wilde Sau Bf 109s of JG 302, Fw. Andreas Hartl - Bundesarchiv photo find #12

More interesting schemes for the new 1:24 scale Airfix Gustav. Not strictly speaking a 'photo report' - these are screen grabs from Wochenschau broadcast No 709/1944 which can be viewed in decent quality in the Bundesarchiv digital Lesesaal (see link below).   According to the commentary these images show Bf 109 nightfighters returning from a sortie. Given the 'clues' in the report these are almost certainly from of II./JG 302. Pilots are seen reporting in to the Gruppenkommandeur. Note these Bf 109 G-6 all have red fuselage bands, a II. Gruppe bar and the fuselage codes preceded with the large 'N' for 'Nacht'. The starboard wing lower surfaces are black. (note the cannon gondola in the nearest G-6 to the camera in the image below) The Wochenschau film moves on to show a successful 'Nachwuchs', identifying the pilot as Fw. Andreas Hartl. Hartl was a wilde Sau ace with 6./JG 302.

Above;  Hartl reporting in. Note the large infra-red light on the lower wing of his Gustav (in the cross), which identified the wilde Säue to anti-aircraft batteries on the ground. In addition the wilde Sau usually removed the pilot head armour as can be seen in the previous images.

Below; Hartl congratulated by a comrade in front of his 5. or 6.Staffel G-6 'N 1+ bar'. (6. Staffel usually equates to yellow numbers - Hartl's 'N 1' looks black, maybe red, certainly darker than the yellow octane triangle alongside it).

According to the commentary and as apparently mentioned in an OKW Bericht, Hartl had shot down 11 bombers in just his first seven sorties, including four during the night of 24-25 March 1944. (Boiten gives him three confirmed and five unconfirmed in total). Note the pilots are wearing life-jackets - despite operating over central/western Germany - and the dust covers are still over the cannon barrel in the view below, so the footage may just be posed for the cameras. Andreas Hartl was shot down and killed on a day sortie on 8 April 1944. 

“..on 8 April 1944 at around 12:15 – and somewhat to our consternation -we were put on thirty-minute readiness. Few, if any of us, had had any combat experience by day. Then at 13:00 the green flare soared into the sky over the airfield – the signal for the forty Messerschmitts of our Gruppe to get airborne! This on its own was an impressive spectacle, but then twenty minutes later we made visual contact with an armada of B-24 Liberators ploughing through the skies over Braunschweig. I can still recall closing in on and opening up at less than 100 metres distance on two of these lumbering machines, making no evasive manoeuvres whatsoever. The starboard wing of one of the American bombers was a sheet of flame. I was unable to observe further as we soon found a gaggle of Mustangs on our tails and after some thirty minutes of wild turning and diving during the course of which I lost 4,000 metres altitude I was able to give the American fighters the slip and landed at Ludwigslust bathed in sweat. We learnt that we had lost one of the best pilots in our Staffel during this encounter - Fw. Andreas Hartl was machine-gunned by P-51s as he hung under his parachute..." 

Fritz Gniffke (6./JG 302)

Thanks to Anders Hjortsberg and Jaroslav "Alan Grey" Mazanec for help with this post

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