He 111 H 6N + AB of the Stab I./KG 100 photographed on the occasion of the 500th Feindflug (combat sortie) flown by the Gruppenkommandeur Hptm. Hansgeorg Bätscher on 30 July 1943 in Stalino or Kirowograd. Bätscher was awarded the RK on 21 December 1942 and the Oakleaves on 24.3.1944.
Bätscher (above, second from the left) was a veteran of the night bombing assault launched against Moscow during the summer of 1941 on Hitler's express directive (No. 33) " in retaliation for Soviet attacks against Budapest and Helsinki..". New bomber units - KG 4, KG 28 and KGr. 100 - had arrived from the West to strengthen the attack force. The first Luftwaffe raid against the political and military centre of the Soviet Union was flown on the night of 21/22 July 1941 by 195 bombers. Moscow was heavily defended by anti-aircraft batteries and ringed by belts of searchlights, " doch dann wurde Moskau zu einem feuerspeienden Vulkan " (Balke p 86) - an ordeal for the crews that compared with operating over London at the height of the Blitz. According to Bätscher "the night raids against Moscow were some of the most demanding sorties that I ever flew on the Eastern Front. The anti-aircraft fire was extremely intense and very accurate.." (Bergstrom, Barbarossa).
Ofw.Broich a crew member with 3./KG 2 described his first night over Moscow (Balke in Der Luftkreig in Europa, page 334 ) ;
"Nachtangriff auf die Stadt Moskau, bombing altitude 3,000 metres. Those were our orders. Our Do 17s had not been blacked up for night operations, and we were not particularly happy about that. There was a perceptible feeling of unease among the crew since this was so different from our normal missions. Our flight to the target seemed very long, no doubt because we were chasing the dawn, the first glimmers of which could be seen in the sky. As we approached Moscow we could see that the attack was already underway up ahead of us. As we dropped the first of our bombs over our designated target zone a searchlight caught us. Almost instantly up to thirty more latched onto us while the first flak shells exploded close by. We jettisoned the rest of our bombs and began our running battle with the flak..our pilot Uffz. Heimann tried everything to get loose - wild turns, changes of height, throttling back the engine, while flight engineer Hans started to throw newspapers and leaflets overboard - as was the practise over England- but all to no avail. Peter got us out of there by throwing the machine into a steep dive and we plunged headlong towards a less heavily defended sector of the city .."
At a cost of seven bombers, just over one hundred tons of high explosives and incendiaries were dropped. Subsequent raids were flown with ever diminishing numbers of aircraft and the Luftwaffe's 'offensive' against Moscow rapidly petered out as Soviet defences continued to strengthen and difficulties grew elsewhere on the front..
Bätscher flew more bomber sorties than any other Kampfflieger in the Luftwaffe, some 650 and finished the war at the controls of the Arado Ar 234.
Below; two views of a I./KG 100 He 111 undergoing an engine change, Kirowograd Sept./October 1943
Pre-war scenes from Wiesbaden (Do 17, He 51, Hs 123, Bf 108). A small sample from another nice set of images currently on offer from koelsch333 Ebay sales and shown here courtesy of Marco.
A translated extract from pages 179-180 of Roderich Cescotti's recently published memoir 'Langstreckenflug' with permission of the publisher Kurt Braatz of Editions 296. Cescotti describes KG 100 operations mounted against French resistance 'partisans' during June and July 1944 and relates an account of a Henschel HS 293 glide bomb sortie flown against Allied shipping off the Normandy coast.
"Invasion!"
" ...The fate met by Oblt. Heinrich Kirchhoff and his crew was particularly cruel. Returning from a combat sortie their Do 217 was hit by our own Luftwaffe anti-aircraft fire and they were forced to bail out over Marmande between Bordeaux and Toulouse, where they were taken captive by French resistance partisans and shot out of hand. By this stage the “French underground” were starting to represent a considerable danger for us. The quarters used by our various Staffeln, by the Geschwader and Gruppe Staffs were widely spread throughout Toulouse and the surrounding area, and the only means of staying in touch was by telephone network or vehicle. We soon had to forbid personnel from going out on their own as it had become too dangerous. Any activities in the city had to be carried in groups of men no smaller than three, each armed with his service pistol. With their liberation so close at hand all the pent-up hatred and sheer malice that the French felt towards us was now given expression....
On 19 June I received my first mission orders to bomb French resistance fighters - Bandbekämpfung – anti-partisan bombing. At 05:30 that morning we were airborne from Toulouse Francazal to fly a combined operation with Wehrmacht ground forces against a Maquis encampment located in the Pyrenees, dropping 500 kg bombs for no visible results. Less than one month later on 15 July at the request of our hard-pressed troops we bombed a village – dropping a ton of incendiaries on two barns and a farmstead, as well as pouring fire from our onboard armament into buildings. The targets were obliterated. This was what was meant by Terroristenbekämpfung – anti-terrorist operations. On our return I noted “ some shrapnel damage in the fuselage” which meant that we had come under fire – but what did this mean in reality. That both sides had sunk to a level of warfare that could do nothing but bring shame on those practising it. Time and again shot-down crews were being murdered in cold blood or simply disappearing never to be seen again. “Terror” on both sides escalated right up to the deployment on the German side of the radio-guided Hs 293 missile against ground targets..
I am unable to state exactly how many such operations were carried out by KG 100 as my duties were principally on the technical side. This meant that I was back in Germany for a few days during this period securing all that we needed for our aircraft. Nor was I in Toulouse on 20 July 1944 when news of the attempt on Hitler’s life came through – I was at the controls of the Geschwaderstab’s Ju 52 en route from Giebelstadt to Lüneburg..obviously we discussed Stauffenberg and his action in my immediate entourage and were agreed that this was a lost opportunity that should and could have been better exploited. It was not until after the war that we realised the fundamental weakness of Stauffenberg’s plan – that the prinicpal organiser of the plot was also its chief protagonist. No one believed in the much-heralded Endsieg or final victory – or at least no-one I knew.
When, on the evening of 7 August 1944 I took off from Toulouse Blagnac on my first ‘normal’ combat sortie – that is, against regular Allied combatants- for almost a year, the Allies were well-established in northern France, having already taken St. Malo and Brest and encircled the principal U-boot bases of Lorient and St. Nazaire. Our target was the Bay of Avranches, objective of the German counter thrust across the base of the Cotentin peninsula through which the flow of Allied resources were pouring. .. . I was at the controls of one of only 37 examples of the M-11 variant of the Dornier Do 217 that had been produced – in my view the best Luftwaffe bomber to enter service prior to 1945. The Do 217 M-11 was powered by two DB 603 in-line engines and had a wing span some five metres greater than that of conventional Dornier Do 217 variants. This and the 3,500 hp developed by the power plants gave the type excellent performance – it was fast, superior in the climb and handled well with no vices whatever the situation. Under the fuselage hung an Hs 293 and my observer Carl Hintermayr had the latest long-range guidance system at his disposal , a FuG 203 c ‘Kehl IV’ which was used for guiding both the Henschel glide bomb and the Fritz X stand-off bomb. We flew north-north-east across France through clear night skies. We could see the battle zone from afar, pencil shafts of light probing the sky, searchlights marking out a flak belt that had been established around the Allied landing zone. At an altitude of 4,000 metres we had no difficulty picking out the bay of Avranches, literally teeming with shipping of all types. There was no way that we would be hauling the Hs 293 back to Toulouse. I started to let down through the flak belt so that we could get a clearer picture of what was going on. There, directly ahead of us, a huge silhouette, but I had to break off before Hintermayr could get a clear fix on his screen. We came around for a second try. Now everything was set. The dark silhouette was some two or three kilometres ahead of us. We sped directly towards it, holding the aircraft on course, as straight as a die, to make my observer’s task of guiding the missile onto the target as easy as possible. Then, a barely perceptible hissing, a diffuse glow of light from under our belly and a red point of light shot away from the aircraft into the darkness ahead of us – the Hs 293 had been launched. I held my course and height although by now we were coming under heavy flak fire. Only seconds to go until a huge explosion ahead of us. Suddenly, the red light at the rear of the bomb was snuffed out, extinguished – we had lost the missile! There was no way of directing it any further. Full of rage and disappointment I continued towards our target determined at least to let him have a burst from the twin MGs in our nose, but the ship – a destroyer – was by now on full alert and was firing back. I hauled the Dornier into a hard climb out of the danger zone, curving into a tight turn southwards and home. We were starting to feel a little safer when suddenly tracers flashed past our ears – at that moment our radio operator reported at least two twin-engine machines on our tail! ...."
Translation by Neil Page
Video depicting a Henschel Hs 293 being loaded under a Luftwaffe bomber. The Henschel Hs 293 was an anti-ship guided missile: a radio-controlled 'glider bomb' with a rocket engine slung underneath it, designed by Herbert A. Wagner. The weapon consisted of a modified standard 500 kg SZ bomb with a thin metal shell equipped with a rocket engine a pair of wings, and an 18-channel radio receiver, getting its signals from a Kehl transmitting set. The rocket provided for only a short burst of speed making range dependent on the height of launch.
KG 100 mounted more Hs 293 sorties against the Allied advance out of Normandy, specifically targeting road infrastructure. Between the 2nd and 6th of August 1944 the weapon was used to attack bridges over the River See and River Selume at the southern end of the Cherbourg peninsula - Patton's forces were pouring through these bottlenecks. Again the attacks were made at night, but only slight damage was done to the bridge at Pontaubault for the loss of at least five aircraft..
Me 109 F of 5 + 6./JG 52 seen in July 1941 Feldflugplatz (field strip) Lepel/Ostfront.
Below; Me 109 G-2 'black 12' (the Gruppe bar and yellow theatre band are just visible) of 5./JG 52 as the Staffel celebrates its 500th Abschuß, the 500th being achieved by Uffz. Peter Düttmann on 26 July 1943 (according to the plaque). Düttmann is in the centre with the garland of flowers around his neck. Düttmann was only just starting his career and this was his 10th returned on his 103rd Feindflug. He was awarded the RK on 9 June 1944 and survived the war with something like 150 victories claimed. Photo published on page 91 of Düttmann's memoir " Wir kämpften in einsamen Höhen "
Two very nice views of Me 109 E "rote 1" of 5./JG 52 assigned to the Staffelkapitän Oblt. August-Wilhelm Schumann in Mannheim-Sandhofen, late 1939. These images were previously seen in Bernd Barbas' II./JG 52 volume. Any suggestions regarding the colour scheme are welcome!
Me 109 E 5./JG 52 late 1939, Böblingen, nice view of the Teufelswappen
Above 'gelbe 5' of 9./JG 26 following a Kopfstand in Wevelghem 1942/43.
Below; FW 190 "gelbe 11" and pilots and crew of 6./JG 26 seen in June 1943 in Vitry en Artois. Second from left is Uffz. Gerhard Vogt, RK on 25 November 1944 for around 48 Luftsiege, killed on 14.1.1945 at the controls of his Fw 190 D-9 near Eil/Köln in combat. On the right in the second image which dates from September 1942 are Staffelkapitän Oblt. Johannes Naumann, (RK on 9 November 1944, 34 Luftsiege) and Vogt in Abbeville. The third photo shows Vogt after the pilot had received hospital treatment for injuries sustained when he was shot down in combat with a Spitfire over the Normandy invasion front on 5 July 1944.
below - Bf109 E-4 (E-3?), "Weisse 5" 1./ JG 27 taken at De Panne (La Panne) in the vicinity of Dunkirk during May 1940. Thanks to 'ouidjat' for the pointer. This same beached Emil has appeared on Ebay on a number of occasions recently. Camouflage style and number size are typical for I./JG 27 in early 40s. The fact there is no I./JG 27 emblem is also typical for that period and unit.
The Hs 123 with the Schlacht 'Mickey' emblem is also advertised as being photograhed in France above. More Histo-Fakto sales from the albums of Private James V Ferry, ASN 33148634, born 1918 in Harrisburg (Penn.), member of the 3rd Armoured Division
...Operation Sunrise was a large daylight raid mounted on 24 July 1941 against the German battle cruisers Prinz Eugen, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau holed up in the port of Brest. 'Sunrise I and II" - 'II' being the diversion - was flown by more than one hundred RAF medium and heavy bombers - including Stirlings, Halifaxes..and three B-17 Flying Fortresses. Chris Goss has just published an excellent article detailing the events leading up to and including the 24 July 1941 raid entitled 'Neutralise the threat' which appears in the current issue of 'Britain at War' magazine.
Given the focus of 'Britain at War' Chris does not include any accounts from JG 2 pilots who countered the raid, although he does publish some interesting photos. 24 July 1941 was a significant day in the career of the Staffelführer 3./JG 2 Lt. Julius Meimberg - by his own account three bombers shot down and a crash landing that resulted in serious injuries that would keep him out of combat for the rest of the year.
While Goss states in one of his photo captions that Meimberg was shot down - presumably by the bombers' defensive fire - Meimberg's own account merely refers to running out of fuel. He had been performing an air test when he had simply run into the RAF raid ...
" ...In the early afternoon the chief engineer (Oberwerksmeister) reported that my Bf 109 E-7 'yellow 1' was serviceable and suggested that I take it up for an air test. So I took off alone. The visibility was perfect. With the sun beating down on my canopy, temperatures rose rapidly in the cockpit and I climbed for altitude in search of cooler conditions.."
Banking in the direction of Brest, Meimberg could clearly see the silhouette of the Prinz Eugen in the port. The Gneisenau, on the other hand, was lying in a huge dry dock. They looked extremely vulnerable. Meimberg then flew a wide curving turn to the north-west and caught sight of a series of black dots moving to the south at between 4,000 and 5,000 metres altitude.
" Bomber ! They looked like swarms of insects, there was no doubt, however, they were bombers and there were several dozen of them ! I struggled to remain calm. I quartered the sky looking for the escort. However I see no sign of condensation trails that might betray any fighters - not a single Spitfire. As the bombers were flying into the sun, it was likely that I had not yet been seen. I called up our Gefechtsstand and told them the number, the altitude and the heading of the intruders. The first enemy aircraft passed below me at that moment...."
Meimberg feverishly switched on his sight and armed his MGs and dove down to come in behind a Handley-Page Hampden bomber.
" ..A long burst of fire ripped into his engines. He started to go down. I climbed back to altitude. After about ten minutes, I spotted another group of Hampdens and came down behind one of them. It wasn't long before he was joining my first victim. I again got back up sun in an 'ambush' position and, after a similar period, spotted my target: a Vickers Wellington. I came in from astern at full speed and opened fire, exhausting my last ammunition. It went straight down and crashed not giving any of its occupants a chance to escape. My third victory of the day! At that moment, the red low fuel warning light started flashing on the instrument panel. I'd been airborne for more than an hour and it was high time to land. Suddenly, while still a long way from Guipavas, my engine coughed and sputtered and then stopped abruptly..".
With his prop turned to fine pitch and still windmilling in the slipstream, the Staffelführer 3./JG 2 desperately sought out a landing strip before lining up on an open field in the vicinity of Brélès. In the ensuing forced landing Meimberg's Bf 109 E -7 " yellow 1 ", displaying 10 victory bars, was brought to a stand after careening into a hedge and low wall. Severely damaged, the aircraft would be a write-off. In the photos taken immediately after the crash Meimberg is prostrate on the ground, swathed in bandages, while German personnel and local civilians can be seen attempting to protect the injured pilot from the heat of the sun’s rays with an umbrella. Meimberg would not rejoin his unit until spring 1942.
RAF losses during 'Sunrise' were considerable and the German ships relatively unscathed - although the large bomber force was escorted by equally large numbers of fighters, the bombers could only be escorted part of the way due to the distances involved. I./JG 2 claimed some 25 RAF bombers shot down. Also successful were pilots of the Bf 109s of the Erg.Jagd training Staffel. Ofw. Franz Gawlik of this unit claimed a Halifax.The diversionary Circus mounted over northern France had failed to draw the Luftwaffe fighters north.
Further reading;
Eric Mombeek 'Dans le ciel de France' (Vol II JG 2 history)
Jules Meimberg; chapter entitled "Gegen die Royal Air Force" in "Feindberuehrung" (296 Verlag)
Chris Goss " Neutralise the threat", article in Britain at War, April 2012 issue (general page view below)
