Arctic Bf 109 and Bf 110 Aces

116 Pages·35.882 MB·English

by  John Weal

AircrAFt OF 124
tHe Aces®
John Weal
Arctic Bf 109
And Bf 110 Aces
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Author Illustrator
John Weal’s passion for German aircraft makes this work Chris Davey has illustrated more than 30 titles for
a treat for students of the subject. He has written eight Osprey’s Aircraft of the Aces, Combat Aircraft and
previous volumes in the Aircraft of the Aces series, as Aviation Elite Units series since 1994. Based in Mansfield,
well as Combat Aircraft and Aviation Elite Units titles. Nottinghamshire, he is one of the last traditional airbrush
artists in the business.
Other titles in the series
ACE No: 29 • ISBN: 978 1 85532 905 8 ACE No: 37 • ISBN: 978 1 84176 084 1 ACE No: 68 • ISBN: 978 1 84176 879 3
ACE No: 76 • ISBN: 978 1 84603 177 9 ACE No: 101 • ISBN: 978 1 84908 438 3 ACE No: 116 • ISBN: 978 1 78096 298 6
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AircrAFt OF
tHe Aces
124
Arctic Bf 109 And Bf 110 Aces
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124
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SerieS editor tony HolmeS
124 AircrAFt OF
John Weal
tHe Aces
Arctic Bf 109
And Bf 110 Aces
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This electronic edition published in 2016 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Osprey Publishing
PO Box 883, Oxford, OX1 9PL, UK
1385 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10018, USA
E-mail: [email protected]
Osprey Publishing, part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Front Cover
during the brief midsummer months
of 1943 – a period when the Arctic sun
© 2016 Osprey Publishing Ltd.
never set – the pilots of ii. and iii./JG 5
fought numerous actions in defence of
All rights reserved
their own small, but vitally important,
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available coastal supply convoys. With seeming
this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including disregard for the losses they were
suffering, the Soviets would throw in wave
without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,
after wave of attack- and torpedo-bombers
printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the against these convoys and, as a result,
publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this many of JG 5’s Arctic Experten found
themselves adding significantly to their
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
already impressive tallies.
one such engagement took place late
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. on the evening of 4 July when the Bf 109s
of 7. and 8. Staffeln successfully fought
ISBN: 978 1 78200 798 2 off a mixed force of low-flying il-2s, Pe-2s,
Bostons and Hampdens that were
PDF e-book ISBN: 978 1 78200 799 9
attacking an inbound convoy making its
e-Pub e-book ISBN: 978 1 78200 800 2 way down the west coast of the rybachiy
Peninsula. in the space of less than
To find out more about our authors and books visit www.ospreypublishing.com. 20 minutes no fewer than 19 enemy
aircraft had been shot down into the sea,
Here you will find our full range of publications, as well as exclusive online
six of them being claimed by leutnant
content, details of forthcoming events and the option to sign up for our theo Weissenberger alone.
newsletters. You can also sign up for Osprey membership, which entitles you to a recently appointed as Staffelkapitän
of 7./JG 5, Weissenberger had already
discount on purchases made through the Osprey site and access to our extensive
caught and despatched a single Pe-3
online image archive. reconnaissance aircraft off the
northwestern tip of the peninsula some
45 minutes before the main assault began.
Edited by Tony Holmes
in the fierce melee that followed, he
Cover Artwork by Mark Postlethwaite quickly accounted for a trio of il-2s (the
Aircraft Profiles by Chris Davey second of these was the 100th victory of
his career) before going after a gaggle off
Maps by Boundford.com
five Hampden torpedo-bombers. the first
Index by Alan Rutter of these went down almost immediately,
Originated by PDQ Digital Media Solutions, UK but it then took a five-minute chase at
wave-top height before the second
cartwheeled into the water from a height
Osprey Publishing supports the Woodland Trust, the UK’s leading woodland
of just ten metres. two minutes after that
conservation charity. Between 2014 and 2018 our donations will be spent on their Weissenberger claimed his seventh, and
Centenary Woods project in the UK. last, victim of the day – an incident vividly
captured in mark Postlethwaite’s specially
commissioned cover artwork
www.ospreypublishing.com 
Title pages
A variation on the winter theme, this
heavily mottled Bf 109G-2/r6
‘Kanonenboot’ (‘gunboat’ – note the
underwing cannon gondolas) is the ‘yellow
3’ that 94-victory ace oberfeldwebel
rudolf müller was forced to put down on
its belly on a frozen lake a few kilometres
to the east of murmansk on 19 April 1943
(via Eddie Nielinger)
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c O n t e n t s
Chapter One
1941 – tHe Opening MOntHs 6
Chapter twO
1942 – enter Jg 5 20
Chapter three
1943 – in tHe BAlAnce 61
Chapter FOur
1944 – WitHdrAWAl, nOt deFeAt 84
Appendices 104
Colour plates Commentary 108
Index 112

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6 Chapter One 1941 – The Opening MOnThs
ChapTer One
1941 – tHe Opening
MOntHs
M
uch has been written about Germany’s invasion of Russia on Bisected by the river litsa, the 100
kilometres of coastal tundra that separated
22 June 1941. This is not altogether surprising given the fact
Petsamo from murmansk formed the
that, as Hitler himself had boasted, Operation Barbarossa would inhospitable backdrop against which much
be the ‘greatest military operation of all time’. The Führer of the Third of the luftwaffe’s 40-month Arctic war
against the Soviets was fought
Reich was to hurl very nearly three million men, some 3500 tanks, more
than 7000 artillery pieces, 600,000 motor vehicles, almost three-quarters
of a million horses and nearly 2000 aircraft into his ultimately ill-fated
assault on fellow dictator Josef Stalin, claiming that ‘The world will hold
its breath and fall silent when Barbarossa is mounted’.
The world may have held its breath, but it was far from silent. News
headlines around the globe screamed word of the Wehrmacht’s initial
successes as Hitler’s armed might smashed through the Soviet Union’s
frontier defences. Yet amidst all the opening thunder and furore, there was
one tiny part of Barbarossa that was – and remains to this day – almost
entirely overlooked. Far above the Arctic Circle, separated from the main
fighting fronts by more than a thousand kilometres of near featureless
Finnish forest, small opposing bands of German and Soviet forces were
locked in a self-contained, almost private war of their own.
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Chapter One 1941 – The Opening MOnThs 7
The bulk of the relatively few German troops that were in the far north
was made up of two mountain divisions under the overall command
of General Eduard Dietl, the ‘Hero of Narvik’, who had been the first
member of the Wehrmacht to be awarded the prestigious Oak Leaves to
the Knight’s Cross (thereby beating the Luftwaffe fighter pilot duo Werner
Mölders and Adolf Galland into second and third places, respectively, by
just over two months).
Dietl was briefed personally by Hitler on the role his mountain corps was
to play on the Arctic Ocean front. Its first task, he was told, was to secure
the mineral-rich regions around Petsamo, in northern Finland, currently
held by the Russians, and then to advance the ‘laughable 100 kilometres’
– Hitler’s own words – eastwards to capture Murmansk, the Soviet Union’s
only Arctic port that was ice-free all year round.
On 29 June 1941, exactly one week after the start of Barbarossa, during
which time they had already taken Petsamo, Dietl’s troops crossed the
erstwhile Finnish–Russian border. But those ‘laughable’ 100 kilometres of
ChapTer One
barren tundra defeated them. The Wehrmacht’s mountain specialists, who
had been instrumental in conquering and occupying the whole of Norway
1941 – tHe Opening in less than nine weeks just a year earlier, failed to reach Murmansk. They,
and the Soviet units that had stubbornly barred their progress, then drew
breath and began to dig in under the wan light of the midnight sun. For
both sides it was the start of more than three years of static trench warfare –
MOntHs warfare more reminiscent of Flanders in 1914-18 than modern Blitzkrieg.
The strategically vital port of Murmansk, which was both destination
for many of the now famous Arctic convoys ferrying western aid to the
Soviet Union and northern terminus of the Moscow–Murmansk rail link,
was also the focal point of the air war in the far north for much of the
38 months from the summer of 1941 to the early autumn of 1944.
The failure to ensure its capture at the outset of the campaign in the
east was a blunder of the first order that would cost the Germans dear in
the months and years ahead. One of the reasons given was the paucity
of German troops on the ground. There was some justification in this,
for the Arctic front was unquestionably the poor relation when it came
to resources and supplies. And nowhere was this more apparent than in
the air.
General Dietl had at least been given two full divisions with which to
launch his abortive offensive against Murmansk. In contrast, his Luftwaffe
opposite number, Oberst Andreas Nielsen – whose responsibilities
as Fliegerführer Kirkenes were not only to provide support for Dietl’s
mountain troops, but also to achieve and maintain air superiority, carry
out maritime reconnaissance duties and the mining of Soviet ports, attack
the railways and canals that formed the Russians’ lines of supply, protect
German coastal shipping and sink the enemy’s vessels – had to make do
with just one full Gruppe (of Ju 87 Stukas), six assorted Staffeln and two
ancillary Schwärme (formations of four aircraft).
The fighter units among this motley collection (which would later
provide the nucleus of the future Jagdgeschwader (JG) 5) had only come
into being a matter of weeks earlier. It was in February 1941 that a second
I./JG 77 (the original I./JG 77 having been redesignated IV./JG 51 back
in November 1940) was activated at Stavanger-Sola specifically to protect
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8 Chapter One 1941 – The Opening MOnThs
the German convoys threading their way along the southern and western 1./JG 77 staged northwards to Kirkenes
in the first week of June 1941. Among the
coasts of Norway from attack by RAF bombers.
pilots grouped around the Staffel’s
Then, early in June 1941 – in preparation for Barbarossa and as part oberstabsfeldwebel for this souvenir
of the ‘build-up’ of Luftwaffe forces in the far north – the ten Bf 109Es snapshot taken at Banak en route are no
fewer than six Arctic aces-in-waiting,
of 1./JG 77, led by their Staffelkapitän Oberleutnant Horst Carganico,
including future Knight’s Cross winner
were transferred from Mandal, in southern Norway, up to Kirkenes in the Feldwebel Hugo dahmer (fourth from left).
Arctic. At the same time elements of 3./JG 77 were likewise moved north He already had nine notches carved on his
‘victory stick’ from earlier successes in the
from Herdla to Kirkenes, where they were used to form the cadre of the
Battles of France and Britain
totally new 14./JG 77. The fighter component of the Fliegerführer Kirkenes
was completed by the addition of some 18 twin-engined Bf 110s – the
12 machines of Oberleutnant Felix-Maria Brandis’ 1.(Z)/JG 77 (formerly
2./ZG 76), plus the five or six Zerstörer previously operated by the now
redundant Geschwaderstab ZG 76. This eclectic mix of single- and twin-
engined fighers was provisionally designated IV./JG 77, and it was as such
that the unit took its place in splendid isolation as the northernmost of
all the 21 Luftwaffe Jagdgruppen ranged against the USSR for the start
of Barbarossa.
On the opening day of the war against the Soviet Union German fighters
on the three main fronts claimed a staggering 267 enemy fighters shot
down, plus close on another 1000 destroyed on the ground. But it was
not until the third day of the campaign, 24 June 1941, that IV./JG 77
reportedly scored its first success. Details are somewhat sketchy, however,
and the name of the pilot who brought down the unidentified Soviet
bomber near Kirkenes on that date is no longer on record.
It was a slightly different story 24 hours later when an I-16 shot down
over Petsamo provided a first kill for 14. Staffel’s Leutnant Heinrich Lesch.
And the day after that, on 26 June, future Knight’s Cross winner Feldwebel
Hugo Dahmer of 1. Staffel took his overall score into double figures. All
nine of Dahmer’s previous victories had been achieved during the Battles
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