Eighth had observed that between January and May 1944 the
number of tail attacks decreased, while nose attacks increased and that,
‘the introduction of chin and nose turrets was not reflected by any drop in
nose attacks. The trend towards nose attacks in this period may have been
because these turrets had not proved as dangerous to the enemy as he had
anticipated. The B-17 is apparently particularly vulnerable to nose attacks
which are level or high. The B-24 shows up particularly poorly against
nose attacks which are level or low - perhaps a result of fewer ball turrets
being flown’.
Increasingly during the spring of 1944, the principle of the large-scale
G efechstverband was being adopted by the Germans as a means with
which to tackle mass with mass. In this regard, the Gruppen of JG 3 often
flew into action alongside the heavily armed and armoured Fw 190s of
Sturmstaffel 1. On 8 April, a G efechtsverband comprising Sturmstaffel 1
and Stab, I., II. and IV./JG 3 was sent up to intercept bombers northwest
of Braunschweig. Launching a massed frontal attack over Fallersleben, a
massive air battle commenced, the sky swirling with American fighters,
Bf 109s and Fw 190s as the bombers lumbered on into their bomb
run.The Sturmstaffel attacked a box of Liberators, and within a matter of
minutes had shot down four of them, Leutnant Siegfried Muller claiming
his third victory. Muller had joined the Sturmstaffel from II./JG 51 in
Italy and went on to destroy nine four-engined bombers by the end of
1944, before joining JG 7 to fly the Me 262 in April 1945.
Meanwhile, on 15 April Galland visited the Geschwaderstab JG 3 and
IV./JG 3 at Salzwedel, accompanied by Hauptmannn Wilhelm Moritz.
Galland duly introduced him as the new K om m andeur of IV. Gruppe in
place of Major Friedrich-Karl Muller, who had been promoted to
Geschwaderkommodore. An experienced fighter pilot, Moritz had joined
JG 3 from 11./JG 51 in October 1943. He assumed command of a unit
that boasted many pilots with impressive victories against the Viermots.
One such individual was Leutnant Hans Iffland of 10./JG 3, who had
shot down two Liberators on 9 April followed by a pair of Flying
Fortresses on the 11th. Of Iffland’s eventual 18 victories, 16 would be
four-engined, before he was forced to bail out of his Fw 190 on 7 July
with severe wounds that prevented his return to operations.
Leutnant W illi Unger had not long been with 11./JG 3 after
completing his training when he accounted for four Viermots by 13 April,
while his Staffelkapitan, Leutnant Hans Weik, had claimed no fewer than
nine four-engined bombers by the end of March. In April Weik, who had
previously served as an instructor, continued to demonstrate a formidable
aptitude for anti-bomber operations when he shot down two B-17s on
the 24th as well as claiming an HSS. Weik would end the war credited
with 22 four-engined kills from a total of 36 victories.
Galland intended to convert IV./JG 3 into a fully-fledged Sturmgruppe
that would apply the tactical doctrine of the original Sturmstaffel but in
Gruppe strength. Reaction to this proposal was mixed and led to debate.
Many officers felt that it was unnecessary to sign documents of obligation
in the same way as the Sturmstaffel, let alone volunteer for tactics that
would involve ramming or court-martial, when those already employed
were achieving results as was demonstrated on 29 April during the USAAF
attack on Berlin (see Chapter Four).
That morning, Sturmstaffel 1 and IV./JG 3 took off together from
Salzwedel led by Weik. Once assembled with other Gruppen over
Magdeburg, the G efechtsverband headed towards Braunschweig. Shortly
before 1100 hrs, the formation sighted bombers and Weik turned his
aircraft to launch a frontal attack. Simultaneously, and in conformity with
tactical doctrine, the Sturmstaffel formed up for a rearward attack on another
 part of the formation, trusting in the protection of the
SIX

Fw 190’s armour-plated cockpits whilst closing in to

C HA P T E R

killing range.
By the time the G efechstverband had finished its
work, nine B-17s had gone down under the guns of
IV./JG 3, including two claims from Weik and one
each from Willi Unger and his comrade in 1 l./JG 3,
Unteroffizier Walter Loos. Loos had been posted to
1 l./JG 3 in January 1944 and scored his
on 6 March. He would go on to account for another
eight HSS and five four-engined bombers shot down,
including six in the month of April 1944. Loos later
moved to Stab IJG 300, where he flew as wingman
Oberfeldwebel W alter Loos in the to Walter Dahl, and then Stab!JG 301. Of his eventual 38 victories,
cockpit of Fw 190A-8 'Blue 14' of 22 were Viermots. Weik, Unger and Loos would all be awarded the
Stab/JG 300. Loos was posted to
11./JG 3 in January 1944 and scored
Knight’s Cross later in the war. For its part, the Sturm stajfel had
his first Herausschuss on 6 March. accounted for a further 13 Flying Fortresses on the 29th.
He would go on to account for The intensity of the air fighting in April 1944 saw a host of
another eight Herausschuss and ‘bomber-killers’ rise to the fore. Flying alongside the aforementioned trio
five four-engined bombers shot
down. He later moved to
from IV./JG 3 on 29 April was Feldwebel Hans Schafer of 10. Staffel, who
Stab/JG 300 and then Stab/JG 301. ‘cut out’ a Viermot from its formation and claimed four more as either shot
Loos was awarded the Knight's down or HSS during that month. Of his final score of 18 victories, 12 would
Cross on 20 April 1945 and of his
be four-engined. His Staffel-mate, Feldwebel Walter Hagenah, downed a
38 victories, 22 were Viermots
B-17 and claimed an HSS on the 18th over Nauen for his ninth and tenth
victories. Hagenah had flown in the East with 2./JG 3 and had shot down
two Il-2s within three minutes west of Stalingrad on 14 October 1942.
By war’s end he was flying the Me 262 with III./JG 7 and is accredited with
Eastern Front Experte 17 victories, including nine Viermots.
Oberfeldwebel Helmut Riiffler of
Others making their mark in JG 3 included Oberfeldwebel Helmut
4./JG 3 (left) commenced operations
in the defence of the Reich in Riiffler of 4. Staffel, who downed a pair of Flying Fortresses on the 19th
September 1943 and ended the war for his 57th and 58th kills. Another veteran of Barbarossa, Riiffler had
with eight confirmed four-engined accumulated 50 of his 88 victories in the East, including many multiple
kills. He is seen here posing with
Gefreiter Hans Kupka and the
kills. His best day was 28 October 1942, when he was credited with
latter's Bf 109G-6 'W hite 13' at three Il-2s and two LaGG-3s shot down that morning. Riiffler was himself
Rotenburg in February 1944 shot down over Normandy following combat with P-5 Is on 18 July 1944
and wounded, but he returned to flying and converted
onto the Me 262. The last weeks of the war found
him commanding 9./JG 51, however. He is believed
to have had eight four-engine victories.
Unteroffizier Oskar Bosch joined 11 ./JG 3 in early
May when it absorbed Sturmstaffel 1, which he had
joined just before that unit’s dissolution. Bosch shot
down two B-17s over Gifhorn and Helmstedt while
with the Sturmstaffel on 29 April, the day after his
(hasty) training on the Fw 190A-8! All eight of his
confirmed victories in 1944 were Viermots, six of them
B-17s and two Liberators. He recalled;
‘Every day was a struggle to stay alive. We weren’t
after awards. The best award was to come back at the
end of the day. We were outnumbered ten,
72 sometimes twenty-to-one and we got tired, very tired,
 ALL- OUT
but we kept going. We had to. In
the beginning, attacking bombers
was almost “easy”. It was exciting.
Your adrenalin really pumped.

DEFENCE
Everybody had their own tactics,
their own tricks, but generally
we attacked from behind at about
500 metres above the formation,
opening fire at 400 metres. The
air was thin at 7000 metres, and
often there was turbulence behind
the bombers — this made our
approach difficult.
‘We always went in line abreast. If you went in singly, all the bombers Feldwebel Oskar Bosch of
shot at you with their defensive firepower. You drew fire from the waist 14.(Sfi/rm )/JG 3 stands on the
wing of his Fw 190A-8/R2 'Black 14'
gunners. But as an attackform ation, the psychological effect on the bomber at Schongau in August 1944. The
gunners was much greater. First of all you tried to knock out the tail aircraft is fitted w ith armoured
gunner. Then you went for the intersection between wing and fuselage panels on the cockpit sides and
and you just kept at it, watching your hits flare and flare again. It all armoured glass to the canopy
sides intended for defence during
happened so quickly. You gave it all you had. Sometimes, after the first close-range attacks on enemy
attack, all your energy seemed to go. Your nerves were burnt out.’ bomber formations
On 29 April, IV./JG 3, under the command of Wilhelm Moritz, was
officially redesignated IV.(Sturm)/JG 3. Sturmstaffel 1 was dissolved and
its pilots and groundcrews formed the nucleus of 11 .(Sturm)/JG 3, led by
Leutnant Werner Gerth. The Gruppe replaced its Bf 109G-6s with more
heavily armed and armoured Fw 190A-8s, an aircraft considered to be
better suited for work as a close-range Sturmjager.
The Fw 190A-8/R2 featured two MG 151 cannon installed in
the wingroots and two 30 mm MK 108 cannon in the wings. The
cowl-mounted MG 131 machine guns fitted to the standard A-8 were
removed to reduce weight and the empty gun troughs and slots left by their
removal were covered with armoured plate. Additionally, a panel of 6 mm
armoured glass was mounted on each side of the cockpit canopy, and a
sheet of 6 mm armour plate, extending from the lower edge of the cockpit
canopy to the wing root, was mounted externally on either side of the
fuselage to protect the pilot from lateral fire. Another armoured panel on
the underside of the aircraft protected the pilot’s seat to a point sufficiently
forward to cover the feet and legs.
Another pilot to enjoy success in April 1944 was Oberfeldwebel
Herbert Rollwage of 5./JG 53, who claimed six bombers. He had joined
the Luftwaffe in 1936 and subsequently flown with JG 53 over the Soviet
Union and the Mediterranean in 1941—42. One of his earliest encounters
against B-17s over Tunisia in March 1943 saw him shot down by escorting
Spitfires. From the summer of 1943, however, beginning in the air action
over Sicily, Rollwage started to take his toll of heavy bombers. He was
awarded the Knight’s Cross in August 1944 and, promoted to leutnant,
was given command of 5./JG 53. There is some debate as to Rollwage’s
final scores, but it is believed that he achieved between 80-100 victories
of which 14 were confirmed four-engined kills.
Exceeding Rollwage’s count in April was Oberleutnant Hans-Heinrich
Koenig. The tenacious Koenig had lost an eye in a night engagement with 73
an RAF bomber while flying as a
nightfighter pilot with NJG 3 in
June 1942. Once he had recovered,
Koenig transferred to day fighters
and shot down his first B-24 on
4 October of that year. Made
Staffelkapitan of 3./JG 11, he went
on to increase his score, claiming
six Viermots in March 1944 and eight
in April, including four bombers on
the 29th. In May Koenig became
Kommandeur of I./JG 11, but on the
24th, his fighter was hit by fire from
a B-17 and exploded. The force
of the blast ripped a wing off the
bomber, and both machines crashed
to the earth. Koenig was awarded the Knight’s Cross posthumously with 5./JG 53's Leutnant Herbert
a score of 28 victories, including 20 Viermots. Rollwage is adorned with a wreath
as he sits in the cockpit of his Bf 109
The loss sheet for April included Hauptmann Hans Remmer,
on a Sicilian airfield following his
commander of 1./JG 27. He had attacked B-24s of the Fifteenth Air Force 300th mission against the enemy
over Graz, in Austria, on the 2nd and shot one down over Jiidenburg, on 8 August 1942, during which he
but his Bf 109G-6 was hit by defensive fire and upon bailing out, his shot down a Spitfire over Malta for
his 29th victory. By this stage of the
parachute failed to deploy and he fell to his death. Remmer had accounted war Rollwage had yet to make his
for 16 kills over North Africa, including a Brewster Buffalo, Hurricanes, presence felt in the battle against the
Wellingtons and P-40s. In his final tally of 27 victories, nine were bombers, and his first such victory
four-engined. He was awarded the Knight’s Cross posthumously. would not come until 9 June 1943.
Rollwage survived the war, and
From JG 3, Oberleutnant Otto Wessling, Staffelkapitan of 11. Staffel, although his confirmed kill tally is
was killed on 19 April when he made an emergency landing in his not known, he flew 664 missions
burning Bf 109G-6 near Eschwege following operations against heavily in which he was credited with
71 victories, lt is thought his final
escorted bombers in the Gottingen/Kassel area. He had been awarded
total may be between 80 and 85.
the Knight’s Cross in September 1942 and the Oak Leaves were awarded Rollwage is believed to have
posthumously. Wessling had claimed 12 bombers in his total of 83 kills. accounted for at least 14 four-
On 20 May 1944, Anton Hackl, Gruppenkommandeur of III./JG 11, engined kills. He was awarded the
Oak Leaves on 24 January 1945
informed Galland in writing of his belief that the key to tackling bombers
was ‘to attack as late as possible, causing bombers to jettison even though
a late approach excludes the possibility of a second operation, or to attack
as early as possible, thus allowing Gruppe after Gruppe to attack at minute
intervals. Allied fighter relief would then be forced to deal with the main
body of attacking elements, one after the other, necessitating a splitting
of forces, and would not be in a position to hamper individual Gruppen
making repeated frontal attacks’.
Since the first daylight raid on Berlin in March 1944, there had been
pressure on the Jagdwaffe to improve control of its Gruppen based across
the Reich so as to launch quick, concentrated responses to the American
bombers. Galland proposed the formation of a special G efechtsverband
command to be known as the Jagdgeschw ader zur besonderen Verwendung
(JGzbV) that would oversee a number of Jagdgruppen in southern
Germany, and which would operate as a cohesive force with the prime
role of attacking bombers from both the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces.
On 23 April, Major Gerhard Michalski, the Kom m andeur of II./JG 53
and a veteran jagdflieger of the Mediterranean Front who wore the Knight’s
 Cross, was appointed to set up the

\
Stab JGzbV at Kassel. Michalski
had downed his first Flying Fortress
over Tunisia on 2 March 1943,
although it was unconfirmed.
Following his return to the Reich,
by the end of April 1944 he had
claimed six B-17s and three B-24s
destroyed. On 1 May however,
just after his appointment, Michalski
was wounded, and Galland asked
Major Walter Dahl if he would lead
the JGzbV.
Dahl, CO of Bf 109-equipped
III./JG 3 (one of the most successful
units in the R eichsverteidigung), had
The view from the BSK 16 gun fought over Russia with II./JG 3 since the start of Barbarossa, with a brief
camera in the Fw 190A-8 of interlude in the Mediterranean. By the spring of 1943 he had 50 victories
Oberfeldwebel Gerhard Marburg
of Sturmstaffel 1 at the moment he
to his credit. In the summer of 1943 Dahl took command of III./JG 3
made a frontal approach on a Pulk in Russia, but in early August the Gruppe was posted back to Germany
of B-24s at 1012 hrs on 8 May 1944 and engaged in Reich defence. From here on Dahl was to earn himself
during an attack by the USAAF'S a formidable reputation as a tactical exponent in the war against the
2nd BD on Braunschweig. In this still,
Marburg's targeted Liberator has
bombers. On 11 March he was awarded the Knight’s Cross in
been ringed at a range of 200 metres. recognition of his 64 victories, amongst which were nine B-17s.
Marburg was flying at an altitude of Dahl agreed to Galland’s request and put things into immediate effect.
6500 metres at the time, closing on
He established a headquarters for the new JGzbV at Ansbach and was
the B-24 before opening fire with his
MG 151 20 mm cannon. He was
assigned five Jagdgruppen - III./JG 3 at Ansbach, I./JG 5 (equipped with
credited with his sixth victory high-altitude Bf 109G-6/ASs for the escort fighter role) at Herzogenaurach,
following this mission II./JG 27 at Unterschlauersbach, II./JG 53 at Frankfurt-Eschborn and
III./JG 54 at Liineburg.
Meanwhile, several senior fighter commanders were leading by
example. Oberstleutnant Gustav Rodel, the K om m odore of JG 27 (and
also a Legion Condor veteran and holder of the Oak Leaves to the Knight’s
Cross), would shoot down three bombers in May, including two B-17s
on the 12th. Suriving the war with 98 victories to his name, which
including 12 Viermots, Rodel recalled;
‘I flew and survived more than 1000 missions, but attacking
Left
Hauptmann Dr Peter Werfft,
four-engined bombers flying in formation still remains a nightmare in my
Gruppenkommandeur of III./JG 27. memory. Each attack had a different pattern. There were too many odds and
He was awarded the Knight's Cross unknown factors during an approach such as weather, the counter-action
on 28 January 1945 and is credited
of the fighter escort and the difficulty in manoeuvring in a large formation.
with 24 victories, of which 14 were
Viermots. On 19 May 1944, while
The sole aim of the flight leader was to get his formation into a position
Staffelkapitan of 9./JG 27, he shot that allowed a virtual collision-course attack. Thereafter, it was every pilot
down tw o B-24s east of Helmstedt for himself.’
for his 21st and 22nd victories, but
On 24 May Dahl’s JGzbV grouping flew its first major operation
his Bf 109G-6 was attacked by US
fighters as he flew to Gardelegen against the enemy in which a successful engagement was made against
to refuel and re-arm, and he was some of the 517 B-17s that set out to bomb Berlin under the cover of
severely wounded. Werfft did not nearly 400 escort fighters. Bounced by P-51s over Rangsdorf, the German
return to operational service until
force, believed to have included elements of II./JG 27, II./JG 53 and
November, when he took over
command of III. Gruppe from III./JG 54, engaged in a vast, fighter-versus-fighter battle, although a few
Oberleutnant Franz Stigler aircraft did manage to break through to the bombers. The Fw 190s of
 A Bf 109G-6 is checked by a member
SIX

of the groundcrew in its forested

dispersal in the summer of 1944.
CHA P T E R

The fighter is equipped with

underwing 20 mm MG 151 cannon
designed for use against four-
engined bombers. While effective
against Viermots, the MG 151
installation meant that the aircraft
was not as adept in combat against
Allied escort fighters

III./JG 54 accounted for ten B-17s (including three HSS). Thirty-three

B-17s were lost and a further 256 damaged. Dahl sent an ebullient report
of events to Galland.
Three days later, the 3rd BD despatched 102 B-17s to bomb aircraft
industry targets and a marshalling yard at Strasbourg, in France, and
a further 98 Flying Fortresses to strike a railway yard in Karlsruhe. The
JGzbV ordered I./JG 5 airborne at 1100 hrs to intercept the bombers
Unteroffizier Willi Unger, an
heading for Strasbourg, while at 1130 hrs III./JG 3 sent 21 Bf 109s to
accomplished Sturmgruppe pilot of
Karlsruhe. Oberfeldwebel Georg Strobele claimed a B-17 destroyed and 12./JG 3, sits on the engine cowling
Hauptmann Karl-Heinz Langer a Herausschuss. Operating together, of his Fw 190A-8/R2 'Yellow 17' at
II./JG 27 and II./JG 53 engaged B-17s near Nancy. The former Gruppe Barth in May 1944. The first 21 of
Willi Unger's 24 confirmed victories
managed to destroy two Mustangs and a B-17, while II./JG 53’s Herbert were four-engined bombers. He was
Rollwage claimed one of the unit’s score of three B-17s and a P-51. But awarded the Knight's Cross on
II./JG 27 lost three pilots and six Bf 109s to enemy action. 23 October 1944
Throughout May, the Luftwaffe found it
increasingly difficult to concentrate its forces against
large-scale American raids as its units were scattered
across the Reich. This in turn meant that they had to
fly great distances to reach the bombers and required
long periods to assemble into G efechtvervbande.
Consequently, German fighters were often late in
intercepting the Viermots, or were forced to land early
as a result of fuel shortage. Willi Unger recalled;
‘The operational bases of our fighter units in the
R eichsverteidigung were spread all over Germany.
Attempts to maintain strength at critical times and
in critical areas were made by the rapid redeployment
of fighters to northern or southern Germany. Several
Gruppen would combine together in the air from
various airfields and were then led together from the
ground to attack the approaching bombers. This
did not always work. The bombers often “cheated”,
flew towards one town, then changed their course
and bombed a completely different target. As the
flying endurance of our fighters with an auxiliary
76 drop tank was maximum 2.5 hours, we were often
 ALL- OUT
forced to break off. There is no question of German fighters having the
advantage —only disadvantages, since the numbers of American escort
fighters were far superior to us and they also operated at higher altitude,
again to our disadvantage.’

DEFENCE
On 29 May, in response to a raid by the Fifteenth Air Force on the
Messerschmitt works at Wiener-Neustadt, a lack of radio communication
within a Gefechtsverband comprising W.(Sturm) /JG 3 and elements from
JG 300, which had just started large-scale daylight operations, led to
confusion and the break up of the formation. Amidst the confusion, the
Bf 109G-6 flown by Major Friedrich-Karl Muller, K om m odore of JG 3,
collided with another machine and was forced to crash-land at Salzwedel,
stalling in from a height of 15 metres. ‘Tutti’ Muller was killed in the
crash. Having flown some 600 missions, his death added to the growing
list of valued formation leaders who had been killed defending the
German homeland.
Muller was a veteran of the Kanalkampf, before being posted to Russia.
In the latter theatre in mid-1942, while flying with l./JG 53, he had
enjoyed several days of multiple kills, including six Il-2s on 9 September
and seven enemy aircraft in one day on the 18th. Following the award of
the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross and a tour of duty in North Africa
as K om m andeur of I./JG 53, the exhausted Muller was given extended
leave, but on 26 February 1944 he was appointed to command JG 3 in the
Reich and returned to old form. He had shot down his first B-17 over
Africa on 31 January 1943, and between 6 March 1944 and 24 April 1944,
all 18 of his victims were heavy bombers —eleven B-17s and seven B-24s.
Muller had been mentioned in the official W ehrmacht bulletin for
18 April when IV./JG 3 had claimed 19 B- 17s destroyed during a raid on
Berlin. In May he would shoot down another four bombers, including two
on the 12th. By the time of his death Muller’s tally stood at 140 victories,
Three leading Sturmgruppe officers
including 23 Viermots, placing him amongst the highest scorers. in discussion at Memmingen
Muller’s successor at the head of JG 3, Wilhelm Moritz, quickly following the Allied bombing
displayed a proficiency for anti-bomber work too, embarking on a run of attacks on the airfield on 18 and 20
July 1944. From left to right are
five Herrauschiisse from 29 April to 13 May 1944, with two on the 8th
Hauptmann Heinz Lang (Chief of the
and two on the 13th, resulting in a total of 39 victories. He was awarded Stabskompanie, IV./JG 3) and
the Knight’s Cross on 18 July and went on to account for at least another Majors W alter Dahl (Kommodore of
five Viermots destroyed. JG 300) and Wilhelm Moritz
(Kommandeur of IV./JG 3).
In the flying ranks of JG 3, Leutnant Rudolf Metz of 11. Staffel had Together, Dahl and Moritz would
excelled himself on 12 May when the USAAF bombed synthetic fuel account for more than 40 Viermots
production plants and he accounted for three HSS in eight minutes over shot down
the Nidda/Sulzbach area. Moving to 6./JG 4 on
30 July, he shot down another five Viermots to achieve
a final score of ten victories before he was killed
in action on 11 November 1944. Posthumously
awarded the Ehrenpokal (Honour Goblet), Metz was
one of a handful of pilots who held the distinction
of all of their victims being four-engined bombers.
In mid-May 1944, von Kornatzki was ordered
to set up \\.(Sturm)/JG 4 at Salzwedel and Welzow.
Formed around a solid core of pilots from
Sturmstaffel 1 who understood what was required
of them, the Gruppe had to wait until late July to 77
 receive its first Fw 190A-8/R2s,
and for most of the summer its 0m
personnel underwent conversion
and tactical training.
A third Sturm gruppe had also
begun forming up that month when
4. and 5. Staffeln of the single-seat
Wilde Sau nightfighter Gruppe,
II./JG 300 commenced conversion
to the day fighter role, together with
I. and III./JG 300. II./JG 300 took
delivery of Fw 190A-8/R2s, while
I. and III. Gruppen kept their
Bf 109s for the escort role.
In late June 1944 Walther Dahl
relinquished command of his
Jagdgeschw ader z.b. Vand was appointed Kom m odore of JG 300. Within Leutnant Rudolf M etz (left) is
II./JG 300, Dahl was able to draw on a number of battle-hardened pilots, seen here with a member of his
groundcrew whilst serving with
and the new Sturmgruppe was designated \\.(Sturm)l]G 300 in July 1944. I./JG 5 in Norway in 1943. Following
By 4 August, the conversion and training of the unit as a Sturmgruppe a period with Sturmstaffel 1 in the
was complete. spring of 1944, he was assigned to
Following the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June, the bulk of the I I . /JG 3 in May. Metz shot down
three Flying Fortresses on 12 May
German daylight fighter force was sent to France, but there was still the 1944 and tw o Liberators on
need to provide an effective defence over the Reich. Three days after the 27 September
invasion, the Wilde Sau unit I./JG 302 clashed over Landshut with some
of the 500 B-17s and B-24s of the Fifteenth Air Force that had been sent
to bomb ammunition and aircraft industry targets around Munich.
Hauptmann Heinrich Wurzer, Staffelkapitan of l./JG 302, shot down
two B-24s from the 49th BW in 12 minutes for his 21st and 22nd victories.
Indeed, Wurzer’s scoring pattern had seemed founded on ‘double-scores’,
with two Viermots falling to him on 6 and 8 March, 9 April and 10 and
24 May. He would continue with this pattern on 16 June and 8 July,
finally claiming 23 four-engined bombers, making him one of the
Jagdwaffe’s top scorers.
Oberfeldwebel Artur GroE of 2./JG 302 accounted for three of the
Liberators over Landshut on 9 June. Like Rudolf Metz of JG 3, all of
Grog’s victims (11 in total) were four-engined bombers.
Leutnant Ernst-Erich Hirschfeld of 5./JG 300, a successful Wilde Sau
pilot, had shot down nine Viermots at night between August 1943 and
February 1944. In June 1944 all of his seven kills were four-engined
bombers, including three Liberators in one day over Berlin on the
21st and two more on the 26th. Flying on the 21st with Hirschfeld was
Feldwebel Hubert Engst also of 5. Staffel, who brought down a pair of
B-24s in ten minutes - just two of 20 Viermots he accounted for. Engst
survived the war, but just over a month after his June ‘triple’, on 28 July,
Hirschfeld (by then the Staffelkapitan of 6./JG 300, bailed out after
attacking bombers near Erfurt. His parachute failed to open and he was
killed. Hirschfeld had by then claimed 24 victories.
Counteracting such successes were the losses being sustained in the
fighter-versus-fighter cauldron of Normandy, which included valued
formation leaders and pilots who were proficient in missions against
 bombers, but who had been thrown against the invasion forces. This

ALL- OUT
included Austrian Leutnant Anton-Rudolf Piffer of l./JG 1. Of his
35 victories, no fewer than 26 were four-engined bombers claimed in the
12 months between June 1943 and June 1944 —including single B-17s

DEFENCE
downed on three consecutive days in October 1943 and two in one
day on 30 January 1944. ‘Toni’ Piffer lost his life when attacked by
US fighters over France on 17 June 1944. He was awarded the Knight’s
Cross posthumously on 20 October.
On 7 July the Eighth Air Force sent 939 B-17s and B-24s, escorted by
more than 650 fighters, to attack a range of aircraft and synthetic oil plants
in central Germany, and this time the defenders would inflict a devastating
blow on the Americans. At 0935 hrs, as the Liberators of the 492nd BG
approached Oschersleben from the west, a Gefechtsverband led by Walther
Dahl, comprising 44 Fw 190A-8s of Wilhelm Moritz’ Y\f.(Sturm)/JG 3
from Illesheim, escorted by Bf 109G-10s from I. and III./JG 300, evaded
the fighter escort and closed in on the group’s Low Squadron. Initially it had
been planned to make a frontal attack against the bombers, but this
was changed to a rear attack, made at 0940 hrs at an altitude of 5600 metres
over Oschersleben.
Despite the massed defensive fire, the Fw 190s spread across the sky line
abreast in a formidable broad front and closed to 100 metres before opening
fire. It took the Sturmbocke about a minute to shoot down 11 Liberators -
an entire squadron. When the B-24s of the 2nd AD returned home, 28 of
their number had been lost, most of them to the Sturmgruppe, which had
lost nine of its own aircraft in the attack. Altogether, the Eighth Air Force
lost 37 heavy bombers, with a further 390 damaged, during the day’s raid.
Prominent in the attack was Leutnant Werner Gerth, Staffelkapitan of
1 \.(Sturm)/JG 3 (later 14.(Sturm)/]G 3) who claimed his 13th and
Fw 190A-8 'W hite 21' of Feldwebel 14th victories within one minute. He would down five Viermots during the
Fritz Buchholz of II./JG 6 sits on month. In the summer of 1943 Gerth was posted to 7./JG 53 in Italy but,
the apron outside a hangar at having recovered from wounds sustained there, he volunteered for
Konigsberg-Neumark, on the doors
Sturmstaffel 1 in January 1944, and duly became one of the unit’s most
of which has been painted a full-size
frontal rendition of a B-17. The successful pilots. Of Gerth’s 27 confirmed victories, 22 were four-engined
Gruppe was formed from the bombers, several of them multiple victories claimed in one day. His
Me 410-equipped II./ZG 26 in the Fw 190A-8/R2 was hit by defensive fire from a B-17 over Halle on
summer of 1944. Buchholz had
previously flown the twin-engined
2 November 1944 and he bailed out, but his parachute failed to open and he
Me 410 fitted with the 5 cm BK was killed. Gerth had been shot down 12 times previously and survived.
cannon He received a posthumous German Cross in Gold on 1 January 1945 and
was promoted to hauptmann.
Blasting a Liberator from the sky
at 0942 hrs — exactly the same
moment as Gerth - was Willi Unger
of 12.(Sturm)/JG 3, who reported;
‘I opened fire from 600 metres on
a Liberator in the middle of the
formation, and after the first burst
the right wing and both right
engines began to burn. With further
continuous fire up to a range of
350metres, the enemy machine
veered to the right. A real fireball 79
 wrapped around the fuselage as well as the right wing,
SIX

the machine tilted further to the right and immediately

CHA P T E R

the enemy machine burned up. I could not see the

ground impact as I went to approach a second
Liberator, which I attacked and shot down.’
Indeed, as Unger recorded;
‘During a Sturm attack on a Liberator Pulk of some
25 machines, I was able to fire at a second Liberator
flying in the right half of the Pulk immediately after
my first shoot-down. Because of my alignment it
was possible to attack the second Liberator. From about
300 metres, I opened continuous fire up to 100 metres.
The hits went into the centre fuselage and tail assembly.
The rear gunner was hit and pieces flew away from the
tail unit. The Liberator immediately went into a
downwards spiral to the right. As I made my exit past
the enemy machine, two to four parachutes opened.’
The two Liberators smashed into the ground near
Oschersleben at 0942 and 0943 hrs. Like Gerth,
Unger had scored his 10th and 11th victories within
one minute of each other.
On 15 August \\.(Sturm)l]G 300 received its baptism of fire. The Feldwebel Otto Erhardt of 10./JG 3
Eighth Air Force had used the perfect summer weather to despatch a force brings his Fw 190A-8 in to within
70 metres of a B-24 as he presses
of nearly 900 B-17s and B-24s to bomb a range of airfield targets across home a rear attack during the
Germany. At Bad Worishofen, Walther Dahl placed his 100+ available USAAF raids on aircraft industry and
fighters on readiness and drew up plans for a G efechtsverband comprising synthetic oil targets on 7 July 1944.
the Geschwaderstabsschwarm and I./JG 300 at Bad Worishofen (the latter This would be Erhardt's eighth
victory
unit formed of Bf 109G-10/l4s in the high-altitude escort role),
\\.(Sturm)l]G 300 at Holzkirchen and W.(Sturm)/]G 3 at Schongau.
Within two hours Dahl was airborne, accompanied by the 30 Bf 109s
of I./JG 300 as escort. The formation headed south to Augsburg, where
it made a textbook rendezvous with the 30 Fw 190s of the two
Sturmgruppen just after 1000 hrs. Under radio silence at 7000 metres, and
with Dahl at the head of a great wedge-shaped battle formation, the
German fighters turned towards Frankfurt, some 260 km away.
IV. (Sturm)/JG 3’s Fw 190s were flying in two stacked down ‘Vees’ or
(S turmkeil\ each - theoretically - comprised of eight to ten aircraft
(depending on serviceability), the second formation flying 140-180 metres
behind and about 45 metres below the lead formation.
Meanwhile, the Bf 109 escorts were split on either side of the
Sturmgruppe, stacked up from front to rear. Another, smaller escort flew
high cover some 900 metres above the rearmost aircraft of the second
Vee. The Bf 109s flew in a sufficiently loose formation to avoid slipstream
and allow aircraft to weave without the risk of collision.
Thirty minutes later, the fighter controllers ordered a change in course
to Trier, 150 km further west. After one hour of flying in slowly
deteriorating weather, the G efechtsverband finally sighted three Pulks
of 60-80 B-17s west of the Mosel River. Just before 1145 hrs, Dahl
manoeuvred his Angriffskeil for a classic attack from the rear, with Moritz’
IV. (Sturm)/JG 3 heading for the Pulk that was flying to his left and
80 \\.(Sturm)l]G 300, led by 5. Staffel commander Leutnant Klaus
 Bretschneider, going for the bombers to the right. Dahl and the

ALL- OUT
Stabsschwarm would tackle the centre Pulk.
Within sight of the enemy bomber formation, and some 90-150 metres
above and 900-1520 metres behind it, the Sturmgruppe dropped its external

DEFENCE
tanks, then reformated from its Vee formation into its line abreast
Angriffsformation (attack formation) or Breitkeil. This was carried out by
climbing where necessary and fanning out into a slightly swept-back line
abreast formation of usually more than 20 fighters, either level with
or slightly above the enemy, with the commander of the Gruppe and his
deputy flying at its apex.
In a dramatic, though somewhat embellished, account to Allied
interrogators in September 1945, Dahl described a Sturm attack;
‘Upon sighting the enemy bomber formation, the formation leader gives
the signal to attack by rocking his wings or by radio. The wings of the Vies
(Keil) now pull up until the aircraft are in line abreast, with the formation
leader throttling back slightly so the others can catch up. The approach is
made from behind and the fighters attack in a line, the formation leader
dividing up the target according to the formation of the bombers. Open
fire from the shortest possible range, about 370 metres, during the approach
with all weapons simultaneously, firing bursts until close enough to ram.
If no victory is yet scored, ramming should result by crashing against the
bomber’s tail with prop or wings.
‘Exit should be made from the formation to the side and down and
A pilot catches up with his rest on reassemble at the same altitude, with the bombers about 2750 metres to
the grass beside Fw 190A-8 'W hite
the side and 1000 metres below. The basic principle to be observed in
5' of \\.(Sturm)/JG 300 at
Holzkirchen in late August 1944. The reassembling is that the assembly is to be made on the same side from
aircraft is fitted with armoured glass which the entry into the bomber stream was made. The advantage thus
side windscreen panels as well as gained is that the escort Gruppen are on the right side after the attack to
armoured panels on either side of
the cockpit. A parachute is ready
protect the reassembly of the Sturmgruppen without having to change
on the wing of 'W hite 10', the next sides. If little or no fighter opposition is encountered, a second attack
aircraft in line can be carried out by the Sturmgruppe.’

81
 In one pass, the combined JG 3/JG 300 attack shot down or ‘cut out’
SIX

13 B-17s of the 303rd BG near Trier. Dahl claimed two Flying

C HA P T E R

Fortresses, while another bomber fell to Berliner Klaus Bretschneider,

who would go on to claim a total of 17 Viermots, including three in one
day on 7 October, before being shot down and killed by a P-51 while
flying against bombers near Kassel on 24 December.
Bretschneider’s Staffel-mate, Feldwebel Konrad Bauer, also claimed
a B-17 for his 13th Viermot. ‘Pitt’ Bauer was a ferocious attack pilot who
had shot down three B-24s of the Fifteenth Air Force over Hungary on
27 July 1944. He finally accounted for 14 four-engined bombers out of a
total of 39 victories. Bauer, who had been shot down seven times himself
and lost two fingers from his right hand while in combat with Mustangs,
received the Knight’s Cross on 31 October 1944.
Also victorious on 15 August was Oberleutnant Ekkehard Tichy from
the Sudetenland and Kapitdn of \3.(Sturm)l]G 3, who shot down a Flying
Fortress. Tichy had been wounded in one of his eyes during a clash
with escort fighters on 18 March 1944 while with 9./JG 3. He returned to
duty, however, having shot down eight Viermots, but on 16 August he shot
down his 25th, and final, victory - a B-17 —with which he collided, possibly
as a result of his impaired vision. Tichy was killed. He was posthumously
Leutnant Klaus Neumann had been awarded the Knight’s Cross.
awarded the Knight's Cross by Hitler Viermot aces continued to emerge, with Feldwebel Willi Reschke of
in December 1944 for his operations
against American heavy bombers.
l./JG 302 knocking down seven bombers in July and six in August, while
W hile flying w ith IV.(Sfurm )/JG 3, Unteroffizer Klaus Neumann of 16. (Sturm)/JG 3 accounted for eight in
he was accredited w ith 17 Viermots August and five in September. On 27 September, the Staffelkapitan of
shot down. In 1945 Neumann flew \5.(Sturm)l]G 3, Leutnant Oskar Romm, shot down three B-24s over
Me 262s w ith JG 7 and JV 44
Eschwege, while Feldwebel Willi Maximowitz of 14. (Sturm)/JG 3
(a Sturmstaffel 1 veteran) shot down a pair of B-17s on 2 November. These
four pilots alone would account for 62 four-engined bombers by the end
of the war.
A report produced by the Eighth Air Force in November 1944 warned;
Leutnant Oskar Romm flew with ‘It would be a mistake to conclude that the enemy fighter problem has
I./J G 51 over Russia from late 1942
beenlicked when the average number of bombers lost per month in the
to June 1944, w ith whom he shot
down 76 Soviet aircraft. He was
first eightmonths of 1944 was more than twice that for the last eight
awarded the Knight's Cross on 29 months of 1943.’
February and transferred to But despite these hard-won
I I . (Sturm )/JG 3, before being
successes, time was running out for
appointed Staffelkapitan of
12.(Sturm )/JG 3 on 7 July - a post the Jagdwaffe. From the autumn of
he held until November, when he 1944, however hard the Germans
became leader of 4./JG 3. After a fought, they were unable to stop
period with the Stabsschwarm of
the endless maelstrom of Allied air
l./EJG 1, Romm returned to
command 12.(Sturm )/JG 3, before superiority. Allied bombs continued
being apointed Kommandeur of to rain down on the Reich.
IV./JG 3 on 17 February 1945, taking Paradoxically, the same month as
over from Major Erwin Bacsila,
formerly of S turm staffeH . He
the Eighth Air Force report was
recorded 92 victories, of which eight published, in an address to the
were Viermots scored while with OKL, the Kommandeur ofl./JG 300,
JG 3. After 283 combat missions, Major Gerhard Stamp, summarised
Romm was injured in a crash-
landing following combat with ll-2s
that, ‘The problem of the air defence
on 24 April 1945, this incident of the Reich is at present not so much
82 ending his flying career a question of how to concentrate our
 fighter strength but of how to attack effectively the enemy’s fighter cover,

ALL- OUT
and thus be able to strike at the bombers, and of how our own fighter losses
can, at the same time, be reduced’.
That objective would prove challenging in the months ahead - especially

DEFENCE
when the RAF joined the USAAF in bombing Germany by day from the
autumn of 1944. The first half of December had seen 136 pilots lost in
home defence operations, but in the week 23-31 December, German fighter
losses on the Western Front were 316 pilots killed or missing.
On 12 December, 140 Lancasters of Bomber Command’s No 3 Group
attacked the Ruhrstahl steel works at Witten, southwest of Dortmund,
escorted by 90 Mustangs of the RAF’s No 11 Group. Along with
IV./JG 27, I./JG 3 was sent to intercept the British raid and posted claims
for 13 Lancasters shot down, including two for Leutnant Franz Ruhl,
a long-serving member of 4. Staffel. These represented his 36th and
37th victories. Ruhl had shot down his first enemy aircraft in Russia on
10 March 1943 when he claimed an 11-2 destroyed. The second Lancaster
on 12 December would be his last confirmed victory, for on Christmas Eve
Ruhl’s Bf 109G-10 was shot down by US fighters over the Schneeifel and
the pilot was killed when it exploded.
But these were eleventh-hour pinpricks for the Allies. Over Christmas
in the area of Luftwaffenkommando West, the units assigned to the Ardennes
offensive reported in excess of260 casualties. It was a level of attrition that
could not be sustained.
In attempting to intercept the American raids against industrial and
fuel targets in northern and central Germany on 14 February 1945, the
Jagdwaffe lost 107 pilots killed or missing, with another 32 wounded,
the heaviest casualties being borne over the Elbe and the Havel by JG 300
and JG 301. Losses amongst the four Jagdgeschwader left for Reich defence
following a massive transfer of units to the East were rising to nearly
30 per cent of sorties flown, while victories gained amounted to less than
0.2 per cent of Allied strength. With Allied fighters now virtually ruling the
skies over Germany, and as a measure of survival, in late February OKL
proposed that German fighters should only attack lone bombers straggling
behind a formation.
Although the threat posed to Allied bomber formations by the Jagdwaffe
had greatly diminished by early 1945, xktjagdflieger could still, sporadically,
hit back - especially with the arrival of a revolutionary new aircraft in
frontline service.

Mechanics approach the Fw 190A-8

piloted by Oberleutnant Heinz-
Dieter Gramberg of 8./JG 300 as it
taxies to a stop at Lobnitz following
a mission in early December 1944.
A former maritime pilot, Gramberg
was based in Italy prior to
transferring to the Sturmgruppe
in late October 1944. He was
credited with tw o victories before
being killed by Soviet flak in late
January 1945 83
STORMBIRDS
n the early afternoon of 7 October 1944, in one of the largest daylight

I bombing raids so far mounted, the Eighth Air Force suffered its first
known loss of a heavy bomber to a deadly new form of aircraft when
Leutnant Franz Schall, flying a Messerschmitt Me 262 A -la jet-powered
interceptor, attacked B-24s of the 2nd BD during their mission to bomb
fuel targets in the Magdeburg area and shot one down. Flying at
unprecedented speed, which made him almost impervious to the fighter Leutnant Franz Schall, leader of
2./Kom m ando Now otny (left),
escort, Schall had used the Me 262’s formidable armament of four
stands in front of an Me 262 of the
nose-mounted 30 mm MK 108 cannon to literally blast the Liberator unit, probably at Achmer, in the
from the air in the Osnabriick area, while his fellow jet pilot, Feldwebel autumn of 1944. Later appointed
Heinz Lennartz also accounted for one. Staffelkapitan of 10./JG 7, he would
see more aerial combat in the
It was the moment that USAAF bomber commanders had feared. Me 262 than most pilots, being
Schall was leading three of the new Me 262s of Kommando N owotny credited with the destruction of
up from Hesepe on its first operational sortie. In the autumn of 1944 six Viermots while flying the jet
Adolf Galland had chosen Walter
Nowotny, the famed Eastern Front
fighter Experte and recipient of
the Diamonds to the Knight’s
Cross, to lead a newly formed unit
from the concrete runways at
Hesepe and Achmer. Using the
technological superiority of the Me
262 to full effect, the unit would
intercept Allied heavy bombers and
their escorts.
Yet Nowotny’s pilots, most
of them from conventional
single-engined fighter units, lacked
sufficient training on the new
aircraft. This in turn meant that
they found the Me 262, with its
effortless speed, jet engines, short
endurance and rapid descent,
difficult to handle. After a shaky
start for his K om m ando, Nowotny
himself fell prey to the jet’s
idiosyncrasies when he was killed
in a crash on 7 November 1944
following an attack on bombers.
In many ways, Austrian-born
Franz Schall epitomises the pluck
and determination of the new jet
pilots, and his career would stretch
from the embryonic trial missions
to the coordinated Gruppe-strength
operations mounted by JG 7 in
 STORMBIRDS
1945. A veteran of the Russian Front with 3./JG 52, he had scored his
first victory over an La-5 on 6 May 1943, and by the end of that year had
been credited with 26 kills. In 1944 Schall demonstrated a fearsome
aptitude for air combat, frequently accounting for multiple victories
over Il-2s, U-2s, P-39s and Yak-9s in one day. He was appointed
Staffelkapitan of 3./JG 52 on 11 August 1944, and by 2 September (the
date of his last victory in the East) his tally stood at 116 enemy aircraft
destroyed. Schall transferred to jet training with Kom m ando N owotny on
26 September and was given command of 2. Staffel.
Following the award of the Knight’s Cross on 10 October and the
establishment of JG 7 in November, Schall went on to score 11 jet
victories in addition to the six he had achieved with Kommando N owotny,
which in addition to the B-24, comprised two B-17s and three Lancasters.
He would lead 10./JG 7 until he was killed on 10 April 1945 when,
following an emergency landing, his Me 262 struck a bomb crater
and exploded.
By January 1945 Jagdgeschw ader 7 was operating in some strength,
with three Gruppen of Me 262s defending the airspace around Berlin.
Gradually, the unit’s ranks were stiffened by the arrival of a small number
of experienced jagdflieger, including Georg-Peter Eder who began flying
the Me 262 with Erpro bungs kommando 262 and K om m ando Nowotny.
He then joined III./JG 7, where he again demonstrated his abilities as an
aviator by quickly mastering the Me 262.
It was ‘business as usual’ for Eder, as leader of 1l./JG 7, on 17 January
when he claimed a B-17 shot down - this aircraft was probably from the
351st BG, which attacked the Paderborn marshalling yards that day.
He had claimed four Boeings shot down (plus three probables) with Ekdo
262, followed by five with Kommando Nowotny. With the exception of a
Leutnant Rudolf Rademacher joined
P-51, all of Eder’s seven kills with JG 7 were B-17s. However, he suffered 1 l./J G 7 w ith 81 victories to his
severe injuries when he bailed out of his aircraft after engaging heavy name, these having been scored
bombers near Bremen on 17 February 1945. over the Eastern Front. He
accounted for four P-51s and an RAF
A native of Liineburg, Leutnant Rudolf Rademacher was a JG 54
fighter shot down while flying the
veteran who had scored 81 victories flying under Walter Nowotny in Me 262, as well as 11 four-engined
Russia prior to serving as a fighter instructor. He had been seriously bombers
wounded while flying an Fw 190 in a mission against American heavy
bombers on 18 September 1944 and was awarded the Knight’s Cross on
30 September for 81 victories in the East. Once he had recovered from
his wounds, Rademacher joined 1 l./JG 7 on 30 January 1945.
On 9 February, the Eighth Air Force bombed northern and central
Germany, this time striking at oil, transport and airfield targets including
Magdeburg, Liitzkendorf and Paderborn. In the Berlin area, a handful
of Me 262s from III./JG 7 attacked B-17s, with Rademacher claiming
two shot down. He eventually accounted for four Mustangs and an
RAF fighter shot down as well, as 11 four-engined bombers, while flying
the Me 262.
The Stabsstaffel of JG 7 carried out trials using the 21 cm WGr 21 air-
to-air mortar fitted to the Me 262 in February. As a makeshift measure,
two mortar tubes were mounted on bomb racks beneath the fuselage of
some jets, but for how long they were carried and what the results were is
not known. What is known is that following the increasingly disappointing
results of the mortars fired from piston-engined fighters, German
 This Me 262 of 9./JG 7 has been
fitted w ith a 20 kg wooden launch
rack, loaded with a dozen 55 mm
R4M rockets, on the underside of
its starboard wing

armaments experts concluded that the only plausible alternative was for a
fighter formation to attack a bomber Pulk simultaneously firing batteries
of rockets carried either in underwing racks or in nose-mounted
‘honeycombs’ so that a dense ‘fire-chain’ could be created which would be
impossible for the bombers to avoid.
In June 1944, a requirement was put forward for an electrically fired,
fin-stabilised weapon whose warhead would contain sufficient explosive
to destroy a four-engined bomber in one hit.
The 55 mm R4M appeared as an 814 mm-long, unrotated, rail or
In early February 1945, the
tube-launched, solid fuel-propelled, multi-fin stabilised rocket, with its
Stabsstaffel of JG 7 carried out trials
520 g warhead contained in an exceptionally thin 1 mm sheet-steel case. using the 21 cm WGr 21 air-to-air
With the Me 262, R4Ms were launched from wooden underwing racks mortar and, later, 55 mm R4M
that could carry a maximum load of 12 rockets under each wing. It was rockets. Here, tw o Me 262A-1as of
JG 7, seen at either Brandenburg-
calculated that the loss of speed incurred to an Me 262 as a result of Briest or Parchim, have been fitted
a launch rack being fitted was approximately 16 km/h. with mortar tubes. The machine
On 18 March nearly 1200 bombers attacked railway and armaments in the foreground, 'Green 1', carries
factories in the Berlin area. They were escorted by 426 fighters. 9./JG 7 a distinctive diagonally striped
camouflage scheme, with markings
put up six aircraft, each fitted with two underwing batteries of 12 of the thought to have been those of the
new R4M rockets. The jets intercepted the Viermots over Rathenow, and Kommandeur of III./JG 7, Major
a total of 144 rockets was fired into the American formation from Rudolf Sinner.
 distances of between 400-600 metres. Pilots reported astonishing amounts
of resulting debris and aluminium fragments - pieces of wing, engines
and cockpits flying through the air from aircraft hit by the weapons.
Oberfahnrich Walter Windisch, who had joined the Luftwaffe in 1943
and who had two victories to his credit by the time he was transferred to
JG 7 from JG 52, was one of the first pilots of the Geschwader to see the
effects of the R4M on enemy bombers;
‘I was on that first sortie during which R4M rockets were used, and
I experienced something beyond my comprehension. The destructive
effect against the targets was immense. It almost gave me a feeling of
being invincible. However, the launching grids for the rockets were not
of optimum design - they were still too rough and ready and, compared
with conventionally-powered aircraft, when you went into a turn with
the Me 262, flying became a lot more difficult because the trimming was
not too good.’
Windisch would go on to claim five four-engined bombers shot down
while with JG 7, the first on 15 March when he accounted for a B-24
during an attack against the German military headquarters at Zossen.
Leutnant Erich Muller claimed two bombers in the same mission, while
Oberfahnrich Pfeiffer shot down another. Rudolf Rademacher accounted
for a bomber, while Leutnant Karl Schnorrer claimed two.
On 30 March 1945, Leutnant Karl
Schnorrer, a native of Nurnberg, had served with I./JG 54 and
Schnorrer, commander of 11./JG 7 claimed his first victory over the Eastern Front in December 1941. In
and former wingman to Walter late 1942, Walter Nowotny had selected Schnorrer to fly as his wingman,
Nowotny, was chased by P-51s
and the two men became close friends. Despite a reputation for being
following an engagement against
American bombers over northwest a hard man on his aircraft following three landing accidents whilst at the
Germany during which he shot controls of Bf 109s, Schnorrer became an invaluable and trusted partner
down tw o B-17s. These proved to be to Nowotny during the latter’s stellar rise as a fighter ace. It is perhaps
his last victories of the war for he
a measure of his priorities that Schnorrer, who had earned himself the
was forced to bail out a short while
later, injuring his legs for a second somewhat unjust nickname of ‘Quax’ after an accident-prone cartoon
time character, had scored just 20 victories by 18 August 1943, against his
flight leader’s tally of 151.
On 12 November 1943 Schnorrer engaged a formation of Il-2s and
shot one down for his 35th victory, but in doing so was badly wounded,
forced to bail out and subsequently injured both legs. Having recovered
by mid-1944, he transferred with Nowotny to his new jet Kommando
and proceeded onto JG 7. Of his 11 victories flying the Me 262, nine
were B-17s, including two downed on one day on 18 and 30 March
1945. On this latter date, Schnorrer engaged Flying Fortresses over
Liineberg, but as he pulled away from the scene of combat, his jet was hit
by defensive fire from the bomber formation. Turning for home, he was
chased by P-51s, and decided the best course of action would be to bail
out. In doing so, he struck the tail unit of his jet and - once again - badly
injured his legs. Despite this, he managed to land by parachute, but his
flying days were over.
As the war entered its final weeks and defeat loomed for the Third
Reich, the pilots of JG 7 fought on regardless.
The last day of March 1945 would see another major effort in the
relentless Allied bombing offensive. While the Eighth Air Force struck at
oil refineries in northern and central Germany, RAF Bomber Command
aimed for the Blohm and Voss shipyards in Hamburg. A force of
 469 Lancasters, Halifaxes and Mosquitoes arrived over a cloud-covered
SEVEN

target, but still bombed, inflicting considerable damage to the southern

districts of the port city. Against this raid, 2. Jagddivision deployed
some 20 jets from I. and III./JG 7 that intercepted Lancasters as they
C HA P T E R

approached Bremen.
On this occasion, fortune was to favour the defenders as, in addition
to 30 mm cannon shells, repeated salvos of R4M missiles streaked into
the British formation. For the crews of the Lancasters, the German skies
became a scene of smoke-blackened carnage as bombers exploded and
shattered wings and engines spun away from fuselages. Oberfeldwebel
Hermann Buchner of 9./JG 7 recalled what happened after the rockets
had been fired;
‘I made a right turn and lined up for another attack. This was made
using the nose cannon. My Lancaster lay directly in my sights, and I only
had to get a bit closer. Now, I opened fire, the hits were good, but the
pilot of the Lancaster must have been an old hand. He turned his bomber
steeply over on its right wing, making a tight turn around the main axis.
With my speed, I was unable to see if my shots had had any effect, or to
see how he flew on. I had to think about returning home. We had a
shortage of fuel in the Me 262. The other pilots were also having the
same problem.’
Nevertheless, Oberleutnant Hans ‘Specker’ Griinberg, Staffelkapitan
of l./JG 7, shot down two Lancasters in the action over Hamburg, as
did Leutnant Gustav Sturm of 9. Staffel.
Griinberg is credited with 82 victories scored in 550 missions, Me 262A-1a 'Green 3' of the
including the destruction of seven Il-2s in three sorties in Russia in July Geschwaderstab of JG 7 prepares to
move off across the concrete surface
1943 whilst with 5./JG 3. He was awarded the Knight’s Cross in July
at Brandenburg-Briest in February or
1944. All of his five jet victories were Viermots, with another six scored early March 1945. The aircraft,
flying the Bf 109. finished in a relatively rare
Gustav Sturm’s first victory was a B-24 shot down over North Africa application of streaked horizontal
lines, has been fitted with a pair of
on 15 November 1942 while flying with 2./JG 27. Without exception,
21 cm W Gr air-to-air mortar tubes
his next 11 kills were four-engined bombers scored over Germany or visible beneath the fuselage aft of
Austria between August 1943 and May 1944. Sturm served briefly with the nosewheel

88
 6./JG 3 and JG 51, before transferring to III./JG 7 in March 1945.
On 25 April 1945 - the day JG 7 flew what was probably its last
operation against American bombers, when 276 B-17s of the Eighth Air
Force attacked Pilsen, in Czechoslovakia - Sturm, based with his Staffel
at Prague, attempted to rescue a comrade from the flaming confines
of his cockpit following a crash-landing. However, as he reached the
burning jet, it exploded, and Sturm suffered severe chest injuries. He was
credited with 22 victories, including 11 Viermots.
During April 1945 seven B-17s went down to the guns of Major Erich
Rudorffer, a 136-victory ace and recipient of the Knight’s Cross with
Oakleaves and Swords who led I./JG 7.
Flying since the French campaign of May 1940, during which he was
an NCO pilot with JG 2, Rudorffer was awarded the Knight’s Cross
a year later for his 19 victories. He proved to be a potent adversary against
the Western Allies, shooting down two Spitfires in one day over Dieppe
in August 1942. In November of that year Rudorffer was appointed
Staffelkapitan of 6./JG 2 and his unit moved to Tunisia, where he shot
down eight British aircraft in 32 minutes on 9 February 1943. Six days
later, in a remarkable feat, seven more enemy aircraft fell to his guns.
Major Erich Rudorffer, Rudorffer subsequently took command of II./JG 2, but returned to
photographed in the West in 1942 France in April 1943.
while commanding 6./JG 2. In the
final months of the w ar this
By the time he left the Richthofen G eschwader to take up his
136-victory ace and recipient of the appointment as Kom m andeur of the new IV./JG 54 in June, Rudorffer
Knight's Cross with Oakleaves and had accumulated 74 victories. Just weeks later, however, he was transferred
Swords, took command of I./JG 7. to the East to take over II./JG 54 following the loss of that Grupped
He personally accounted for ten
four-engined bombers destroyed,
previous commander. Over Russia, Rudorffer excelled himself, and on
all scored while flying the Me 262 one occasion claimed 13 Soviet machines shot down in 17 minutes. The
Oakleaves to the Knight’s Cross followed on 11 April 1944 when his tally
stood at 134 victories. There followed several more incidents of multiple
kills in one day over the Eastern Front before Rudorffer was awarded the
Swords to Knight’s Cross upon his 212th victory on 26 January 1945 -
he was the 126th such recipient.
Rudorffer would end the war having clocked up more than
1000 missions, during which he had encountered the enemy more than
300 times. He had also bailed out on no fewer than nine occasions and
been shot down 16 times. Rudorffer accounted for ten four-engined
bombers destroyed, all while flying the Me 262.
Perhaps Johannes Steinhoff, the former K om m odore of JG 77, JG 7
and a member of JV 44, best summarised the ill-fated combat debut
of the Me 262 in the final months of the war in Europe during a talk in
the late 1960s;
‘Even if all available jet fighters had been deployed for attacks on
bombers, I do not believe that the fortunes of war would have changed
for us.
‘The survivors who took part in those great aerial battles against the
bombers agree with me that attacking those Flying Fortresses and
Liberators was not a pleasure. Those who, like myself, flew those attacks
and manoeuvred through the stream of innumerable bombers will never
be able to forget that picture, and I am sure that there is not one who
would claim that he did not feel relieved when he had landed back home
in one piece.’
APPENDICES
APPENDIX 1

Single-engined fighter aces with 20 or more Viermot victories

M ean in gfu l analysis of this list in order to establish w hich pilots, on average, achieved the shortest time-to-kills ratios, and thus w ho were the m ost effective,

is virtually impossible. Variable criteria such a s the level of Allied bombing activity in any given area or theatre at any given time, the date of death of the

pilot in action, w eather and operating factors such a s the w eight of enem y escort, come into play. I would like to acknow ledge the data contained at

ww w.luftwaffe.cz in the preparation of this list.

T o ta l v ic to r ie s K n o w n fo u r-e n gin e d Pe rio d in w h ic h

V ic to r ie s fo u r-e n gin e d v ic to rie s

sc o r e d

M ajor Georg-Peter Eder 78 36 Dec 1942—Feb 1945

M ajor A nton Hackl 192 34 Jun 1 9 4 3 -D e c 1944?

Oberleutnant Konrad Bauer 57 32 Apr 1 9 4 4 -A u g 1944

Oberstleutnant W a lter Dahl 126 30 Sept 19 4 3 -J a n 1945?

M ajo r Rolf-Gunther Hermichen 64 26 Jul 1 9 4 3 -M a r 1944

Oberstleutnant Egon M ay e r 102 26 N ov 19 4 2 -J a n 1944 (KIA M a r 1944)

Leutnant A nton-Rudolf Piffer 35 26 M a y 1 9 4 3 -M a y 1944 (KIA Jun 1944)

M ajo r W e rne r Schroer 114 26 Dec 1 9 4 2 -M a y 1944

M ajo r Hermann Staiger 63 26 Jul 19 4 3 -D e c 1944

Leutnant A lw in Doppler 29 25 ?

Hauptmann Hugo Frey 32 25 Jan 19 4 3 - M a r 1944 (KIA M a r 1944)

Oberstleutnant Kurt Btihligen 112 24 ?

Hauptmann H ans Ehlers 55 24 Dec 1 9 4 2 -D e c 1944 (KIA Dec 1944)

Oberfeldwebel W alter Loos 38 22 M a r 1 9 4 4 -A u g 1944

M ajor Friedrich-Karl M u ller 140 23 Jan 1 9 4 3 -M a y 1944 (Killed M a y 1944)

Hauptmann H an s W e ik 36 22 Sept 1943—Jul 1944

Hauptmann Heinrich W urzer 26 23 N ov 1943—July 1944 (2 night)

Oberleutnant W e rne r Gerth 27 22 Feb 19 4 4 -N o v 1944 (KIA N ov 1944)

Oberstleutnant Heinz Bar 221 21 ?

Hauptmann Fritz Karch 47 21 ?

Leutnant W illi Unger 24 21 Apr 19 44 -O ct 1944

Oberleutnant W ilhelm Kientsch 53 20 Apr 19 4 3 -D e c 1943 (KIA Jan 1944)

Hauptmann Hans-Heinrich Koenig 28 20 Oct 1 9 4 3 -M a y 1944 (KIA M a y 1944)

Oberfeldwebel W ille Reschke 27 20 Jul 1944—Jan 1945

Hauptmann J o se f W urm heller 102 20+ Feb 1943—April 1944 (KIA Jun 1944)

N um ber of pilots with 19 confirmed four--engined victories = 4

Num ber of pilots with 18 confirmed four--engined victories = 4

Num ber of pilots with 17 confirmed four--engined victories = 5

Num ber of pilots with 16 confirmed four--engined victories = 3

Num ber of pilots with 15 confirmed four--engined victories = 7

Num ber of pilots with 14 confirmed four--engined victories = 7

Num ber of pilots with 13 confirmed four--engined victories = 8

Num ber of pilots with 12 confirmed four--engined victories = 12

Num ber of pilots with 11 confirmed four--engined victories = 9

Num ber of pilots with 10 confirmed four­-engined victories = 24

 APPENDICES
Zerstorer Aces with 10 or more Viermot
victories in total

Leutnant Rudolf D a ss o w 12 four-engined victories

iO N E FORTRESS v e rs u s ONE FW I90 - I9 4 5
Hauptmann Peter Jenne 12 | T A IL A TTA C K - M A XIM U M B 17 GUNS BEARING ( 5 )
Hauptmann Herbert Schob 10

RELATIVE SIZE OF TARGETS DURING F IN A L PHASE OF WAR

APPENDIX 2
Facsimile diagram s sh o w ing 'Evolution of Relative Firepower of Fw 190

versus B -17' (right) and 'O ne U S A A F four-engined bomber versus one

M e 110 with 21 cm R P s' (below) taken from the United States Strategic

Bombing Survey The Defeat o f the German A ir Force, published by the EVOLUTION OF R E LA TIV E F IR E POW ER fw 190 —
OT FW 190 v e r s u s B 17 8 17
Military A n alysis Division in October 1945.

FOUR 21 CM RPs
FUZED FOR 128 0 y d s

BLACK AREAS WITHIN, AND SHADED AREAS

SURROUNDING AIRCRAFT, INDICATE TARGET
TO BE HIT TO HAVE DESTRUCTIVE EfFECT.

BLACK AREAS WITHIN A/C

INDICATE TARGET TO BE HIT
TO HAVE DESTRUCTIVE EFFECT

5 0 0 yds 1,280 yds

■POP**
ONE USAAF FOUR-ENGINED BOMBER VERSUS ONE ME-IIO WITH 21cm . RP’s 91
 C olour P lates

Bf 109F-4 'Black Chevron and Bars' of Major Walter Bf 109G-6 Wk-Nr. 18 105 'Black 12' of Unteroffiziere
Oesau, Geschwaderkommodore JG 2, Beaumont Ie Karl-Heinz Bottner and Helmut Schwarzenholzer,
Roger, France, April 1942 8./JG 77, Chilivani, Sicily, July 1943
One of tw o Bf 109Fs believed to have been flow n by Typical of the aircraft used by JG 77 in the battle against
Oesau in 1942, this aircraft had yellow applied to its Viermots over Sicily, this Bf 109 carried the unit's 'Herz-As'
cowling underside and rudder. Its spinner was probably (Ace of Hearts) emblem and its unusually sized and located
in Schwarzgrun. The aircraft may have also carried the red aircraft code numbers. The emblem forward of the aircraft
scripted 'R' of the Richthofen Geschwader, although there number is that of lll./JG 77, outlined w ith the titling
is no photographic evidence to prove this conclusively. Wander-Zirkus Ubben' (Xhe 'Ubben Travelling Circus')
inspired by the then Kapitan of 8. Staffel, and subsequent
Kommandeur of III. Gruppe, Major Kurt Ubben.
Fw 190A-4 'Double W hite Chevron' of Hauptmann Egon
Mayer, Gruppenkommandeur III./JG 2, Brittany, France, 8
late 1942/early 1943 Bf 109G-6 'Double Black Chevron' of Hauptmann Karl
Mayer's aircraft carries the distinctive cockerel's head Rammelt, Gruppenkommandeur II./JG 51, Udine, Italy,
emblem of lll./JG 2, as well as 62 victory markings on a December 1943
yellow rudder. Six of these denote his success against Rammelt's aircraft was adorned with the JG 51 Geschwader
USAAF four-engined bombers between November 1942 emblem as well as a personal marking in the form of a spiked
and January 1943. mace beneath the cockpit, aft of which was the unusually
positioned Gruppe bar. The rear fuselage also bore the white
Mediterranean Theatre band. The rudder was marked with
Fw 190A-6 'Brown 1' of Hauptmann Johannes Naumann, 34 victory bars, recording Rammelt's kills up to the end of 1943.
Staffelkapitan 6 ./JG 26, Lille-Vendeville, France, July 1943
Seen in typical finish for JG 26 Fw 190s in the W est at this 9 and 10
time, 'Brown 1' had its port-side undercarriage door removed Fw 190A-6 'Double Chevron' of Major Anton Hackl,
for a short period of time. This was possibly in preparation for Geschwaderkommodore, JG 11, Oldenburg, Germany,
the fitting of a centreline drop tank. April 1944
Hackl's Focke-Wulf carries the emblem of the Stab of III.
Gruppe (of which he had recently been Kommandeur),
Bf 109G-6 Wk-Nr. 18 216 'Black 10' of Feldwebel together w ith Stab markings, yellow unit identification band
Hans-Gerd Wennekers, 5./JG 11, Monchen-Gladbach, and a w hite rudder. The latter has been adorned w ith a
Germany, June 1943 rendition of the Knight's Cross encased in oak leaves showing
Wenneker's M esserschm itt had a yellow underside to its a total of 141 victories, his last kill being a B-24 shot down
cowling, a red fuselage identification band and three victory over Lingen on 11 April 1944.
markings on its rudder. The latter represented a Liberator and
tw o Flying Fortresses credited to the pilot between February 11
and May 1943. Fw 190A-7 Wk-Nr. 430172 'Black 1'of Leutnant Rudiger
Kirchmayr, Staffelkapitan 5 ./JG 1, Rheine, Germany,
January 1944
Bf 109G-6 'W hite 10' of Leutnant Franz Ruhl, One of several machines known to have been flown by
Staffelkapitan 4./JG 3, Schiphol, Holland, w inter 1943/44 Kirchmayr, this aircraft is very representative of II. Gruppe
Ruhl's machine had a fairly worn appearance, especially along Fw 190s of the time, lt had the winged '1' Geschwader
the top of the fuselage just aft of the canopy. A small red emblem applied in the usual nose position, as well as the
circle (originally adopted in Russia) was applied immediately red Geschwader fuselage band.
below the JG 3 emblem in order to give the latter the vague
appearance of an exclamation mark. 12
Fw 190A-8 WNr. 680143 'W hite 9' of Gefreiter Walter
Gehr, 4./JG 1, Stdrmede, Germany, May 1944
Bf 109G-6 'W hite 10' of Oberleutnant Alfred Grislawski, The aircraft is in a standard scheme, although it lacks the
1./JG 50, Wiesbaden-Erbenheim, Germany, late Geschwader emblem. Gefreiter Gehr recorded his first victory
September 1943 in this aircraft when he shot down a B-24 w est of Magdeburg
Grislawski's colourfully marked Bf 109 had a yellow cowling at 1407 hrs on 28 May 1944. He expended 230 rounds of
underside and the emblem of JG 50 beneath the cockpit. MG 131 and MG 151 ammunition in the process.
The white rudder carried a rendition of the Knight's Cross,
the pilot's monogrammed initials and 112 victory markings, 13
the last three of which were B-17s claimed on 17 August Fw 190A-7 'Yellow 5' of 6 ./JG 1, Stormede, Germany,
and 6 September 1943. May 1944
This aircraft also has the winged '1' Geschwader emblem 20
on its cowling and the red unit identification band of JG 1, as Bf 109G-2 'Yellow 6' of Feldwebel Albert Palm, 3 ./JG 4,
well as the II. Gruppe bar and a standard scheme for fighter Mizil, Rumania, August 1943
aircraft deployed in the defence of the Reich at this time. Palm had previously served 8./JG 77, and at the tim e of
leaving that Staffel to join 3./JG 4 he had 28 victories to his
14 credit. This aircraft bears the personal incription 'Mauschen'
Fw 190A-7 'Red 22' of Oberfeldwebel Leo Schuhmacher, ('Little Mouse') beneath the cockpit, and it also has the
Gruppenstab II./JG 1, Stormede, Germany, April 1944 distinctive American-style fuselage numeral found on a
Heinz Bar's wingman claimed his 13th victory in this aircraft number of I. Gruppe Bf 109s. The fighter also boasts a
when he shot down a B-17F north of Fallersleben on 11 April yellow Theatre band. Yellow was applied to the tip of the
1944 using 80 rounds of MG 131 and 80 rounds of MG 151 spinner as well, w hilst the rest of it was segmented in
ammunition. 'Red 22' has veen marked w ith the winged black/green and white.
'1' Geschwader emblem and the red unit identification
band assigned to JG 1. 21
Bf 109G-6 'W hite 17' of 7./JG 53, Villaorba, Italy,
15 December 1943
Bf 110G-2 3U+KR of 7./ZG 26, Konigsberg-Neumark, This aircraft is typical of the Bf 109s of JG 53 that were
Germany, late 1943/early 1944 in action against USAAF bombers over the southern
Possibly the aircraft of Hauptmann Johannes Kiel, Mediterranean in late 1943. The spinner was segmented
Staffelkapitan of 7./ZG 26 and later Gruppenkommandeur in black/green and white. The 'Pik-As' ('Ace of Spades')
of II. Gruppe, this Bf 110 still carries its w hite Mediterranean emblem of JG 53 is carried in the usual position on the
theatre markings, lt is fitted w ith tw in underwing 21 cm WGr nose and the aircraft has a w hite Theatre fuselage band.
mortar tubes. The aircraft also carries a drop tank for extended range over
water as well as 21 cm WGr mortar tubes.
16
Bf 110G-2/R3 2N+EM of 4./ZG 76. Konigsberg-Neumark, 22
Germany, early 1944 Bf 109G-6 'W hite 8' of l./JG 27, Fels am Wagram, Austria,
This Bf 110 of Hauptmann Helmut Haugk's 4. Staffel is early 1944
finished in a generally clean standard grey scheme w ith In addition to its green unit fuselage identification band,
yellow fuselage band, w hite aircraft letter and red/white this machine's w hite rudder may denote that was assigned
spinner tips. The aircraft carries tw in underwing 21 cm WGr to a Staffelkapitan or Staffelfuhrer. The Gruppe emblem was
mortar tubes and a MG 151 weapons pack beneath the applied to both sides of the cowling, w ith the head of the
central fuselage for anti-bomber work. lioness facing forward. The aircraft is fitted w ith underwing
gondolas for 20 mm MG 151 cannon.
17
Me 210A-0I1) Wk-Nr. 2100110049 2N+FR of 7./ZG 1, Weis, 23
Austria, early 1944 Fw 190A-7 Wk-Nr. 642559 'W hite 3' of Unteroffiziere Erich
This Me 210 was finished in a dark grey standard late-war Lambertus and Gerhard Vivroux, Sturm staffel 1,
scheme with toned down Balkenkreuz and fuselage code Salzwedel, Germany, February 1944
letters. The aircraft was fitted w ith tw in underwing 21 cm Like many of the Fw 190s of Sturm staffel 1, this aircraft has
WGr mortar tubes. been fitted with armoured ' Panzerglas' front and side canopy
panels and also the armoured side panels to the cockpit walls
18 for protection when making close-range attacks on enemy
Me 410A-1/U4 Wk-Nr. 420481 3U+LP of 6./ZG 26, bombers. The aircraft has the black-white-black fuselage band
Konigsberg-Neumark, Germany, April 1944 of the Staffel.
This BK 5 cm cannon-equipped aircraft was finished in a
standard late-war grey mottle w ith a white fuselage band and 24
the Gruppe clog emblem applied to the outer panelling of Fw 190A-8/R2 'Yellow 17' of Unteroffizier Willi Unger,
both engines. The three-digit numeral painted high on the tail 12./JG 3, Barth, May 1944
assembly may have been a part and/or transit number. This aircraft is finished in a typical late-war mottle and has
a w hite fuselage band applied that has in turn been adorned
19 w ith the black wavy bar of IV. Gruppe. The fighter is fitted
Me 410A-1/U4 Wk-Nr. 420292 3U+CC of Stab II./ZG 26, w ith wing-mounted 20 mm MG 151 and 30 mm MK 108
Konigsberg-Neumark, Germany, May 1944 cannon, but the installations for tw o 13 mm machine guns
In addition to the prominent 5 cm BK 5 in the nose, this in the upper cowling above the engine have been faired
aircraft was fitted with 37 mm cannon on the bomb-bays for over, lt is also fitted w ith additional cockpit armour and
anti-bomber operations. Its individual letter is in the Stab carries a WGr 21 'Krebsgerat' rearward-firing 21cm mortar
colour of green and the machine has a white fuselage band, tube beneath its fuselage. Intended to be fired 'back' at
possibly a legacy from the Mediterranean Theatre. The a bomber formation following a firing pass, this weapon
Gruppe's yellow clog emblem was applied to the outer achieved mixed results as it adversely affected the
panelling of both engines. Focke-Wulf's speed and manoeuvrability.
 25 The fighter's tactical number 'Green 3' is quite unusual
APPENDICES

Fw 190A-8/R2 'Double Chevron' of Hauptmann Wilhelm in style, and there appear to be no other markings, nor a
Moritz, Stab IV .(Sturm )/JG 3, Memm ingen, Germany, defence of the Reich fuselage band on what is probably a
July 1944 very typical JG 7 machine engaged in the defence of the
This aircraft was photographed outside a hangar following Germany. The rudder is lighter in colour, suggesting a
a mission on 18 July 1944, and was distinctly different from replacement part.
the one usually associated w ith Moritz in that it had a white
fuselage band applied, over which had been painted a black
wavy Gruppe line. The aircraft had a dark grey or all-black ------------------B iblio g raphy ------------------
forward cowling, aft of which was a stylised eagle's wing
and armoured glass cockpit panels and cockpit side armour. Non-published material

26 Miscellaneous
Fw 190A-8/R2 Black 13' of Lt Werner Gerth, Headquarters USAFE: A ir S taff Post Hostilities Intelligence
11.(Sfurm)/JG 3, Memm ingen, Germany, July 1944 Requirements on the German A ir Force - Tactical
Gerth's aircraft bore a slightly darker than usual field-mixed Employment (Section IV C): Fighter Operations, 10 December
finish, and a stylised eagle's wing was applied to the fuselage 1945 (IWM, London)
aft of an all-black forward cowling, upon which was applied (including)
the emblem of JG 3 'Udet'. The rear fuselage carried the Appendix XVI A History o f the German A ir Force Twin-Engine
white unit identification band and Gruppe marking. Fighter Arm (Zerstorerwaffe) by Galland, Kowalewski, Nolle
and Eschenauer, 8 October 1945
27 Appendix XXXI Conduct o f a Company Front Attack, Dahl,
Fw 190A-8 'Blue 14' of Feldwebel W alter Loos, 20 September 1945
Stab/JG 300, Bad Worishofen, Germany, August 1944 Appendix XXXII Conduct o f a Mission in the Defense o f the
Loos' Fw 190 was finished in a typically late-war mottled Reich, Dahl, 20 September 1945
scheme, w ith the tactical number in bright blue outlined in The Birth, Life and Death o f the German Day Fighter Arm
white, along w ith a red JG 300 fuselage identification band. (related by A dolf Galland), ADI(K) Report No. 373/1945 (Pegg)
Headquarters, Eighth Air Force, Operational Analysis Section:
28 An Evaluation o f Defensive Measures Taken to Protect Heavy
Fw 190A-8 W k-Nr. 171641 'Red 3' of Feldwebel Konrad Bombers from Loss and Damage since the Beginning o f
'Pitt' Bauer, 5./JG 300, Erfurt-Bindersleben, Germany, Operations in the European Theater, November 1944 (Nijboer)
August 1944 German Fighter Tactics against RAF Day Bombers, Air
Bauer's aircraft was finished in a pale mottle, w ith no Ministry W eekly Intelligence Summary, 3 March 1945 (Smith)
fuselage band. The small yellow circle on the upper cowling Willi Unger, 15.Sturm/Jagdgeschwader U d e t-
panel indicates the fitting of an engine power-boost system. Abschudmeldung, 7.7.44 (Unger)
The pilot's m otto beneath the cockpit reads 'Kornjark'.
Bundesarchiv-Militararchiv, Freiburg
29 RL 10/403 Abschussmeldung and Frontfilmauswertung
Me 262A-1a 'Green 4' of Major Theodor Weissenberger, (Sturm staffel 1)
Geschwaderstab JG 7, Brandenburg-Briest, Germany, RL10/433 Miscellaneous Abschussmeldung (ll./JG 1)
February-March 1945
This jet features extended horizontal bars in black, outlined in UK National Archives, Kew
white, denoting its assignment to the Kommodore. The upper AIR2/7493 - Tactical Notes on the Operations o f the
third of light blue on the Geschwader's running fox emblem is Fortresses (B-17F) o f the USAAF in the European Theatre
unusually large, suggesting that the whole emblem has been o f War up to September 15th, 1942
partially applied over another one. AIR20/8534 - German Fighter Tactics against RAF Bomber
Formations in Africa, CSDIC (Air), CMF, Report No. 597,
30 23rd October 1945
Me 262A-1a Wk-.Nr. 110800 'W hite 7' of Unteroffizier AIR22/78 - Air Ministry W eekly Intelligence Summaries
Gunther Engler, 3./JG 7, Brandenburg-Briest, Germany, 187-212, Apr-Sept 1943
February 1945 AIR40/358 - Eighth A ir Force Narrative o f Operations 298th
This aircraft features the running fox emblem of JG 7 in the Operation - 1 7 April 1944
commonly seen location on the nose, while the Hakenkreuz AIR40/371 - Composite Intelligence Narrative No. 9 o f
on the tail is in solid w hite - quite common feature on many Operations undertaken 23 November 1942 by USAAF and
of JG 7's aircraft, lt would appear that the aircraft also carried RAF, HQ Eighth Air Force, Widewing, 26 November 1942
the blue and red Reich air defence fuselage identification AIR40/463 - Synopsis Report, 714th Operation - Mission
band. The fighter has been fitted w ith R4M rockets. No 1 - 3rd Bomb Division, VIII Bomber Command,
11 October 1943
31 AIR40/598 - VIII Bomber Command: Operation 298: aircraft
Me 262A-1a 'Green 3', Geschwaderstab JG 7, factories and industrial targets Germany and Poland,
94 Brandenburg-Briest, Germany, February-March 1945 11 A pr 1944
AIR40/613 —VIII Bomber Command: Operation 327: Berlin, Jagdgeschwader300 'Wilde Sau' Volume O n e -J u n e
Magdeburg and Brandenburg, 29 A pr 1944 1943:September 1944, Eagle Editions, Hamilton, 2005
LORANT, JEAN-YVES and GOYAT, RICHARD,
Articles Jagdgeschwader 300 'Wilde Sau' Volume Two - September
1944-May 1945, Eagle Editions, Hamilton, 2007
BUCHLING, NILS, Operational use o f the 50 mm Cannon by MIDDLEBROOK, MARTIN and EVERITT, CHRIS, The
II./ZG 26 'Horst Wessel' in the Defense o f the Reich 1944, Bomber Command War Diaries - An Operational Reference
Luftwaffe im Focus, Edition No 17, Luftfahrtverlag Start, Bad Book 1939-1945, Penguin Books, London, 1990
Zwischenahn, 2010 Target: Germany - The US A rm y A ir Forces' official story o f
STEINHOFF, Lt Gen JOHANNES (transl. and ed. Lt Col the VIII Bomber Command's first year over Europe, HMSO,
William Geffen), The German Battle against the American London, 1944
Bombers in 'Command & Commanders in Modern Military MOMBEEK, ERIC w ith FORSYTH, ROBERT and CREEK,
History', Proceedings of the Second Military History EDDIE J, Sturm staffel 1 - Reich Defence 1943-1944 The War
Symposium, USAF Academy, 1968 Diary, Classic Publications, Crowborough, 1999
MOMBEEK, ERIC, Defenders o f the Reich - Jagdgeschwader
Books 1 Volume One 1942, Classic Publications, Hersham, 2001
MOMBEEK, ERIC, Defenders o f the Reich - Jagdgeschwader
BERGSTROM, CHRISTER, ANTIPOV, VLAD and SUNDIN, 1 Volume Two 1943, Classic Publications, Hersham, 2001
CLAES, Graf & Grislawski - A Pair o f Aces, Eagle Editions, OBERMAIER, ERNST, Die Ritterkreuztrager der Luftwaffe
Hamilton, 2003 1939-1945 - Band I Jagdflieger, Verlag Dieter Hoffmann,
CALDWELL, DONALD, JG 26 - Top Guns o f the Luftwaffe, Mainz, 1966 and 1982
Orion Books, New York, 1991 PRIEN, JOCHEN and RODEIKE, PETER, Jagdgeschwader 1
CALDWELL, DONALD, The JG 26 War Diary Volume One und 11 Teil 1 1939-1943, Struve-Druck, Eutin, undated
1939-1942, Grub Street, London, 1996 PRIEN, JOCHEN and RODEIKE, PETER, Jagdgeschwader 1
CALDWELL, DONALD, The JG 26 War Diary Volume Two und 11 Teil 2 1944, Struve-Druck, Eutin, undated
1943-1945, Grub Street, London, 1998 PRIEN, JOCHEN, and RODEIKE, PETER, Jagdgeschwader 1
CALDWELL, DONALD and MULLER, RICHARD, The und 11 Teil 3 1944-1945, Struve-Druck, Eutin, undated
Luftwaffe over Germany - Defense o f the Reich, Greenhill PRIEN, JOCHEN and STEMMER, GERHARD,
Books, London, 2007 M esserschm itt B f 109 im Einsatz bei der ll./Jadgeschwader 3,
CRAVEN, W F and CATE, J L, The A rm y A ir Forces in World Struve-Druck, Eutin, undated
War II, Volume I - Plans and Early Operations (January 1939 PRIEN, JOCHEN, IV./Jagdgeschwader 3 - Chronik einer
to August 1942), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1948 Jagdgruppe 1943-1945, Struve-Druck, Eutin, undated
DIERICH, WOLFGANG, Die Verbande der Luftwaffe PRIEN, JOCHEN, RODEIKE, PETER and STEMMER,
1935-1945, Verlag Heinz Nickel, Zweibrucken, 1993 GERHARD Messerschm itt B f 109 im Einsatz bei Stab und
ENGAU, FRITZ, Frontal durch die Bomberpulks, Winkler, I./Jagdgeschwader 27, Struve-Druck, Eutin, undated
Lassnitzhohe, 1997 PRIEN, JOCHEN, RODEIKE, PETER and STEMMER,
ETHELL, JEFFREY and PRICE, ALFRED, Target Berlin - GERHARD, M esserschm itt B f 109 im Einsatz bei der
Mission 250: 6 March 1944, Jane's Publishing, London, 1981 II./Jagdgeschwader 27, Struve-Druck, Eutin, undated
FORSYTH, ROBERT, Jagdwaffe - Defending the Reich PRIEN, JOCHEN, 'Pik-As' Geschichte des Jagdgeschwaders
1943-1944, Classic Publications, Hersham, 2004 53, Teil 3, Hamburg, 1991
FORSYTH, ROBERT, Jagdwaffe - Defending the Reich PRIEN, JOCHEN, Geschichte des Jagdgeschwaders 77, Teil
1944-1945, Classic Publications, Hersham, 2005 3 1942-1943, Struve-Druck, Eutin, undated
FREEMAN, ROGER, The US Strategic Bomber, Macdonald PRIEN, JOCHEN, Geschichte des Jagdgeschwaders 77, Teil
and Jane's, London, 1975 4 1944-1945, Struve-Druck, Eutin, undated
FREEMAN, ROGER A, M ighty Eighth War Diary, Janes, RESCHKE, WILLI, Jagdgeschwader 301/302 ‘Wilde Sau',
London, 1981 Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1998
FREEMAN, ROGER A, M ighty Eighth War Manual, Janes, SMITH, J RICHARD and CREEK, EDDIE J, Me 262 Volume
London, 1984 Two, Classic Publications, Burgess Hill, 1998
HAMMEL, ERIC, A ir War Europa - America's A ir War against TERRAINE, JOHN, The Right o f the Line - The Royal A ir
Germany in Europe and North Africa: Chronology 1942-1945, Force in the European War 1939-1945, Hodder and
Pacifica Press, Pacifica, 1994 Stoughton, London, 1985
HAMMEL, ERIC, The Road to Big Week - The Struggle WEAL, JOHN, Aviation Elite Units 1 - Jagdgeschwader 2
for Daylight A ir Supremacy over Western Europe July 1942- 'Richthofen', Osprey Publishing, Botley, 2000
February 1944, Pacifica Military History, Pacifica, 2009 WEAL, JOHN Aircraft o f the Aces 2 5 - B f 110 Zerstorer Aces
HESS, WILLIAM, Combat Aircraft 3 8 - B-17 Flying Fortress o f W orld War 2, Osprey Publishing, Botley, 1999
Units o f the MTO, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2003 WEBSTER, SIR CHARLES and FRANKLAND, NOBLE, The
HOOTON, E R, The Luftwaffe - A Study in A ir Power Strategic A ir Offensive against Germany 1939-1945, Volume
1933-1945, Classic Publications, Hersham, 2010 I: Preparation, HMSO, London, 1961
IRVING, DAVID, Churchill's War Volume II, Triumph in WIESINGER, GUNTER and SCHROEDER, WALTER, Die
Adversity, Focal Point Publications, London, 2001 Osterreichischen Ritterkreuztrager in der Luftw affe 1939-45,
LORANT, JEAN-YVES and GOYAT, RICHARD, H Weishaupt Verlag, Graz, 1986
INDEX
References to illustrations are shown in bold. Plates Gromotka, Oberfeldwebel Fritz 32-3 Olejnik, Hauptmann Robert 22
are prefixed pi, with captions on the page in brackets. Griinberg, Oberleutnant Hans 'Specker' 88
Palm, Feldwebel Albert cover(4): pl58(93)
Adrian, Leutnant Ulrich 9 Hackl, Hauptmann Anton 18:42-3; 43; pl56(92) 74, 90 Pfeiffer, Oberfahnrich 87
Albrecht, Hauptmann Egon 68 Hagenah, Feldwebel Walter 72 Piffer, Leutnant Anton-Rudolf 'Toni' 79,90
Angele, Unteroffizier Theodore 13 Haugk, Hauptmann Helmut 93 Pingel, Hauptmann Rolf 9
Hermichen, Hauptmann Rolf-Gunther 41-2,42, 90 Priller, Oberstleutnant Josef 22,41
Bach, Oberfeldwebel Otto 46,48,49 Hirschfeld, Leutnant Ernst-Erich 78
Bacsila, Major Erwin 35,44, 82 Hofmann, Leutnant Wilhelm 35 Quack, Leutnant Meinhard 47
Bar, Major Heinz 45,45-6,46,46,47,48,51,52,53,90 Huppertz, Hauptmann Herbert 17,36
Bauer, Feldwebel Konrad 'Pitt' pl60(94) 82,90 Hutter, Oberfeldwebel Georg 51 Rademacher, Leutnant Rudolf 85,85,87
Baunicke, Feldwebel 68 Rammelt, Hauptmann Karl 31: pl55(92)
Beese, Oberleutnant Artur 20,21,35 Iffland, Leutnant Hans 71 Remmer, Hauptmann Hans 74
Bendert, Oberleutnant Karl-Heinz 41 Reschke, Feldwebel W illi 82,90
Bitsch, Hauptmann Emil 44 Jansen, Feldwebel Arnold 53 Rodel, Oberstleutnant Gustav 75
Blech, Flieger Georg 47,48, 50-1 Jenne, Hauptmann Peter 66, 66,91 Rohrich, Feldwebel Kurt 35, 39,44
Boehm-Tettelbach, Major Karl 65 Rollwage, Oberfeldwebel Herbert 73,74,76
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress 10,13,15,24,33, 50,66; Kahl, Feldwebel Heinz 47 Romm, Leutnant Oskar 82, 82
defensive arcs 20, 'MISS OUACHITA' 47 Karch, Hauptmann Fritz 90 Roth, Oberfeldwebel W illi 11
Boesch, Feldwebel Oscar 35 Kemethmuller, Oberfeldwebel Heinz 21 Rudorffer, Major Erich 89, 89
Bongen, Leutnant Ernst 19-30,29 Kiel, Hauptmann Johannes 93 Ruffler, Oberfeldwebel Helmut 72,72
Born, Gefreiter Heinrich 51 Kientsch, Oberleutnant Wilhelm 30-1, 90 Ruhl, Leutnant Franz 83: pl55(92)
Bosch, Unteroffizier Oskar 72-3,73 Kirchmayr, Oberleutnant Rudiger 46: 46; 52; 53; 53,
Bottner, Unteroffizier Karl-Heinz pl55(92) pl56(92) Sauer, Feldwebel Max 47
Brandi, Unteroffizier Gerhard 68 Klemm, Oberleutnant Rudolf 25-6 Schafer, Feldwebel Hans 72
Bretschneider, Leutnant Klaus 80-1, 82 Koenig, Oberleutnant Hans-Heinrich 73-4,90 Schall, Leutnant Franz 84, 84-5
Brodbeck, Oberfeldwebel Kurt 49, 52 Kohler, Hauptmann Armin 64 Schild, Unteroffizier Jan 11
Brunner, Feldwebel Wolfgang 46 Kohne, Leutnant Walter 70 Schnorrer, Leutnant Karl 'Quax' 87,87
Buchholz, Feldwebel Fritz 79 Kornatzki, Major Hans-Gunther von 9,33,35, 43,77 Schob, Hauptmann Herbert 91
Buchner, Oberfeldwebel Hermann 88 Kosse, Feldwebel Wolfgang 35, 43,44 Schroer, Major Werner 30, 30, 90
Buhligen, Oberstleutnant Kurt 90 Kupka, Gefreiter Hans 72 Schuhmacher, Oberfeldwebel Leo 46: 47; 47; 48; 51,
Burath, Oberleutnant Eberhard 46,46,49 Kutscha, Leutnant Herbert 27 pl57(93)
Schulz, Unteroffizier Alfons 50
Clade, Leutnant Emil 32 Lambertus, Unteroffizier Erich pl59(93) Schwarzenholzer, Unteroffizier Helmut pl55(92)
Clausen, Hauptmann Erwin 23,25 Lang, Hauptmann Heinz 77 Seeger, Oberleutnant Gunther 'Hupatz' 31,31-2
Consolidated B-24 Liberator 12,75,80; Lang, Oberleutnant Emil 18 Segatz, Hauptmann Hermann 45
defensive arcs 28 Langer, Hauptmann Karl-Heinz 76 Sievers, Unteroffizier W illi 47
Laskowski, Oberfeldwebel 42 Sommer, Oberleutnant Gerhard 24
Dahl, Major Walther 39, 66, 72,75-6,77,78-82, 90 Loos, Unteroffizier Walter pl60(94) 72, 72,90 Specht, Hauptmann Gunther 25,25,66
Dassow, Leutnant Rudolf 91 Spenner, Hauptmann Manfred 4
Doppler, Leutnant Alwin 90 Marburg, Oberfeldwebel Gerhard 35, 75 Staiger, Hauptmann Hermann 20, 21,90
Dost, Leutnant Gerhard 39 Martini, Gefreiter Alfred 70 Stamp, Major Gerhard 82-3
Dullberg, Hauptmann Ernst 32,32 Matoni, Major W alter 41, 41 Stehle, Oberleutnant Fritz 68
Maximowitz, Unteroffizier W illi 35,39,82 Steiner, Feldwebel Franz 38,38
Eberle, Oberleutnant Friedrich 8 Mayer, Hauptmann Egon 12-13:13; 14; 14; pl54(92) 90 Steinhoff, Oberstleutnant Johannes 20,28,28-9,
Eder, Oberleutnant Georg-Peter 'Schorsch' 17,17,43, Mayer, Oberstleutnant Egon 38 45,89
46, 47, 48,49, 51,52, 85, 90 Meissner, Feldwebel Hans 22 Stigler, Hauptmann Franz 30, 75
Ehlers, Leutnant Hans 22-3,25,90 Messerschmitt Bf 109: 7 ,9 ,31 ,32 , 74, 76; 'Black 9' 39; Strobele, Oberfeldwebel Georg 76
Engler, Unteroffizier Gunther pl61(94) 'Black 10' pl54(82); 'Black 12' pl55(92); 'Black Sturm, Leutnant Gustav 88-9
Engst, Feldwebel Hubert 78 Chevron' pl54(92); 'Double Black Chevron' pl55(92); Swoboda, Unteroffizier Hubert 49-50
Erhardt, Feldwebel Otto 80 'W hite 1' 8,25; 'W hite 8' pl59(93); 'White 10'
pl55(92); 'White 13' 72; 'White 17' pl59(93); 'Yellow Tichy, Oberleutnant Ekkehard 82
Falkensamer, Hauptmann Egon 25 6' cover(4); pl58(93) Tratt, Hauptmann Eduard 63,67, 67
Focke-Wulf Fw 190: 6, 7 ,9 ,12,13,21,27,38, 43, 44, Messerschmitt Bf 110 Zerstorer 26,62,63, 65,69; Triebel, Obergefreiter Werner 52
45,49; 'Black 1' 52; pl56(92); 'Black 13' pl60(94); '2N+EM' pl57(93); '3U+KR' pl57(93)
'Black 14' 73; 'Blue 14' pl60(94) 72; 'Brown 1' 54(92); Messerschmitt Bf 210: 62,63; '2N+FR' pl58(93) Unger, Leutnant W illi pl59(93) 71,72,76, 79-80,90
'Double Chevron' pl56(92); pl60(94); 'Double White Messerschmitt Me 262: 84, 84,86; 'Green 1' 86;
Chevron' pl54(92); 'Red 3' pl60(94); 'Red 22' 47; 48; 'Green 3' pl61(94) 88; 'Green 4' pl61(94); 'White 7' Vivroux, Unteroffizier Gerhard 44: 44; pl59(93)
pl57(93); 'White 3' pl59(93); ‘White 5' 81; 'White 7' pl61(94) Vogt, Feldwebel Gerhard 70
14; 'White 9' 70; pl56(92); 'White 10' 81; 'White 21' Messerschmitt Me 410: 62,64, 68; '3U+CC' pl58(93);
79; 'Yellow 2' 16; 'Yellow 5' pl57(92-3); 'Yellow 9' '3U+LP' pl58(93) Wahlfeld, Feldwebel Hermann 40,44
23; 'Yellow 13' 53; 'Yellow 17' pl59(93) 76 Metz, Leutnant Rudolf 35, 44, 77, 78 weapons: BK 5 5cm cannon 67, 67-8; MG 151 20mm
Franz, Oberleutnant Richard 34,35 Meyer, Hauptmann Karl-Heinz 11 cannon 25,31, 62,73,76; MK 108 30mm cannon
Frey, Oberleutnant Hugo 18,18, 90 Michalski, Major Gerhard 74-5 73,84; R4M 55mm rocket 86, 86; WGr 21cm
Fros, Oberfeldwebel W illi 68, 68 Mietusch, Hauptmann Klaus 21-2,22 underwing mortars 9,21,24,27, 38,63, 63-4,
Froschhauer, Unteroffizier Johann 51 Molders, Oberst Werner 8 64, 65, 66, 69, 85, 86, 88
Moritz, Hauptmann Wilhelm pl60(94) 71,73,77, 77, Weber, Unteroffizier Heinz 51
Galland, Major Wilhelm-Ferdinand 22,23, 23 79,80 Weik, Leutnant Hans 71,72,90
Galland, Oberst Adolf 8,9, 9 ,1 1 ,1 4 ,2 4 ,3 3 ,7 1 ,7 4 , Moycis, Unteroffizier Rudolf 32 Weissenberger, Major Theodore pl61(94)
75,84 Muller, Leutnant Erich 87 Wennekers, Feldwebel Hans-Gerd pl54(92)
Gehr, Gefreiter W alter pl56(92) Muller, Leutnant Siegfried 35, 71 Werfft, Hauptmann Dr Peter 74,75
Gerth, Leutnant Werner 35: pl60(94) 73,79, 90 Muller, Major Friedrich-Karl 'Tutti' 71, 77,90 Wessling, Oberleutnant Otto 74
Geyer, Hauptmann Horst 9 Willius, Leutnant Karl 'Charly' 40
Gillert, Oberfeldwebel 67 Naumann, Hauptmann Johannes pl54(92) Windisch, Oberfahnrich Walter 87
Glunz, Oberfeldwebel Adolf 37,37 Neumann, Leutnant Klaus 82, 82 Wurmheller, Oberleutnant Josef 16,16-17,90
Goring, Leutenant Peter 8 Niedereichholz, Feldwebel Kurt 46, 47 Wurzer, Hauptmann Heinrich 78,90
Graf, Major Hermann 24,25 Nowotny, Oberstleutnant Walter 84,87
Gramberg, Oberleutnant Heinz-Dieter 83 Zehart, Oberleutnant Othmar 34,35, 40
Grislawski, Hauptmann Alfred pl55(92) 70,70 Oesau, Oberstleutnant W alter 'Guile' 19:19; 37; Zinkl, Unteroffizier 46,47
Grob, Oberfeldwebel Artur 78 pl54(92) Zweigart, Leutnant Eugen-Ludwig 40
 Related Titles
ISBN SERIES No. TITLE
978 1 85532 518 0 Aircraft of the Aces 6 Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Aces of the Russian Front
978 1 85532 595 1 Aircraft of the Aces 9 Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Aces of the Western Front
978 1 85532 905 8 Aircraft of the Aces 29 Bf 109 F/G/K Aces of the Western Front
978 1 84176 084 1 Aircraft of the Aces 37 Bf 109 Aces of the Russian Front
978 1 84176 879 3 Aircraft of the Aces 68 Bf 109 Defence of the Reich Aces
978 1 84603 177 9 Aircraft of the Aces 76 More Bf 109 Aces of the Russian Front
978 1 84603 482 4 Aircraft of the Aces 92 Fw 190 Defence of the Reich Aces
978 1 84176 046 9 Aviation Elite Units 1 Jagdgeschwader 2
978 1 84176 286 9 Aviation Elite Units 6 Jagdgeschwader 54 'Griinherz'
978 1 84176 538 9 Aviation Elite Units 12 Jagdgeschwader 27 'Afrika'
978 1 84176 786 4 Aviation Elite Units 15 Jagdgeschwader 52
978 1 84176 908 0 Aviation Elite Units 20 Luftwaffe Sturmgruppen
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978 1 84603 189 2 Duel 1 P-51 Mustang vs Fw 190
978 1 84603 941 6 Duel 24 Fw 190 Sturmbocke vs B-17 Flying Fortress

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 ■t-O S P R E Y AIRCRAFT OF THE A C E S * » 1 0 1 -1;
Luftwaffe Viermot Aces 1942-45

By late 1943, the US strategic air forces in Europe attrition among undertrained pilots, from a lack of fuel
(flying B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators) were and from a decaying support infrastructure, a small
mounting a relentless daylight bombing campaign band of battle-hardened fighter aces wreaked havoc
against Nazi Germany. Opposing the 'heavy' amongst the American heavy bomber formations.
bombers, or Viermots ('four-motors'), was the Bringing down a Viermot was no easy task, lt
Jagdwaffe (fighter force) equipped with its Bf 109s, required courage and a steady nerve, flying skill,
Fw 190s and twin-engined Bf 1 10 and Me 2 1 0 /4 1 0 tactical awareness, gunnery skills and accuracy of
heavy fighters. Engaging the enemy directly over the aim. Yet a number of jogdflieger became proficient at
German fatherland, jogdflieger were tested to the limit 'killing bombers', achieving impressive scores despite
as they attempted to defend the Third Reich's industrial the best efforts of the USAAF's ever-present Mustang,
heart. Despite suffering from increasingly high levels of Lightning and Thunderbolt fighter escorts.

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