Chapter 7
By the opening days of 1942 the situation on the Eastern Front had changed. Russian forces had launched a successful second counter-offensive to drive a wedge between the German’s central and northern sectors, and a breach more than fifty miles wide seriously threatened the German forces at Leningrad to the north. With the benefit of a much shorter supply line, the Soviet Air Force was better equipped and more experienced to fight a winter war.
As the air fighting intensified once more, Hannes Trautloft’s JG 54 became torn between applying pressure on the beleaguered city of Leningrad and allocating resources to the fighting in the area of Lake Ilmen to the south. Friedrich Beckh’s JG 51 faced similar decisions in the central sector as to whether to try and counter the Russian advance westwards from Moscow or allocate resources against the new counter-offensive on its left flank.
Richthofen’s VIII. Fliegerkorps now faced at least eight Soviet fighter regiments in the Moscow area alone, all operating from airfields with good facilities for winter operations. The best his units could do was to slow down the Soviet advance but it would take until March to bring it to a halt. The following month Richthofen handed over responsibility for air support in the central region to Robert Ritter von Greim’s V. Fliegerkorps, now to be designated Luftwaffenkommando Ost (Luftwaffe Command East), while Richthofen took VIII. Fliegerkorps south to the Crimea.
The increased air activity over the Eastern Front provided the Jagdwaffe with the opportunity to gain further success. Many units, such as JG 51, were now relieved of their ground-attack missions to counter the increased Soviet aerial threat and were able to operate more freely. Many pilots started to add to their personal scores and amongst those decorated for their achievements during the early months of 1942 were Hauptmann Heinz Bär, Kapitän of 12./JG 51, who became the seventh recipient of the Swords having been credited with ninety victories; Leutnant Hans Strelow of 5./JG 51 who became the Wehrmacht’s youngest holder of the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves at the age of just nineteen for his sixty-six victories; and Oberfeldwebel Franz-Josef Beerenbrock of 10./JG 51, who became the first member of the Geschwader to surpass Mölder’s century of victories, for which Beerenbrock received the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross.
While Richthofen led the assault by VIII. Fliegerkorps on Sevastopol, which commenced in June, thousands of miles away at the other end of the Eastern Front a very different air battle was taking place around the ports of Archangel and Murmansk, through which the Allies had been supplying Stalin with arms and equipment. A new unit, JG 5, had been formed from elements of JG 77 and JG 1 with the responsibility of providing fighter cover over the Arctic Front. The new Jagdgeschwader found itself in a rather unusual situation as it fought aircraft of both the Western Allies and the Soviets at the same time. One Gruppe was based on the west coast of Norway to counter Allied anti-shipping attacks across the North Sea while two Gruppen were based in Finland to support operations in the east.
The war in the Arctic became a rather insular affair. Conditions were extremely cold and ranged from near twenty-four hours of daylight when the sun never fully set to long periods of almost total darkness. The Jagdflieger were always outnumbered. Nonetheless, they still achieved much success and amongst JG 5’s leading scorers on the Arctic Front were Leutnant Heinrich Ehrler, Kapitän of 6./JG 5, who scored more than sixty victories operating in the extreme north, Leutnant Theodor Weissenberger, a former Zerstörer ace, now serving with 6./JG 5, Oberleutnant Walter Schuck of 7./JG 5 and Feldwebel Rudolf Müller of 6./JG 5 who claimed five Russian Hurricanes in one day over the Kola Inlet.
By mid-1942 about two-thirds of the Luftwaffe’s total combat strength, more than 4,000 aircraft, was based on the Eastern Front and operating with the four major commands. From north to south these were: Luftflotte 5 under the command of Hans-Jürgen Stumpff; Luftflotte 1 commanded by Alfred Keller; Ritter von Greim’s Luftwaffenkommando Ost; and Luftflotte 4 led by Alexander Löhr. The size of these commands varied considerably and the number of combat aircraft available to each ranged from more than 1,500 available to Löhr to less than 200 available to Stumpff.27
Of greatest concern was the fact that the Red Air Force outnumbered the Luftwaffe along parts of the front by as much as 3 : 1. The number of Bf 109s across the entire Eastern Front now totalled around 550, only 70 per cent of the number available the previous year for Barbarossa. Apart from the fifty Bf 109Es allocated to Stumpff in Finland the rest of the single-engine fighter force along the front were Bf 109Fs. While Trautloft’s JG 54 continued to watch over the northern sector and JG 51, now under the command of Oberstleutnant Karl-Gottfried Nordmann, provided fighter cover for the central sector, almost half of the Bf 109s were allocated to Löhr’s Luftflotte 4 in the southern sector ready for the next German offensive. Three Gruppen of JG 3 were under the command of Oberstleutnant Günther Lützow and based at Morosovskaya and Millerovo, two Gruppen JG 52 and a single Gruppe of JG 53, all under the command of Major Herbert Ihlefeld, occupied airfields at Taganrog and Kharkov, and two of JG 77, led by Major Gordon Gollob, were based at Kastornoye and Kerch.
Hitler now renewed his offensive in the east, known as Fall Blau (Case Blue), a continuation of Barbarossa and soon to be expanded to become Operation Braunschweig (Brunswick), with the intention of knocking the Soviet Union out of the war. Oil had always been Germany’s achilles heel and before the war the country had to import 85 per cent of its needs but Hitler could now only rely on two main sources of supply: Germany’s own synthetic plants and the oilfields of Romania. With almost all of his oil reserves gone, and supplies in Romania in decline and continuously vulnerable to attack, Hitler had no option other than to seek out new supplies.
The immense Caucasus region, bounded by the Black Sea to its west and the Caspian Sea to the east, had two main oilfields. The area north of the mountains produced 10 per cent of all Soviet oil while the region to the south, around Baku on the Caspian, contained some of the largest oilfields in the world and produced 80 per cent of the Soviet Union’s oil supply, while also offering large supplies of coal and peat along with other rare materials.
In response to Hitler’s order for all available forces to be made available for his new offensive in the east, Jeschonnek included training units amongst the forces he sent to the Eastern Front. As General der Jagdflieger, Galland protested and argued that a reduction in training in Germany would have longer-term consequences on the Luftwaffe. While Jeschonnek was seemingly sympathetic to Galland’s view, he was adamant that the short-term priority was the defeat of the Soviet Union as this would have a far bigger consequence on the outcome of the Second World War and so all available units were sent east.
The new offensive carried out by Army Group South commenced on 28 June along a front stretching 500 miles from Kursk in the north to the Sea of Azov in the south. It was essentially a two-pronged advance, aiming ultimately to reach the rich oilfields of Baku and the key industrial city of Stalingrad on the Volga River, a move that would cover the flanks of the drive towards the oilfields. Initially the advance resulted in rapid gains, including vast amounts of territory and a number of oilfields, but the Red Army often chose to retreat rather than fight.
Despite having entered this new offensive with less than half the number of combat aircraft it would have liked, the Luftwaffe gained initial control of the sky. Amongst those who achieved successes in the air during the opening period of this new campaign was Gordon Gollob, leading JG 77 over the Kerch Straits opposite the Crimea peninsula. Gollob was the highest scorer at the time having become the first to reach 150 victories and had been fortunate to have a number of experienced pilots under his command. They included the very capable Heinz Bär, Kommandeur of I./JG 77, who had been awarded the Swords earlier in the year while Staffelkapitän of 1./JG 51 for his ninety victories. Also serving with JG 77 were three centurions, all Staffelkapitäne and all of whom had been awarded the Oak Leaves to their Knight’s Cross: Hauptmann Heinrich Setz commanding 4. Staffel; Hauptmann Anton Hackl of 5. Staffel; and Oberleutnant Erwin Clausen of 6. Staffel.
With air-combat leaders of such high quality, it is hardly surprising that JG 77 dominated the sky over the Kerch–Taman area. Gollob often adopted the tactic of operating at low level with his wingman and waiting for a Soviet formation to appear. They would then climb in a spiral, keeping the enemy formation above them while carefully manoeuvring into a firing position, and then strike; more often than not, two unsuspecting Soviet aircraft would disappear from the formation. For his leadership on the Eastern Front, Gordon Gollob became the third recipient of the Diamonds. He was then given a well-earned rest with promotion to Oberstleutnant and a posting to a staff appointment on the Channel Front as JG 77 moved south to the Mediterranean.
Another to achieve a notable milestone was Oberleutnant Hermann Graf, Kapitän of 9./JG 52, who became the first fighter pilot to shoot down 200 enemy aircraft. At the start of September 1942 he had been credited with 140 victories but his achievement during the month that followed was most impressive: five victories on 2 September; four more the following day; then thirteen more during the next week; fifteen during the week after that; and then ten more in the next five days. Then, on 23 September, he claimed ten aircraft during the day and his score reached a staggering 202 on 26 September, earning him the coveted Diamonds. Hermann Graf had become the fifth recipient of the Diamonds as the announcement of his award came just days after Hans-Joachim Marseille’s in North Africa.
It can be no coincidence that the five recipients of the Diamonds so far were all Jagdflieger; such was their contribution in all theatres as their achievements were recognized at the highest level. Graf had earned the four highest decorations – Knight’s Cross, Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds – in the space of just eight months, a remarkable achievement considering he had scored his first success just over a year before. Graf’s former wingman, Oberfeldwebel Leopold Steinbatz, would also be highly decorated and became the Wehrmacht’s first non-officer to be awarded the Swords, albeit posthumously, for his ninety-nine victories on the Eastern Front.
There were so many examples of aerial success on the Eastern Front during this period. Another young man to score consistently was the Austrian-born Leutnant Walter Nowotny. Still only twenty-one years old, Nowotny was serving with JG 54 and had claimed his first victories during Barbarossa the previous year. Known to be superstitious, he wore the same pair of trousers on combat missions that he had been wearing a year before when he had spent three days in a dinghy having been shot down over the Gulf of Riga. During July and August 1942 Nowotny took his total to more than fifty victories for which he was awarded the Knight’s Cross. Having then been given some well-earned leave, he was able to return to Vienna to spend some valuable time with his brother, Hubert, also an officer in the Wehrmacht. It would be the last time the brothers were to meet as both would soon return to the Eastern Front and while Walter was celebrating his appointment as Staffelkapitän of 1./JG 54 in October, Hubert was killed at Stalingrad.
It was also during October 1942 that the FW 190 made its first appearance on the Eastern Front with I./JG 51 being the first Gruppe to convert to the type. The Gruppe had been temporarily withdrawn from the front line and retired to Jesau near Königsberg for conversion to the FW 190A-3. Having returned to the front, I./JG 51 was initially deployed to the northern sector where the 190s were given the freedom to roam as a Rotte or Schwarm during freier Jagd sorties to the south-east of Leningrad, before they were moved to the central sector where the FW 190 would soon be at the heart of the air war over the Eastern Front.28
The new FW 190A proved more manoeuvrable than the Bf 109F, which to some was starting to seem a little tired, and its introduction was a timely counter to the improving Russian fighters, particularly the Lavochkin La-5 and the Yakovlev Yak-7B. The other Gruppen of JG 51 soon converted to the FW 190A and made an immediate impact, although the tried and tested Bf 109 still remained a favourite for many pilots.
Scores in the air were still rising as German forces advanced on Stalingrad, including those of I./JG 53, who accounted for more than 900 victories during the summer of 1942. Hauptmann Friedrich-Karl Müller, Kapitän of 1./JG 53, claimed twenty-five during August, including five in one day on 12 August, and during the first three weeks of September he added another thirty-five, including seven on 19 September; this took Müller’s total past 100 and earned him the Knight’s Cross and Oak Leaves within the space of just four days. Two others to stand out were Oberleutnant Wolfgang Tonne, Kapitän of 3./JG 53, who was credited with eighty-eight Russian aircraft in just four months between May and September, for which he received the Knight’s Cross and Oak Leaves within two weeks during September, and Oberfeldwebel Wilhelm Crinius of the same Staffel. Crinius had initially flown as wingman to Tonne but went one better than his Staffelkapitän by scoring 100 victories during the same period and was awarded the Knight’s Cross and Oak Leaves on the same day.
There were losses as well for I./JG 53 and amongst the thirty Bf 109s lost were four in two days of heavy combat during 9–10 September, including three Experten. The first was Oberfeldwebel Alfred Franke with sixty victories. Having been bounced, surprisingly, by an Il-2 Sturmovik, Franke was shot down and killed on 9 September, after which he was posthumously promoted to the rank of Leutnant and awarded the Knight’s Cross. The following day, the Bf 109G of Leutnant Walter Zellot was hit by flak over Stalingrad. Zellot managed to bail out but was too low for his parachute to deploy fully and was killed; Zellot, also a holder of the Knight’s Cross, had recorded eighty-three victories over the Eastern Front. The Gruppe’s second Experte to be killed that day was Feldwebel Franz Hagedorn who was shot down by a Sturmovik having been credited with thirty-seven victories.
Along with other vital air assets, I./JG 53 soon departed for the Mediterranean, which weakened the Jagdwaffe’s presence in southern Russia to the point that only two Jagdgeschwader were now left to cover the vast area; JG 3 to support the advance on Stalingrad and JG 52 to cover the Caucasus and Black Sea.
Now led by Major Wolfe-Dietrich Wilcke, JG 3 was tasked to support General Friedrich Paulus’s Sixth Army as it made its final assault on Stalingrad. Wilcke was fortunate to have some of the finest pilots on the Eastern Front under his command, including two centurions and holders of the Oak Leaves; Hauptmann Kurt Brändle, Kommandeur of II./JG 3, and Oberleutnant Viktor Bauer, the Kapitän of 9./JG 3. Amongst Wilcke’s other notable pilots were Leutnant Joachim Kirschner of 5./JG 3 and Leutnant Wilhelm Lemke of 9./JG 3. Lemke was already a holder of the Knight’s Cross and would soon pass a century of victories for which he was awarded the Oak Leaves, and Kirschner would soon be awarded the Knight’s Cross for passing fifty victories during the battle of Stalingrad and would go on to become JG 3’s highest scorer for which he, too, would be awarded the Oak Leaves.
JG 3 faced enormous resistance in the air but Wilcke was able to move his units forward to a small airstrip at Pitomnik, just over ten miles from the suburbs of Stalingrad, from where it would operate for the next couple of months. While JG 3 was maintaining air superiority over the city, JG 52, led by Herbert Ihlefeld, was left to shuttle between the southern and central sectors to cover the vast area from the Black Sea to Moscow, highlighting just how stretched the Jagdwaffe had now become, although JG 52 would later become the highest scoring Bf 109 Jagdgeschwader on the Eastern Front.
Unlike previous campaigns earlier in the war, the lack of air assets meant that German troops on the ground had become increasingly exposed by the lack of superiority in the air. Despite a long and extremely bloody struggle, Paulus and the Sixth Army were unable to dislodge the determined defenders of Stalingrad, who refused to give an inch and chose to defend every ruined building and every stronghold on the west bank of the Volga to the last. Then, just as the fighting at Stalingrad was reaching a climax, the Russians suddenly counterattacked. A massive two-pronged counter-offensive beginning on 19 November saw Soviet forces cross the Volga to the north and south of Stalingrad, crashing through the enemy forces and joining up to the west of the city just three days later.
The German Sixth Army was now surrounded and cut off with more than 250,000 Germans trapped within Stalingrad. Also cut off were the ground crew of JG 3 who had been unable to escape, although most of the aircraft had earlier withdrawn to airfields at Tazinskaya and Morozovskaya, nearly 200 miles to the south-west of Stalingrad, from where the Luftwaffe would mount its supply mission to the beleaguered forces trapped within the city. But not all of JG 3’s aircraft and pilots had left Pitomnik. A volunteer detachment, consisting of twenty-two pilots led by Hauptmann Rudolf Germeroth, Kapitän of 3./JG 3, had remained behind to form the Platzschutzstaffel Pitomnik as an airfield-defence squadron to offer some protection to the defenceless Ju-52 transport aircraft while in the perimeter and on the ground as they continued to fly supplies into the city.
With his Sixth Army cut off at Stalingrad, Hitler realized that the capture of the Caucasus oilfields before the onset of another winter was extremely unlikely. He decided that if he could not capture the oilfields then he was at least determined to deny them to the enemy and so Luftflotte 4, now under the command of Wolfram von Richthofen, was ordered to carry out bombing attacks against the oilfields. However, the events at Stalingrad soon resulted in Richthofen withdrawing his units north and bringing his offensive against the oilfields to an end. The distance to the oilfields was on the range limit for his twin-engine bombers, making their transit route predictable. It was also beyond the range of his fighters, and an unescorted bombing campaign would have proved too costly.
JG 52 was moved up to the Stalingrad area during December to support the futile attempt to relieve the beleaguered forces from the south-west. It was soon engrossed in the air battle and one young pilot to distinguish himself was 22-year-old Oberleutnant Heinz Schmidt of 6./JG 52. Like many of the Luftwaffe’s top pilots of the war, Schmidt had been a relatively slow starter but he came into his own during 1942 and was awarded the Knight’s Cross in August for more than fifty victories. While it had taken him a year to reach his first fifty, his next fifty came at a staggering rate after he was transferred to 5./JG 52. Operating over the Caucasus, he passed his century of victories just one month later, for which he was awarded the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross. Having now moved to the Stalingrad area, Schmidt would continue his run of success and soon took his total to 130 victories while operating over the beleaguered city.
The fact that the Red Army had not only refused to give up Stalingrad but also had the strength to launch the mass counter-offensive in mid-November took Hitler by surprise. Although his forces refused to give in and fought on, Stalingrad proved to be the decisive moment in the east. The Luftwaffe did what it could to establish an air bridge into the city and started to resupply the garrison during the winter months but it was always going to prove an impossible task.
The Platzschutzstaffel Pitomnik operated in desperate and appalling conditions while keeping the airstrip open for more than a month to enable the transport aircraft to bring in supplies. However, a lack of spares meant that more often than not there were just two or three 109s serviceable at any one time. The Luftwaffe simply did not have the number of transport aircraft nor the serviceability to deliver the 500 tons of supplies needed by the beleaguered force each day, particularly at a time when the transport fleet was in great demand elsewhere, such as to re-supply Rommel’s retreating forces in North Africa. The best that was ever achieved was 300 tons on one day but the average daily total was around a hundred tons; nor was the whole relief effort helped by adverse weather.29 Attempts by German forces on the ground to relieve the Axis forces trapped at Stalingrad also proved fruitless but Hitler ordered his forces to stay. There was to be no break-out.
Despite the best efforts of Germany’s highest-ranking officers on the Eastern Front to persuade him otherwise, Hitler would not back down nor would he visit the Eastern Front to assess the situation for himself. His men were left to their fate and only one third would ever return to Germany. By mid-January 1943, as the Stalingrad pocket continued to shrink, the airstrip at Pitomnik was close to being overrun and so the surviving remnants of the Platzschutzstaffel flew out. It had surpassed all expectations, claiming more than a hundred victories during the month, and amongst those recognized was Feldwebel Kurt Ebener, the highest scorer inside the perimeter, who claimed thirty-five victories over Stalingrad to earn him the Knight’s Cross. But inevitably there were losses and amongst those to fall was Leutnant Georg Schentke, already a holder of the Knight’s Cross with ninety victories to his name, who died on Christmas Day.
The Red Army then commenced its last crushing assault and the German forces at Stalingrad finally surrendered on 31 January. The German Army had suffered its most decisive defeat. For once, Hitler took full responsibility but he still continued to criticize Göring for the Luftwaffe’s part and from that moment on the relationship between Hitler and Göring steadily deteriorated.
The German position in southern Russia had also become critical and it took until March to halt the Soviet winter offensive, resulting in a temporary stalemate on the ground, although the Luftwaffe continued to dominate the air and hassle the Soviet supply lines. However, by the spring of 1943 the industrial might of the Soviet Union was starting to tell and the Red Air Force now enjoyed numerical superiority in the region of 5 : 1.
Despite being so heavily outnumbered, the Jagdflieger continued to achieve success, particularly if they were able to gain a tactical advantage. One example occurred on 29 January when a pair of FW 190s of 9./JG 51 based at Orel, led by Oberleutnant Günther Schack, encountered eight Petlyakov Pe-2s. The Pe-2 was a twin-engined bomber and the formation was crossing the German lines in line astern. Schack’s proven technique was to fire while in a steep turn against his opponent, a manoeuvre requiring considerable skill but against such benign opposition it proved lethal and within five minutes all eight Russian aircraft had been shot down; five of them were credited to Schack.
Two new names were now appearing regularly on the score sheet of success and both were long-serving members of JG 51. One was Leutnant Joachim Brendel, who had taken his personal score to twenty during February and would go on to be credited with 189 victories by the end of the war, all achieved while serving with JG 51 and making him the Geschwader’s highest scorer, for which he was awarded the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves. The second was Oberfeldwebel Josef Jennewein, an alpine skier and world champion, whose tally had risen to forty-five during March. Jennewein would later take his total to eighty-six victories but then in July 1943 he had to force-land his FW 190 behind Soviet lines and was never seen again.
JG 54 was also enjoying considerable success. Superbly led by Hannes Trautloft, who had developed a successful tactic of intercepting nuisance raiders on bright moonlit nights, his Jagdgeschwader had destroyed more than fifty Russian aircraft during a six-month period without suffering any losses. Many blossomed under his command and one was Hans Philipp, Kommandeur of I./JG 54 and the first member of JG 54 to be awarded the Swords, who had now taken his tally past 170 victories. Another was the tall and slender Oberleutnant Hans Beisswenger, Kapitän of 6./JG 54 and holder of the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, who had now passed 140 victories, and others included Oberleutnant Max Stotz of 5./JG 54, who passed 150 victories during this period, and Major Hans ‘Assi’ Hahn, Kommandeur of II./JG 54, who also became a centurion at the end of January 1943.
These were successful times for JG 54 but two of these four pilots went missing in the space of just a few weeks. The first was Hahn who met a number of Soviet La-5 fighters near Staraya on 21 February 1943 and had to force-land his Bf 109G behind Soviet lines and was taken prisoner; Hahn would have to wait until 1950 before he was released. The second was Beisswenger who had taken his tally to 152 victories before he was posted as missing in action on 6 March after engaging LaGG-3s near Staraya. It is possible that his aircraft was rammed by a Soviet fighter but his fate remains unknown. Neither of the other two would survive the year. Max Stotz became Kommandeur of II./JG 54 and was credited with 189 victories but was shot down during combat with Yak fighters on 19 August 1943. Stotz bailed out of his aircraft and was last observed drifting towards Soviet lines but was never seen again. Hans Philipp would soon be transferred back to the west for defence of the Reich duties as Kommodore of JG 1 and would become only the second pilot to pass 200 victories but would be killed in action on 8 October.
JG 54 started receiving its first FW 190s during February 1943 and with JG 51 provided the main FW 190 presence on the Eastern Front. The Luftwaffe High Command then decided to rotate fighter units between the Western and Eastern Fronts and during early 1943 III./JG 54 was replaced by I./JG 26, led by its accomplished Kommandeur, Johannes Seifert, an experienced campaigner of many air battles and holder of the Knight’s Cross with forty-two victories already to his name.
The FW 190s of JG 26 were in action almost immediately and by the end of March I./JG 26 had claimed seventy-five victories, with Hauptmann Walter Hoeckner, Kapitän of 1./JG 26, claiming six in one day. While I./JG 26 would be the only Gruppe of JG 26 to serve on the Eastern Front, a single Staffel, 7./JG 26, under the command of Hauptmann Klaus Mietusch, was sent to Krasnogvardeisk-Gatschina, to the west of Leningrad, to replace 4./JG 54.
Another FW 190 unit to serve on the Eastern Front, again only in Staffel strength, was 14./JG 5 under the command of Hauptmann Friedrich-Wilhelm Strakeljahn, which operated along the Arctic coastline as an autonomous fighter-bomber unit to combat Soviet coastal vessels. The only other FW 190s to see action in the east were those serving with the ground-attack Gruppen.
The number of FW 190s on the Eastern Front peaked at nearly 200 but the idea of rotating Jagdgruppen between west and east proved misguided. Pilots new to the Eastern Front soon found that operating in the east was quite different from operating in the west. In the east they usually flew around in smaller formations at low level where they were vulnerable to Russian ground defences. There were further problems when operating in the east. The vast and often featureless snow-covered landscape made navigation that much harder, and maintaining an awareness of the position of the front line, which frequently changed, was much more difficult. Furthermore, some airfields, such as Krasnogvardeisk-Gatschina, had good facilities whereas others, such as Ryelbitzi to the west of Lake Ilmen, first occupied by the Luftwaffe during Barbarossa, were little more than a basic airstrip, known as a Feldflugplatz, with no domestic facilities and personnel had to be accommodated in the local villages.
Conditions on the Eastern Front were quite different from those in the west and the tactics employed against the Russian fighters differed from those used against the Western Allies, and so the idea of exchanging fighter units between the two fronts was soon abandoned. The FW 190s of I./JG 26 and 7./JG 26 soon returned to France. They had both spent more than four months on the Eastern Front during which I./JG 26 had claimed 126 victories and 7./JG 26 sixty-three. Klaus Mietusch, leading 7./JG 26, was credited with fifteen during a period of four weeks between the end of May and the end of June, including five victories in one day on 18 June. The first two that day, both LaGG-3s, were shot down soon after 06.00 near Kinderovo and Podborovye, while the last, a Yak-7 over Lake Ladoga, was claimed during the evening, more than fourteen hours after his first success.
By now German forces had been driven well back and any hope of launching a new offensive against Moscow had disappeared. After a period of such intense fighting there was a brief lull on the Eastern Front as both sides reinforced. Hannes Trautloft was appointed as Jagdflieger Inspizient Ost, an appointment within Adolf Galland’s office giving Trautloft responsibility for all fighter units operating on the Eastern Front, and was replaced as Kommodore of JG 54 by Major Hubertus von Bonin, who had spent the previous two years on the Eastern Front as Kommandeur of III./JG 52. However, the brief lull which had descended over the Eastern Front was not to last long and would soon come to a sudden and dramatic end.
Hauptmann Hans Philipp, Gruppenkommandeur of I./JG 54, pictured on 31 March 1942 after achieving his 100th victory. Philipp was the fourth Luftwaffe centurion and became only the eighth recipient of the Swords to the Knight’s Cross and Oak Leaves. (John Weal)
Hauptmann Heinrich Krafft (right) pictured at the end of May 1942 on his appointment as Gruppenkommandeur of I./JG 51. Krafft would be killed later in the year after achieving his seventy-eighth victory having been forced down behind Russian lines only to be beaten by his captors. On the left is Hauptmann Wilhelm Hachfeld. (John Weal)
As Geschwaderkommodore of JG 77 on the Eastern Front during 1942, with the difficult task of supporting the hard fighting over the Kerch straits on the east of the Crimea peninsula, Major Gordon Gollob became only the third recipient of the coveted Diamonds to the Knight’s Cross, having passed 150 victories, making him the highest-scoring Luftwaffe Experte at the time. (Chris Goss collection)
Lake Ivan to the west of Moscow during the winter of 1942–3, home to a detachment of FW 190A-3s of I./JG 51. (John Weal)
Operating in harsh conditions was never easy. This FW 190 is ‘White 10’ of Unteroffizier Otto Gaiser of IV./JG 51 and is shown after an accident while taxiing at Bryansk in March 1943. (John Weal)
An FW 190A-4 of II./JG 54 pictured alongside a Bf 109G at Siverskaya early in 1943. (John Weal)
During the early stages of the night war it became clear that the twin-engine Messerschmitt Bf 110 offered potential as a night fighter. The aircraft were initially standard daytime Bf 110s and so in addition to painting them in an all-black scheme there were further modifications required, such as fitting flame dampers to the engine exhausts and modifying the aircraft’s cockpit lighting for night operations. (Chris Goss collection)
Major Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer was awarded the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds, all in less than a year while serving with NJG 1 during 1943–4. When he took command of NJG 4 in November 1944, Schnaufer was the youngest Kommodore in the Luftwaffe at the age of just twenty-two. All of his 121 victories were achieved at night, making Schnaufer the highest-scoring night-fighter ace in history. (Chris Goss collection)
Adolf Glunz (far right) prepares to receive the Oak Leaves to his Knight’s Cross from Hitler in July 1944. Other recipients (L to R) are: Friedrich Lang, Erich Hartmann and Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer (all receiving the Swords) while Horst Kaubisch and Eduard Skrzipek are receiving the Oak Leaves. (Glunz via Caldwell)
The Jagdwaffe’s ground crews had to work extremely hard to keep the aircraft flying all along the Eastern Front, particularly at its northern most extremity. This Bf 109 of JG 5 is pictured at Petsamo in Finland where conditions were particularly harsh. (John Weal)
Serving extensively on the Eastern Front with the Grünherz (‘Green Hearts’) of JG 54, Hauptmann Walter Nowotny became a double centurion in September 1943. At that time he was Gruppenkommandeur of I./JG 54 and when his score passed 215 later that month, he was the highest-scoring Luftwaffe Experte at the time. His Oak Leaves and Swords were both presented personally by Hitler on 22 September 1943. (Chris Goss collection)
A heating trolley connected to the front of an FW 190F in late 1943 during another harsh winter on the Eastern Front. (John Weal)
A FW 190 of Schlachtgeschwader 10 at Koscoff airfield during January 1944. SG 10 was a close air-support wing formed in October 1943 and had been transferred to southern Russia for ground-attack operations with Luftflotte 4. (Chris Goss collection)
Hauptmann Gerhard Barkhorn, Gruppenkommandeur of II./JG 52, after another successful sortie on the Eastern Front. Barkhorn became only the second triple-centurion and ended the war with 301 victories, having flown well in excess of a thousand combat missions, making him the second-highest-scoring fighter pilot of all time. (John Weal)
An investiture of the Swords to the Knights’ Cross in the Wolf’s Lair during July 1944. From left: Hitler, Josef Priller, Anton Hackl, Friedrich Lang, Erich Hartmann, Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer. (Cranston via Caldwell)