KG66 Ju88S-3 at Sola, May '45. Pic

[atckyrre]

Just recently in a book about the liberation of Stavanger I found this picture of what is most likely a Ju88S-3 from KG66 that landed at Sola, Norway on May 5 1945.
According to available lists the werkenummer would be one of three left behind at the end of the hostilities.
330570, 330942 and 330719.
Admittedly I don't have much on KG66 S-3's but I do have a few pictures showing their earlier machines from 43/44 wearing a sort of dotted scheme in a night-fighter fashion, presumably for nocturnal hit-and-run bombing ops.
This machine appears to be wearing som sort of wellenmüster. Was this common in '45?
Anyone care to shed some light on these machines?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/atckyrre/modelstuff/German%20camo%20research/th_Ju88S3sola1945.jpg (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/atckyrre/modelstuff/German%20camo%20research/Ju88S3sola1945.jpg)

[Marcel van Heijkop]

Hi Kyrre,

Just recently in a book about the liberation of Stavanger I found this picture of what is most likely a Ju88S-3 from KG66 that landed at Sola, Norway on May 5 1945.

I am very interested in this (part of the) book, would you be so kind to answer the following questions:
1. Are there any more photos of I./KG66 machines or personnel in the book? I know of only one other photo of a KG66 machine in Norway.
2. Is there anything in the book about the period after the Capitulation (8th of May 1945) and what happened to the Germans (KG66?) at Sola?
3. Is this book in Norwegian? Or does it have partly English captions?
4. Do you have an ISBN for the book, where to buy it?

Admittedly I don't have much on KG66 S-3's but I do have a few pictures showing their earlier machines from 43/44 wearing a sort of dotted scheme in a night-fighter fashion, presumably for nocturnal hit-and-run bombing ops.

According to my own photos and info, this camouflage pattern existed till December 1944. BTW: I./KG66 was above all a pathfinder unit.

This machine appears to be wearing som sort of wellenmüster. Was this common in '45?

According to my own photos and info, this wellenmüster camouflage pattern was introduced in the winter of 1945. Some pilots claimed that it was specifically introduced for Unternehmen Eisenhammer (Mistel against Soviet powerstations).

Anyone care to shed some light on these machines?

They were part of some 15-25 Ju 88S's and 188's from I./KG66 which flew to Norway on the 5th of May. On the 8th of May they were ordered to fly to Kurland and evacuate German soldiers. I know of only one crew who actually landed in Kurland: Some planes flew back to Norway and stayed there, most others flew to Dedelstorf in Germany. You can find more info in "Luftwaffe in Focus, Spezial No. 2, 1945 - Die letzten Monate der Luftwaffe".

Feel free to contact me off the board!

Regards,

Marcel

[Seaplanes]

The following aircraft of K.G.66 arrived arrived at Sola airfield on May 5, 1945:
Ju 88S-3 W.Nos. 330570 (later destroyed at Sola-Forus), 330942 (later destroyed at Sola-Forus), 330783, 330684, 330171, 330924, 330158, 331388,330936 and 331385, 330719 (flown to Kjevik airfield and later destroyed there).
Ju 188D-2 W.Nos. 150586 (later destroyed at Sola-Forus), 150009 and 151000.
Ju 188S-5 W.No. 150576
Ju 88G-6 W.Nos. 620426, 621421, 622307 and 622346.
Where no subsequent history is given in brackets, these aircraft returned from Norway on or before May 8, 1945.
Finally one Ju 88S-3 of Westa 1 also arrived at Sola 05.05.45, W.Nr. 330242, and this aircraft also returned.

[vzlion]

Slightly off topic, but can some one tell me where Sola-Forus is located (co-ords)? Also when did the current Sola AP become a joint civilian/military field?

Walt

[hedgehog6]

How do you interpret the colors on these S-3s? 70/71 or 81/82 splinter uppers with undersurfaces and scribble in 76? Did they continue KG66's practice of omitting swastikas and some or all of the balkankreuz? Are any aircraft kennzeichen known? A 1/72 Ju-88S-3 has finally, after long delay, risen to the top of my stash & I'm thinking this would be a nice marking.

[atckyrre]

Slightly off topic, but can some one tell me where Sola-Forus is located (co-ords)? Also when did the current Sola AP become a joint civilian/military field?

Walt

I'll answer the other questions later but Sola is 5852N 053814E while Forus is(was) 5853N 05422E.
Sola was actually a joint civilian/military field before the war, since the beginning in '37. After the war Sola was once again both civilian and military, while Forus stayed military for a good while until civilian helicopter ops took over in the seventies.

I work at Sola as an Air Traffic Controller

[Marcel van Heijkop]

Hi Seeplanes,

Thanks to some fellow Norwegian LW enthusiasts I have W.Nr. lists for 5, 8 and 10 May 1945, however nothing about the fate of the aircraft (like: scrapped at Forus...). A huge thanks to you!

As I would include the W.Nr. lists in the reference section of my book (I./KG66's unit history) as an official source, can anybody out here help with the following questions?
1. What's the origin of these W.Nr. lists, German/British/Norwegian?
2. Do the lists have an official document/file number and in which archive (BAMA/National Archives/Riksarkivet?) are they stored?
3. I'm unfortunately assuming that there is no cross reference between the aircraft kennzeichen (e.g. Z6+IH) and the W.Nr. in the document....?! No details like aircraft numbers, special markings etc. were included in the list?

BTW: The Ju 188S-5 sounds like a rare bird indeed. Anybody got an idea what this subtype looked like? (Again assuming that there is no further info/photos of this aircraft from Sola...Otherwise it would have been included in the book about Stavanger, I think!)

P.S. Some 8 aircraft landed at Dedelstorf or in the Dedelstorf area on the 8th of May 1945: Some Ju 88S-3's, at least 1 Ju 188 and at least 2 Ju 88G-6's.

Regards,

Marcel

[Marcel van Heijkop]

N/T

[Marcel van Heijkop]

Hi Hedgehog,

How do you interpret the colors on these S-3s? 70/71 or 81/82 splinter uppers with undersurfaces and scribble in 76? Did they continue KG66's practice of omitting swastikas and some or all of the balkankreuz? Are any aircraft kennzeichen known? A 1/72 Ju-88S-3 has finally, after long delay, risen to the top of my stash & I'm thinking this would be a nice marking.

Despite years of research it is still a mystery to me how the I./KG66 camouflage was allowed to develop in such a way beyond any official LW pattern. I have never been able to find an official painting scheme/card, but the application is just too systematic to be the product of a single aircraft painter gone mad.... Maybe the result of a single Gruppe policy?

Based upon an analysis by Tally Ho Decals and my own interpretation I can discern 2 different patterns/periods:

1943-1944 (Baby Blitz till the end of December 1944) :Regular nightfighter/nightbomber dot pattern:

For Ju 88S-1/S-3: RLM22 (underside)/RLM76 uppersurface/RLM75 dots (maybe 74). Canopy framing looks RLM66 in some cases.
Ju 188: RLM22(underside)/RLM76/RLM74 dots (squiggles on some 1943 aircraft).
Swastikas: Some 1943 Ju 188's seem to have a RLM 74 swastika on the fin. On Ju 88S-1/S-3 it looks like swastikas were not applied at all or so oversprayed that they are not visible in your ordinary photo.
Although very difficult to see in most photos, it looks like fuselage and underwing/upperwing crosses (in white or 77) were (almost) always carried.
Full aircraft code in small black letters on top of the fin with aircraft letter in white.
Aircraft letter again in white on the wing leading edge between engine and fuselage. This was definitely a 1st Staffel practice and very likely the Gruppe policy.1945 (winter) scheme (called by some pilots the "Unternehmen Eisenhammer" scheme):

I./KG66 got a lot of its replacement S-3's from other (disbanded) units (LG1 e.g.). My impression is that all dots/squiggles in a light colour (white? 76?) went over the older scheme of the original owner in such a dense way that it doesn't matter whether the original schema was 70/71 or 81/82... Sometimes I can see that a new base coat was applied before the squiggles.
Aircraft letter again (white?) on the wing leading edge between engine and fuselage. This was definitely a 1st Staffel practice and very likely the Gruppe policy.
Typical of this period is that on some aircraft a big aircraft letter (white?) is also visible on the fuselage sides at the position of or next to the fuselage Balkenkreuz.
Some aircraft still have the aircraft code in small letters on the fin, some don't.
Typical is that the squiggles or dots were applied all over the aircraft, i.e. were carried right over the landing gear doors and aircraft undersides. Same for the spinners. In 1943-1944 the spinners were just the standard solid green colour. Often reversed: Light squiggles on darker upper surfaces and dark squiggles on lighter lower surfaces.
Some aircraft in April/May 1945 have a fully outlined (white?) swastika. On aircraft were it looks that no swastikas are applied, close examination will reveal that the swastika is partly overpainted in such a way that it almost looks like a stencil with intermitted outlines was used.Maybe the best example of how weird these last schemes had become is demonstrated by "white B", the aircraft which came to grief partly in a canal! It is one of the subjects in AMTech's 1/72 Ju 88 S-3/T-3 kit. Here the uppersides are RLM75 with RLM77 spots, fuselage/engine sides and belly RLM76 with RLM74 (or one of the later greens) spots and squiggles.

Please note that this aircraft is always wrongly captioned. In fact it is Z6+BH of 1./KG66, which skidded off the iced Rollbahn of Celle airfield on the 24th of January 1945, damage 40%.

Note 1: I stand corrected...
Note 2: You will always find a I./KG66 aircraft that is an exception to the (unofficial) rule....

Hope this helps,

Marcel

[Del Davis]

Marcel,
I know that you have been conducting research on KG66 for some time. When do you expect to publish the results of your work?

[Marcel van Heijkop]

Hi Del,

Hmm, difficult question... I seem to say "within 5 years" for some years now...

As most of us, I have to do the writing on top of my everyday life and job. At the moment I'm busy writing everything out in a war diary format. (Because I started seriously considering writing a unit history only late in the 90's, I decided to focus on collecting first and processing second. Maybe not always smart, but with hindsight I was able to record some remarkable veteran stories that way just "in front of the bulldozers", so to speak...) And as some on this forum can tell you, you won't believe how time consuming it is to translate a Flugbuch written in Suterlin into something readable. And we are not all as efficient as Chris Goss or Jochen Prien ;-)

But rest assured that it will be worth the wait. I can say without any arrogance (and looking at my collected "treasures") that I./KG66 is a fascinating unit with more than enough aspects to satisfy the modeller/radar nut/LW buff/historian.

All the best,

Marcel

[Del Davis]

Thank you, Marcel
I do appreciate the complexity of your work and I think you made the right choice in collecting the treasures first. May I also inquire about the fate ot the "Dutch Airfields Study" with which you are also involved.
Cheers

[Seaplanes]

Dear Marcel,

My information is based on the following two documents:
"Aus Dänemark am 5.5.1945 zugeführte Flugzeuge, O.Qu./Ltd.Ing. Br.Nr. 6977/45 geh. 7. Mai 1945".
This document contain a complete list of all aircraft arriving in Norway on this date. However, we know of at least two FW 190 that crashed in eastern Norway and not included in this list, so it seems that the list only covers aircraft arriving on an airfield.

The second document is "Flugzeug-Gesamtbestand geordnet nach Flugzeugmustern, Komm.Gen.d.Dt.Lw. in Norwegen/O.Qu./Ltd.Ing. 6.6.1945". This list give type, W.Nr., location, unit and status of all Luftwaffe aircraft in Norway at the time of capitulation.

Both documents are in the custody of the Riksarkivet in Oslo. Unfortunately, ex. Luftwaffe records are not available for another few years as they are being sorted. I had the opportunity to get access many years ago, but also for me these records has not been available since then.

[atckyrre]

Many thanks for all the input folks, I wasn't expecting such a response! Lots of lovely info for us modelbuilders.
Unfortunately the book I scanned the picture from has no other pictures of German planes, a PM has been sent to Marcel regarding the rest of the info.

Am I right in assuming that this might perhaps be a typical 1945 scheme? (picture borrowed from Kjetil Åkra's photobucket)

http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b39/Kjetil_Aakra/Ju88S_KG66_2.jpg

[Marcel van Heijkop]

Kyrre,

This is definitely a I./KG66 machine in early 1945, one of the first Staffel actually. This picture is part of a series which I own. Location is very likely Dedelstorf and if not, Tutow (I./KG66's next airfield).

To my untrained eye this camo version looks more blurred than that of Z6+BH in the canal. In the latter case the distinction between the colours and dots/squiggles seems much sharper.

Seaplanes,

Thanks a lot for the correct titles! This will help a lot trying to order them (whenever apperently....). You look quite informed regarding the Riksarkivet, could you help me with some questions?
1. Does the Riksarkivet also use reference codes for documents, such as the RL Signaturen with the BAMA Freiburg? And if so, do you know the reference numbers for the mentioned LW documents?
2. I always wondered what happened to all those Flugbücher and other personal documents confiscated when the Germans surrendered in Norway. Is it possible that they ended up on some of the (unsorted?) shelfs of the Riksarkivet or were they taken by the British? (And in the latter case, anybody?!.....)

Del,

I try to be a "homo universalis" but I have my limits..;) I think you mean my fellow countryman and Nachtjagd/Fliegerhorst Venlo Experte Marcel Hoogenhuis. Maybe Marcel Hoogenhuis, Jaap Woortman or John Manrho can help here? (HEREN?!) I got the impression some time ago that a book was near...

Regards to all,

Marcel

[Del Davis]

Marcel
Thank you setting me straight. I will post my query as a separate item and see who responds.

[Seaplanes]

To Marcel,

When I saw these documents many years ago, they had not been assigned a Riksarkivet signature. As I said, they are now working to making a catalogue for ex. Luftwaffe docs in their custody. When this work is completed I do not know. However, I do know that about 95% of the material concerns Luftwaffe bautruppen and Organisation Todt with relations to Norwegian workers. Only a fraction concerns operational Luftwaffe matters.

[Marcel van Heijkop]

Hi Seaplanes,

Thanks for the update regarding the Riksarkivet and keep us informed when they have everything organized and sorted out! Please see my PM.

Regards,

Marcel