Part of a series of pictures taken around Joachim Kirschner's II./ JG 3 "Schwarze 1" at Amsterdam Schipol in the autumn of 1943 and published in Jochen Prien's Jagdfliegerverbände 10/II. Note the toned-down camouflage finish. Since II./ JG 3 were the foremost fighter group when it came to attacking incoming 8th USAAF bomber formations around the late autumn 1943 period, their aircraft featured low profile camouflage and markings - the usual yellow recognition markings on the lower engine cowling or on the rudders were rarely seen. In addition, several machines of 4. and 5. Staffeln featured white or black outline Kennziffer respectively as another attempt to tone down the appearance of the a/c - you can just see part of this in the second photo above, where part of "black 1" is visible, consisting of an outline only. The pilots pictured on Hptm Kirschner's Bf 109 were Uffz.Johann Frohlich and Uffz Rudolf Stephan...
below; the red dot indicates II./JG 3.
