The latest (huge) volume in Rogge Buchverlag's Jagdfliegerverbände series (JfV) - Teil 16/I - has recently landed! This is the first volume of the Prien team's coverage of 1945 and is a no doubt comprehensive account of the Luftwaffe's fighter force during the first three months of 1945. Although it is almost impossible to 'read' and 'review' and do a meaningful write-up, if you have any interest in the late-war Luftwaffe at all, then you will know to add this to your library. A friend told me he made a decision years ago not to collect this series given his lack of room at home - now 24 volumes later with space on bookshelves shrinking- there are just two more volumes to come.
Teil 16 Teilband I is a daily chronicle of January-March 1945 covering all Luftwaffe Tagjagd day fighter units in action on both East and West fronts (including Norway) detailed over some 650 pages - Tagdjagdverbände of the Lw.- Kdo. West, Luftflotte Reich (including JG 7 and JG 400) and Luftflotten 1, 6 and 4 covering JGs 51,52 and 54 as well as L.fl 5 (Norwegen). On 1 January 1945 the Luftwaffe still had around 2,200 fighters in service, of which approx 1,500 were listed as serviceable, while there were nearly 3,000 pilots trained and available to man them. Of these organisations Lw.-Kdo West could field over 800 fighters even after the heavy losses of late December 1944 attempting to cover the Ardennes offensive - some 56% of the entire force. Luftflotte Reich comprising mostly JG 300 and JG 301 along with the jet and rocket fighters had at least 300 operational machines, while just 15% of the Luftwaffe's fighter force - barely 300 fighters -were based on the Eastern Front covering a huge area from Courland in the north to Hungary in the south. Lfl 5 had over 100 fighters available. It was proposed to 'bulk' up each Geschwader with a V. Gruppe made up of the EJG auxiliary training unit resources but this did not take place.
While the authors have managed to assemble nearly 300 photo images to illustrate this volume, other scarce 'material' also features. For example, the RLM-Abschussfilme - that had enabled a more or less comprehensive compilation of victory claims in previous volumes - are non-existent for 1945, with only material for JGs 26 and 27 available to compensate for the lack of films. The authors point out that although there may still be 'gaps' in the claims lists - data for the area covered by Luftflotte 4 in early January is described as 'fragmentary' - much of what has previously been published has been fully revised and augmented; where this has been done it is footnoted - there are well over 3,000 of these to complement the text! The day-by-day chronicle of the activities of the individual Gruppen is compiled from a host of disparate war diaries (eg KTB Lfl.6), Luftlageberichten, flight logs, strength and loss returns (GQM Verlustmeldungen) and reports, along with ULTRA intercepts; eg an ULTRA report dated 4 January 1945 details that II. and IV. Gruppen of EJG 1 were ordered to send four pilots with at least 10 hours on the Bf 109 to Brandenburg-Briest and Parchim to act as 'targets' for the Me 262s of I and III./JG 7. Details of aircraft abandoned, sabotaged and written off as airfields were evacuated are almost completely absent from German records. Fighter production (including repair) and deliveries (by unit) are covered for all types, including the new variants of the Fw 190 - the D-11 and D-13. There are images and details of a G-6 prototype fitted with wing-mounted Mk 108 cannon (also seen recently on-line from the Petrick archive) and a brutal assessment of the He 162 - it may have been built with non-strategic materials and only used one jet engine, but it could not be flown like any 'classic' fighter and it consequently killed far more of its pilots than it did the enemies'. Deliveries for all fighter types in the period covered by this volume amounted to some 6,600 aircraft. With the works at Sorau falling to the Soviets on 13 February 1945 the total of Ta 152s actually built and delivered amounted to just 48 machines of which at least 14 were destroyed on the ground during a strafing attack on Neuhausen, near Cottbus, on 16 January 1945.
The text opens with a statistical reassessment of the 'Bodenplatte' attacks on Allied airfields in the West - over 900 Luftwaffe aircraft took part (perhaps as many as 1,035 according to the OKW KTB). At least 750 of these were fighters. Losses were horrendous - as many as 214 pilots KIA or taken captive, 267 aircraft lost and a further 112 damaged for some 500 Allied aircraft destroyed on the ground. Is it worth pointing out that few of these new Luftwaffe pilots stood no chance of inflicting comparable losses in the air? And contrary to common belief only a very small percentage of those German aircraft shot down fell to their own anti-aircraft fire. But few Allied airmen were killed while their machines could soon be replaced so the entire enterprise was a 'Fehlschlag'. Countless lives might have been saved had the Luftwaffe fighter forces simply been disbanded at this stage of the war. Since Normandy, air warfare had increasingly turned into a "Materialschlacht". As a postscript (p643-646) a fascinating Lfl.Kdo 6 document considers the pros and cons of a 'Bodenplatte Ost' fighter attack on Eastern Front airfields ahead of the Soviet onslaught about to be launched from the bridgeheads north of Warsaw
During early January poor weather in the East saw most activity over the area of Lfl. 4 (Hungary) with II./JG 51 and II./JG 52 active to the north-west of Budapest while on the Western front huge 8th USAAF raids continued virtually unopposed. Losses continued to accumulate even where no combat was flown - poor weather, inadequate training levels, rough field strips, Soviet ground fire etc could bring down as many German Jagdflieger as enemy fighters! While aware of preparations in the East for the forthcoming Soviet onslaught, details of the paltry fuel stocks from the Luftflotten KTBs this early in the year make it clear that this factor alone would hamper any prospect of decisive or effective 'resistance'.
Elsewhere as the Soviets tank divisions started to roll through the so-called Generalgouvernement (former Poland) from 12 January some western-based fighter units began their move to the Eastern Front on 17 January. III./JG 51 was particularly active over East Prussian airspace. At this time orders were transmitted to 'remove' one Gruppe from each JG and to convert them to so-called 'Ruhe- or 'rest' -Gruppen' to create a 'ready reserve' to be maintained at full strength, but by early March 1945 shortages both of personnel and fuel led to numerous unit disbandments. IV./JG 301 in fact only flew one combat mission in the defence of the Reich (02 March) losing 14 aircraft. Some 130 of the best pilots in the disbanded Gruppen went to the jet units JG 7 and KG (J) 54 for re-training. The huge US 8th AF raid carried out on on 02 March was virtually the last 8th USAF bombing raid that was defended by the Jagdwaffe - henceforward most of their efforts would be spent countering the Allied Tactical Air forces..
In the East by mid-March the Soviets were just 15 miles or so south of Danzig and despite the poor weather the Luftwaffe was facing literally thousands of Soviet fighter and bomber incursions - 2,100 in the area of Lfl. 6, around 1,150 in the area of Lw.Kdo Ostpreussen during 9 March, to take one day by way of example. To counter, the KTB of Lfl. 6 mentions just 172 fighter sorties for 26 victory claims in addition to 116 Schlachtflieger sorties. There were also over 50 recce sorties flown, mostly attempting to establish where the front lines actually were. Some 60 sorties were flown as escort for Schlacht aircraft, as well as strafing and bombing missions in small numbers around Stettin and Kolberg. By 24 March - date of the Allied Rhine crossings - German defences in the West were totally ineffectual - not a single German fighter managed to intervene during the crossings in the vicinity of Wesel (p578). On the Allied side over 1,300 gliders and 4,600 other aircraft had been assembled.
As usual in this huge series of books there are numerous photographic highlights - despite the fact that PK images for this period are virtually non-existent. Among these are a selection of images of the Me 109 K-4s of JG 11 (from the Schalk album in the Archive of Modern Conflict) which are superb and mostly very large and very clear. Some were taken as late as mid-March on the airfield at Strausberg, east of Berlin with snow on the ground. As G.d.Jagdflieger, GenLt. Galland's visit to I./JG 300 at Borkheide on 16 January 1945 which was briefly covered in the JG 300 history (Lorant/Goyat) features on pages 110-111 with both 'new' and larger images and there is another image of 'Timo' Schenk's 'red 5''(p397).The Fw 190 'black 3' of II./JG 76 (p212) in white is unusual. The four 11./JG 3 Bf 109 K-4 images (p484-485) are 'new' as well, as are the images of the 'dump' of I. and IV./JG 51 wrecks left at Danzig-Langfuhr (p562-563) in March 1945.
The reader will be particularly impressed with Ulf Balke's maps - the first of these appears on p28 "Tagjagdverbände of Luftflotte Reich, January 1945" followed by similar maps for Lw.Kdo West, and the Eastern Front Luftflotten 6 during January 1945. These are repeated for the month of March 1945.
With only two more books to go in the series you are unlikely to want to start collecting them all now but if - like many enthusiasts- you are particularly interested in the late-war period this is one volume you cannot miss. For ordering and a full list of contents go to the Rogge Verlag website at http://jagdgeschwader.net
Below; Ofhr Peter Esser entered the Luftwaffe in late 1942. After being trained in JG 107 and 2./EJG Ost, he joined 7./JG 77 during August 1944. During September, he was transferred to 2./JG 53, ending the war in 6./JG 52. He is seen here at Vesprem, Hungary on 18 March 1945 after an afternoon sortie during which he claimed a P-51 south-east of the airfield. Note the 'tulip' decoration on the yellow nose of this G-14..
Two recent 'FlugzeugClassic' 'Extra' titles from the team behind Geramond's monthly magazine. 'Flieger Asse' ( 'Air Aces') features a selection of lengthy extracts from the published works of 296 Verlag who are now sadly defunct. I don't have all of their titles by any means so this compilation is very timely, possibly the last chance to become acquainted with some of these books which will undoubtedly become rather rare, most notably Roderich Cesscotti's (KG 30, KG 100, JG 301) memoir 'Langstreckenflug'. 'Foto Archiv' appears to be a selection of the 'Foto album' pages from the magazine 'FlugzeugClassic' there's not an awful lot of text in this one, just 100 pages of rare images from the personal albums of bomber and fighter pilots, maintenance 'black-men' and similar as previously published in the 'Foto album' pages of the monthly magazine. If you've not seen 'FlugzeugClassic' before most of these images will be new to you. My particular favourites concern Gerd Neuhaus who was a Ju 88 nightfighter pilot in NJG 4 before volunteering for II./JG 4. Both of these Geramond monographs can be purchased via amazon.co.uk for around £12 which is a bargain.
And a quick mention for 'Defenders of the Reich', Robert Forsyth's latest hardback for Osprey, recently reviewed by Victoria Taylor in the Daily Telegraph.