Battle of Britain Emil in colour - future 9./JG 3 Staffelkapitän Viktor Bauer's 'yellow 7' III./JG 3 Desvres late 1940

Film 2826 from the Agentur Karl Höffkes film archive features colour material depicting JG 3. The following stills are reproduced here with the kind permission of Karl Höffkes and feature "gelbe 7", the usual machine of the future Staffelkapitän 9./JG 3, Oblt. Viktor Bauer seen wearing a life jacket alongside his Emil speaking to a group.

 III./JG 3 was based at Desvres from Aug 8 1940 to Feb 16, 1941. The yellow rudders and full yellow noses would date this footage to between late October 1940 and Feb 1941. "Schwarze 5" of 8./JG 3 appears briefly in the background and was the machine of Oblt. Franz Beyer.

 " ..The camouflage appears to be in the new greys RLM 74/75 or the famous "mixed greys" - these aircraft do not seem to be in 02/71. Also, if you freeze the shot of the tail of "gelbe 7", you can see that the Hakenkreuz has been masked and a new, lighter shade of 65 (or 76?) has been applied to the airframe... the deeper blue of the original 65 is still visible between the arms of the Hakenkreuz.. The shiny finish on these aircraft is particularly noteworthy- these were well cared for..."

Note this colour section of the footage opens with the this Emil below taxying in.  Either a 'yellow 2' or 'yellow 7' again - note the two rows of Abschussbalken on the rudder. Bauer did not return his third until November. There are not many BoB candidates for this sort of victory total.. any candidates @G.R. Morrison ?

Thanks to GRM and L. Ritger for the captions