Lt. Georg-Peter Eder JG 2

Lt. Eder (4th left) with 7. Staffel pilots (JG 2) in January 1943. Uffz. Otto Kleinert is far right. Eder's usual machine was 'white 4'.

Georg-Peter “Schorsch” Eder was born on 8 March 1921 at Oberdachstetten, a town some 50 kms west of Nuremberg. In October 1938 he joined the Luftwaffe. At the beginning of April 1939 he enrolled in the aviation academy at Berlin-Gatow. A year later he he achieved his pilot's license and was sent to training school at Werneuchen. He flew his first combat mission with 1./JG 51 on 1 September 1940 and flew with this unit for the remainder of the Battle of Britain. In May 1941 he joined 4./JG 51 and it was with this Staffel that he shot down his first aircraft, an RAF Spitfire, on 7 May.  Eder downed two Russian aircraft on 22 June 1941, the opening day of Barbarossa. On 24 July 1941, he was shot down and wounded. On 22 August, Eder collided with a Ju 52 transport aircraft on the ground at Ponjatowska in his Bf 109 F-2 (W.Nr. 9184). He was hospitalised with a head injury. He had recorded 10 victories at this time. On recovery from his injuries, Eder was sent as a flight instructor to Jagdfliegerschule 2 based at Zerbst arriving there on 1 November 1941. Eder was transferred to 7./JG 2 based in France in late November 1942..

 "I learnt that I was posted to 7.Staffel of JG 2 in Vannes commanded by my old friend Erich Hohagen. The next morning I 'discovered' the Fw 190 and spent virtually the entire day in the air getting to grips with the controls and exploring its performance. We flew a number of different types of formation exercise, always pushing the aircraft to its limits. 7.Staffel was a unit mostly composed of aces with scores that largely exceeded those of the other Staffeln. It wasn't easy to integrate a group of this quality..." **

On 30 December 40 B-17s raided Lorient. Mayer was airborne from Vannes with three pilots of his Stab " with the firm intention of putting into practise for the first time a tactic that he had been rehearsing for several weeks - the head-on attack to take advantage of the relatively weak defensive fire in the B-17 F.  In February 1943 Eder was appointed Staffelkapitän of a new 12./JG 2. On 28 March he downed a B-17, but his engine was shot up and he was injured when his Bf 109 G-4 (W.Nr. 14 998) somersaulted upon landing at Beaumont. 

According to the caption on the reverse of the image below, Eder's "blaue 1" Bf 109 G-4/R6 WNr.14988 overturned on landing following combat with B-17s. He was helped off the field by his comrades..

With his engine on fire after combat with B-17s Eder was preparing to bail out at 200m when he realised that his chute had been damaged. With his cockpit filling with smoke his 109 flipped over on rolling out of his landing. (note the considerable differences with Crandall's caption in his 'Fighters..' book. The date is incorrect).

 Eder continued to score steadily, downing his 20th victim on 29 May 1943. After claiming a P-47 and  a B-17 Herausschuss on 30 July his scoreboard had reached 31 victories. On 5 September 1943, Eder was named Staffelkapitän of 5./JG 2. He continued to sortie against US bomber formations. On 5 November, Eder was again forced to bail out of his Bf 109 G-6 (W.Nr. 20 733) and was again injured. In March 1944 Oblt. Eder was transferred to 6./JG 1. He baled out of his Fw 190 A-7 (W.Nr. 430 645) “yellow 4” following combat with a USAAF P-47 fighter near Göttingen on 19 April. On 8 May, he downed a B-24 but he was also hit and had to make an emergency landing in Fw 190 A-8 (WNr 170071) “yellow 4” at Vechta. On 29 May, after shooting down a B-17, his Fw 190 A-8 (W.Nr. 730 386) "red 24" collided with a Siebel during landing in Cottbus but Eder escaped unhurt. By the end of May he had a total of 49 confirmed victories. As the Kommandeur of II./JG 1 he saw action over Normandy following the Allied 'invasion'. On 21 June 1944 he recorded his 50th victory and on 24 June received the Ritterkreuz. On 11 August 1944 Eder took command of 6./JG 26. As Allied spearheads closed on the river Seine, Eder's Staffel was sent out on road convoy strafing missions. In an attack on Allied armour near Dreux on 17 August, Eder shot down a Spitfire at low altitude; according to his own account the enemy fighter came down between two M-4 Sherman tanks, destroying them both. A short while later he shot down a second Spitfire, which crashed on a third tank, setting it on fire. He was credited with three Sherman tanks destroyed. On 4 September Eder (now Hptm.) was appointed Kommandeur of II./JG 26, the day after the unit's previous Kommandeur Hptm. Emil Lang (173 victories, RK-EL) was downed by USAAF Thunderbolts over St Trond, Belgium. In September Eder was transfered to Erprobungskommando 262 (later Kommando Nowotny) where he was appointed Staffelkapitän of 1./Kdo Nowotny. On 19 November, Kommando Nowotny became JG 7 and Eder was appointed to lead 9./JG 7 flying the Me 262 jet fighter in combat with considerable success. Some sources claim that during the Ardennes offensive, Eder destroyed some 40 P-47s on the ground! He had been awarded the Eichenlaub (Nr 663) on the 25 November 1944 for 60 victories. On 22 January he was shot down near Parchim by USAAF P-51s and P-38s while preparing to land. He broke both his legs and spent the rest of the war in hospital at Wismar and, later, Bad Weissee where he was captured by US Army troops.  In total he flew 572 combat missions of which 150 were with the Me 262. On the Eastern Front he scored 10 victories and on the Western Front 68, of which  as many as 36 were four-engined bombers. With the Me 262 he scored at least 24 victories (most of these of course were unconfirmed). He was perhaps one of the leading scorers against US bombers, although Eder himself was downed on multiple occasions, bailing out 9 times. He was wounded 14 times.

**('Dans le Ciel de France' Vol 3)

Eagle Days - Life and death for the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain - Victoria Taylor

 

I've got hold of a copy of the book. I'm enjoying it. But as some have pointed out, the author - Victoria Taylor - is a 'professional' historian. This is not some random re-telling of the Luftschlacht um England. Having been asked to think about the author's 'goal' in writing the book the way she did, I'm starting to understand why she has not used too many post-war accounts from those directly involved and preferred period diaries and letters.

No 'white-washing'.

I was initially rather sceptical of the publisher's claims for this work. But Chapter 18 entitled 'Better liars than flyers' (incidentally, not in quotation marks...) might possibly be described as 'revelatory' . 

You can probably guess what's coming, in fact page 325 is an account of a Luftwaffe pilot roped into a bit of mas-killing. Perhaps shocking to the general reader, although not a new account by any means - and little to do with the Battle of Britain as such..

The book according to its author is not about the 'cartoonish' Luftwaffe that we are apparently all familiar with, presumably from the movie 'The Battle of Britain' - which Taylor actually spends a couple of pages psycho-analysing. Briefly put, it would appear that nowadays we all think of the men of the Luftwaffe as being mostly 'honourable opponents' and 'worthy foes' - who suffered and died as did our own brave RAF heroes. This is largely the influence of people like Galland and movies like 'The Battle of Britain'. 

The reality is that in some instances the men of the Luftwaffe were hard-bitten Nazis, some of whom relished anti-semitic violence; '..the chivalrous fighter pilots did not cancel out the small pool of ruthless killers who already lurked in all branches of the Luftwaffe by the summer of 1940..' 

Other Luftwaffe men were already disgusted at the treatment meted out to Jews and civilians and not just in Poland. Lehweß-Litzmann  - former Kommodore of KG 3 who went over to the Soviets - flew his first sorties over England during late 1940. The author goes so far as to state that '[..] the German 'knights of the air' should not be detached from the crimes that the regime committed..'

Victoria Taylor's goal? 

to 'remind' us that the Luftwaffe crews were not brave 'ordinary men'  - the myth of 'just like us' - but ideologically driven and intent on furthering a tyrannical dictator's ambitions of conquest...

Unfortunately for the reader looking for a 're-telling' of the battle from the German side - which is after all what the title is selling - the author's attempts to drive home this point leads her to wander way off topic in places; from medical experiments on political prisoners to the beginnings of mass murder etc etc. Taylor's book is not an an 'unbiased' account of the Battle of Britain as per the title. The lengthy chapters covering Poland, Noway, France and the campaign in the West don't so much set the stage for the Battle of Britain as ram home what 'nasty' people the German Wehrmacht actually were. They only partly focus on key engagements and do not mention the strengths and weaknesses of the combatants for the period in question. There are lengthy digressions that take in the 'views' of the German media - heavily controlled by the Propaganda Ministry so of little value - and personal accounts from the home front that have little or no connection to the Battle of Britain. In a period of time where the difference between amateur and professional in military history, and in other areas, has blurred, a little perspective is required. Taylor's book is far too 'lop-sided'. There are no new revelations. At best, 70% of this book pertains to the title, the rest is discourse to prove the point being rather clumsily made. And, as another commentator has suggested, regardless of Taylor's credentials, her book could well have been more accurately entitled 'A random essay about the early years of WWII, including brief mentions of the Battle of Britain'.

'Assi' Hahn's Friedrich -archive photo scan #37

 

#37 in this on-going scan series - this one from the Voss JG 2 'archive' ..

The Gruppenkommandeur of III./JG 2, Hptm. Hans Hahn returned his 40th, 41st and 42nd victories on 12 August 1941 - two Spitfires shortly before 13h00 over Cap Gris-Nez, just south of Calais, apparently followed by a third six hours later near Ramsgate. These Abschüsse earned him the Eichenlaub. On 27 September 1941, Hahn claimed his 46th victory (Rudorffer in charge of 6. Staffel got his 40th). Here Hahn's erster Wart has just added the additional victory marking on the rudder. Hahn achieved his 50th on 13 October 1941. He was not the leading scorer in the Geschwader as Schnell had 54 at the time..

more Fw 190s - archive photo scan #36

 

more Fw 190s scanned - #36 in a series of photos scanned for this blog..

Staffelkapitän 2./JG 11 Erich Hondt’s A-5/U12 WNr 410 266 ‘schwarze 13' with the Staffelzeichen on the cowl. Hondt's machine displayed the so-called Schwarmführerstreifen or red diagonal stripes of a Schwarm leader along the fuselage sides appearing as a 'Vee' from above..The U12 Rüstsatz comprised underwing gondolas each containing a pair of MG 151 cannon, one of the few armament Rüstsätze to reach operational status

Ofw. Bigge's 'Black 2' of the Fw 190 nightfighter Staffel 2./JG 2 in the early summer of 1943 in western France seen flipped over after a bombing raid according to the hand-written caption on the image - or as a result of a landing accident on 6 September 1943 according to another source....Fw 190s of this Staffel were finished in overall 76..

 Another JG 11 Kanonenboot with the underwing Gondelwaffen

..and from the ongoing Petrick archive ebay sell off.  Oskar Romm's Dora seen in Prenzlau, March 1945. I don't recall this image from Jochen Prien's history of IV./JG 3. A nice find...

Werfer rocket launcher-toting A-7/8s of I./JG 26 getting airborne from a field strip in western France during the summer of 1944. These aircraft were used with limited success on ground attack sorties against Allied armour and road convoys..

Hans-Martin Markhoff JG 52, JG 4

 

Fw 190 A seen in early 1945 in Welzow. Attributed by Peter Petrick to Oblt. Hans-Martin Markhoff, Staffelkapitän of 8./JG 4. Previously published by Peter Rodeike in 'Jagdflugzeug 190' ...note in the lower image the new (and short-lived) 'rigid' steel drop tank and mount installation developed for 'rough field' operations. See Rodeike p300.

Hans- Martin Markhoff  had flown more than 100 sorties on the Russian Front as wingman to one of JG 52's greatest aces, Günther Rall, prior to volunteering for home defence duties in early 1944. Charged with screening the Kommandeur of III./JG 52, his chances of achieving victories in aerial combat were few and having witnessed a bombardment of Berlin while on leave in late 1943 he decided that his duty lay in defending his fellow citizens back home in Germany. He volunteered to be a Sturm (assault) pilot flying in the 'defence of the Reich'. As an experienced fighter pilot, Oblt Hans-Martin Markhoff was appointed Staffelkapitän of 8./JG 4 in September 1944 and participated in the attack on B-24s of the 445th BG over Kassel on September 27, 1944 – one of the most serious reverses suffered by the US 8th AF during their bombing campaign of Germany. Post-war he trained as an architect.

 Extract from a 12-page letter written in 1979 - Markhoff describes the 'endless waiting around' for the first combat mission of his new 8.Staffel in II.(Sturm)/JG 4. Depending on the weather the fighter pilots existence revolved around different stages of 'readiness' - 'I no longer recall how often we got airborne and failed to make contact with the enemy, usually because they had already turned for home..' Markhoff's Staffel underwent their 'Feuertaufe' or 'baptism of fire' on 11 September 1944 - '..with good direction from the ground we were guided in behind a formation of B-17s over Chemnitz at around 12:10...'

 

Junkers Ju 188 A-3, III./KG 26, Gardemoen/Norway, May 1945

 

This III./KG 26 Junkers Ju 188 A-3 was photographed in Gardemoen/Norway, May 1945, following German surrender to British forces. Note the WNr. 0326 under the cockpit and what looks to be the variant designation. This Ju 188 was equipped with the FuG 200 Hohentwiel airborne naval search radar. III./KG 26 converted to the Ju 188 A-3 in December 1944 and in early January 1945, with 37 Ju 188s on charge, the unit was transferred to Bardufoss in northern Norway. From here the Gruppe flew a number of attacks against Allied shipping up until late February. Returning to Gardemoen, 30 kms north of Oslo, the unit did not see much action due to fuel shortages. Their final mission of the war was to help evacuate wounded soldiers from the Kurland pocket, after which most aircraft returned to Norway. Reposted from the ongoing Petrick archive ebay sell-off....

Fw 190 D-9 in JG 300

from an article compiled by this blog writer for Scale Aircraft Modelling back in 2003. Artwork by Mark Rolfe.

Stab./JG 300 D-9 seen in Prague post-war. The last Kommodore of JG 300 was Günther Rall - his Geschwaderstab may have taken on charge some D-9s in April 1945 but it is not known if Rall himself ever flew a combat sortie in the D-9.

Click on the images to read the captions

Note 'RLM 83' is now considered by some experts to have been a 'maritime blue' - that '83' was a 'green' is/was a widely held assumption possibly originating in the 1980s in the work of Thomas Hitchcock. According to Kiroff there are different 'distinct 'recipes' for Farbton 81 and 82 - and only one for '83'  - others consider blue '83' to have been a 'test' colour for over-water ops, with only limited 'documentary evidence' restricted to a handful of Ju 88 units operating in the Med. More on this shortly....

Also on this blog;

Last sorties of JG 300, April 1945