Ofw. Georg Ries seen in Norway during 1940 with II./JG 77
In 1934, the Kriegsmarine had formed a Staffel in Kiel to protect the German Bight (Deutsche Bucht) region: 1./JG 136. This naval air unit was subsequently split in two, and the unit became a Gruppe with a third and even a fourth Staffel. The Gruppe, based mainly at Jever, was taken over by the Luftwaffe. Its Kommandeur was Major Carl Schumacher, a former artilleryman from the Great War who had joined the navy and then, in 1934, the Luftwaffe. In 1938, the Gruppe abandoned its He 51s to fly Bf 109 Bs. Leaving Jever for Fürth and Weiden, the unit, now stripped of its fourth Staffel, was renamed II./JG 333. Like the future I./JG 77, II./JG 333 was based for a time in the Sudetenland, being stationed in Pilsen in 1939. In May of that year, II./333 was renamed II./JG 77 and received Bf 109 Es. At the end of August 1939, the Luftwaffe High Command transferred the Gruppe to Nordholz on the Baltic Sea, an area well known to many of its pilots. Its Staffelkapitäne at the time were Oblt. Helmut Henz (4./JG 77), Hptm. Alfred von Loijeswski (5./JG 77), both Legion Condor veterans, and Hptm. Franz-Heinz Lange (6./JG 77).
Below; II./JG 333 (renamed II./JG 77 in 1939) received its first Bf 109 Es in May 1939. Well camouflaged under netting and foliage, the Gruppe Adjutant’s aircraft is seen with its engine covered with a tarpaulin bearing the aircraft’s WNr. (609).
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Georg Ries had joined the Kriegsmarine in 1930 and served on the cruisers Leipzig and Köln before taking a position on Göring's 'yacht' 'Carin I'. For 'personal reasons' he decided to leave the navy and trained as an aircraft mechanic before being posted to Jever as an Unterfeldwebel and joining the Stabskompanie of JG 77 via a spell in Spain with the Legion Condor. By the time of the invasion of Norway during 1940 Ries was - in his own words - " ..responsible for all of II./JG 77's aircraft." This Gruppe was the only single-engine Luftwaffe fighter unit sent to Norway. Ries served as Werkstattzugführer in Stavanger and Trondheim.
His Gruppe initially assembled on Norwegian soil at Kristiansand/Kjevik. The first few days were quiet: the outgunned Norwegian fighter forces mainly flew Gladiators, which were vastly outclassed by the Bf 109s. But the RAF soon appeared in Norwegian skies. On 12 April, in poor weather, twelve Hampdens from No. 44 (Rhodesian) and No. 50 Squadrons made an incursion in search of German ships, appearing at around midday over the port of Kristiansand. German anti-aircraft guns opened up and downed two Hampdens. Several II./JG 77 Bf 109s managed to get airborne and caught up with the bombers. A fierce dogfight ensued in which six RAF bombers were claimed by the fighters - among the victorious pilots were Staffelkapitän Lange and Fw. Robert Menge – the latter had recently been transferred to 5./JG 77 from 6./Tr.Gr.186. British records partially confirm these losses: two twin-engine aircraft from No. 50 Sq. were shot down by anti-aircraft fire; three others (one from No. 50 Sq. and two from No. 44 Sq.) were shot down by Bf 109s. Below; wreckage from one of the Hampdens shot down over Kristiansand/Kjevik on 12 April 1940.
Above, a II./JG 77 Emil following a 'Kopfstand'. A good view of the 'classic' 1940 scheme.
Ries departed Norway in late 1940 for Brest, II./JG 77 covering those Channel front fighter units returning to the Reich for rest and refit as the 'Luftschlacht um England' petered out. The advance detachment of II./JG 77 left Norway on 10 November, passing through Kiel, Charleroi-Gosselies and Paris before reaching Brest. Bad luck was to mark the transfer: on the 16th, one of the two Ju 52s carrying ground crew crashed near Brest, killing around ten men. The ground crews were accommodated in buildings on the airfield at Guivapas.
Ries participated in all of JG 77's early campaigns including the Balkanfeldzug and Barbarossa. He departed the Eastern Front in March 1942 posted to a training school as 'technischer Leiter'. In his correspondence dated 1989 he mentions that much of his documentation was lost at the end of the war, but that he still had a few photos from Norway and the pre-war period. Some of these show Ries (below, centre) supervising the dismantling and loading of Me 109s onto trucks for recovery back to Germany and/or onward rail transfer to Brest in France.
Ries' 'Bestallung' document appointing him to the rank of 'Feldwebel' (below). Note that 'Unterfeldwebel' was an NCO rank in the Wehrmacht, admittedly not a common one. Many or most in the Luftwaffe - especially flying personnel - went from Unteroffizier directly to Feldwebel, skipping Unterfeldwebel, a rank that seems to have been reserved for 'specialist' technical personnel. (a reviewer on amazon.com mentioned in his 'review' of my 'Day Fighters Aces of the Luftwaffe' (Casemate, 2021) that he had read all of Caldwell's books and had never encountered this rank before, suggesting somehow that this author must have made an error. Well, no.)
