Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

Hello All.

Does anyone know of a publication which provides a list of losses of Luftwaffe Jagdschule (or JG101/103/105) Dewoitine 520s in air combat? I'm aware of some Allied fighter gun camera footage of strafing attacks on D520 and LeO 451 aircraft on the ground, but apart from a couple of internet references there doesn't seem to be a lot of easily located data on any air combat between Luftwaffe Dewoitines and Allied aircraft.

Regards, ...geoff

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

the only D-520 losses due to enemy gunfire I find in JG 105 in February 1944, 9th and 13th a D-520 and pilot was lost near airfield Chartres and near Laigle.
Uffz. Woll and Uffz. Barthel killed in the crash.

khorat
Michael Balss

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

I have somewhere in a French magazine a list of losses for Luftwaffe D520s, but I guess they will be few losses in air combat. D520s were not used by the Einsatz Staffel intercepting Allied raids, and were mostly used in schools in S France, so away enough from England to not suffer too much from marauding Allied fighters.

On the other hand D520 was used in combat by both Italian and Bulgarian pilots against USAAF, especially the latter.

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

A few were strafed on the ground, as you can see.

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

good evening Geoff,

I am fully in line with the above answers:

the D520 were mainly used for school training and not against the allied forces.

Most D520 crashes in the South or South West of France are consecutive to student mistakes or mechanical failures.

May I suggest you have a look at Thomas Genth site, well structured, with plenty of beautiful D520 pictures with German markings, Thomas is telling the story of his father: quite fascinating.

http://www.thomasgenth.de/html/jg_101_pau.html

best regards;

GC

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

Thank you for your responses.

Yes, CJE, I have seen copies of several similar photos – possibly different frames from the same gun camera footage. There are also several photos of strafing attacks on LeO 451 in Luftwaffe colours. Which leads to a side question of: would the Luftwaffe training squadrons flying “advanced trainers” such as the D520 or Bloch 152, 155 aircraft have flown them fully (or partially) armed when there was a chance of encounters with marauding Allied fighters?

Back to the question of Luftwaffe D520s, Gilles, thank you for the pointer to the Thomas Genth site. I chanced upon it while generally net-surfing a few days before asking the question. That site, plus the passage I’ll quote below, formed the question in my mind about possible Luftwaffe D520 combat encounters.

The following is from a description on the aviationartstore website:
(extract)
“ …Horst Petzschler joined the Luftwaffe in April 1941 at the age of nineteen. His enlistment was for twelve years. Basic training is how every enlisted man is introduced to the military. After finishing boot camp and receiving NCO training, in September 1941, Master Sergeant Petzschler reported to A/B-10 Pilot School in Grottkau/O/S. In May Horst was assigned to the JG 101 fighter school squadron located at Villacoublay, which is near Paris. After all, Germany owned France at this point in time.

In May 1943, Horst experienced combat for the first time while still in training school. By chance his fighter school squadron JG101 tangled with Colonel Robert Morgan flying the Memphis Belle and 200 other B-17’s over Guyancourt, north west of Paris. The incident was mostly a taunting harassment by the Luftwaffe flying students with their formation getting the opportunity to get close and actually observe the American formation and get a good look at the defensive guns of the Fortress. Horst would be attacking formations of bombers like the ones he confronted with his Luftwaffe pilot trainees in the next few years. Horst finished his training in the Fw190-A2 at Toulousein southern France. …”

If the description is accurate, what is the likely aircraft used by JG101 in these combat familiarization flights? D520, Bf109, Fw190?

Laurent, hello. I’m more familiar with the Regia Aeronautica and the Bulgarian combat use of the D520. I guess they were acquired for air defence operations, so not surprisingly we find more published information on their activities. With the Luftwaffe, JG101, at least, spent a considerable time around Paris (Villacoublay, etc). The French bases in the south were far away from USAAF (and RAF, etc) bases in England, but not as far from Allied bases in Tunisia, Sicily, and Italy after mid-1943. If you are able to remember which French aviation magazine had the Luftwaffe D520 losses, can you give me a pointer in that direction? There appear to be a lot of losses in Luftwaffe D520s due to accidents – I wonder if the reverse throttle operation of French aircraft was significant in these occurrences?

Michael (Khorat). Thanks for the reference to the pilot names. Is your information something I can follow up on the internet; or is it from a published source (book, magazine, etc)? I’m curious and interested enough to want to continue my research….at least over the next few weeks (maybe months) anyway.

Thanks again.
...geoff

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

Hello Geoff,

Back to your original question. A few combats of RAF fighters with Luftwaffe-operated Dewoitines are mentioned in 2nd Tactical Air Force, Volume 1, by Christopher Shores and Chris Thomas, as given in the following excerpt:

"Although 266 Squadron was not a part of 2nd TAF at this time, an event occurred on this date (9 February 1944) which is noteworthy because it provides an opportunity to correct an item included in the authors´ earlier "The Typhoon and Tempest Story". During a Ranger to the Chartres area, Plt Off D. Erasmus of this squadron claimed a Bf 109 shot down. This was in fact a Dewoitine D.520, an ex-Armée de l´Air fighter taken over by the Luftwaffe and used by JG 105, which was based at Chartres. D.520 No 483 was shot down and Uffz. Woll was killed. Four days later (on 13 February 1944) Sqn Ldr G.B. Warnes of 263 Squadron, also a Typhoon unit, claimed another Bf 109 in the same area. Again this was a D.520 of JG 105 - No 664 in which Uffz. Bartl was killed. It is interesting to note that at this time the Luftwaffe operated four such Jagdgeschwader in France, which would continue to operate until August 1944, when there was a general withdrawal back to Germany. The other units were JG 101 at Pau, JG 103 at Chateauroux and JG 107 at Nancy."

Hope this helps,

Ota

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

I have also only those two losses in air combat, which Michael mentioned. Besides them, the following were lost on ground due to strafing or bombing.

1943-07-14 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 487 Fl.Pl. Villacoublay-Süd Bombenwurf. Bruch 20 %.
1943-07-14 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 543 Fl.Pl. Villacoublay-Süd Bombenwurf. Bruch 100 %.
1943-07-14 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 582 Fl.Pl. Villacoublay-Süd Bombenwurf. Bruch 20 %.
1943-07-14 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 669 Fl.Pl. Villacoublay-Süd Bombenwurf. Bruch 100 %.
1943-07-14 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 739 Fl.Pl. Villacoublay-Süd Bombenwurf. Bruch 100 %.
1943-07-14 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 748 Fl.Pl. Villacoublay-Süd Bombenwurf. Bruch 100 %.
1944-02-05 JG 103 Dewoitine 520 719 Fl.Pl. Châteauroux Bombenwurf. Bruch 25 %.
1944-02-05 JG 103 Dewoitine 520 730 Fl.Pl. Châteauroux Bombenwurf. Bruch 50 %.
1944-02-06 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 552 Fl.Pl. Chartres Tiefangriff. Bruch 100 %.
1944-03-02 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 551 Fl.Pl. Chartres Bombenwurf. Bruch 40 %.
1944-03-02 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 578 Fl.Pl. Chartres Bombenwurf. Bruch 100 %.
1944-03-02 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 604 Fl.Pl. Chartres Bombenwurf. Bruch 40 %.
1944-03-02 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 633 Fl.Pl. Chartres Bombenwurf. Bruch 60 %.
1944-03-02 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 716 Fl.Pl. Chartres Bombenwurf. Bruch 40 %.
1944-03-27 I/JG 101 Dewoitine 520 480 Fl.Pl. Pau Bombenwurf. Bruch 15 %.
1944-03-27 I/JG 101 Dewoitine 520 576 Fl.Pl. Pau Bombenwurf. Bruch 35 %.
1944-03-27 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 582 Fl.Pl. Chartres Bombenwurf. Bruch 100 %.
1944-03-27 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 646 Fl.Pl. Chartres Bombenwurf. Bruch 100 %.
1944-03-27 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 734 Fl.Pl. Chartres Bombenwurf. Bruch 100 %.
1944-03-27 JG 105 Dewoitine 520 1584 Fl.Pl. Chartres Bombenwurf. Bruch 100 %.
1944-04-06 Erla-Sonderkdo. Dewoitine 520 590 Fl.Pl. Toulouse-Blagnac Bombenwurf. Bruch 80 %.
1944-08-14 II/JG 101 Dewoitine 520 649 Fl.Pl. Echterdingen Bombenwurf. Bruch 50 %.

Matti

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

Hi Geoff,
my informations coming from the NVM "Namentliche Verlustmeldung" Report of the unit about the loss of the pilot (only done when a pilot was wounded, killed or missing).

Originals are hold by the WASt (Wehrmachtsauskunftsstelle) in Berlin and sadly today not available for public (only informations given to next of kind, and then just a extract of the Original report).

khorat
Michael Balss

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

Matti

The Air Force number 1584 cannot be correct for one of the losses dated 44-03-07. The D.520 production never reached such a number.
Most likely it is No 584 which you mean.

Cheers
Stig

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

Hello,

Finally i found the time to search my magazine collection and I found the right one (with a couple other interesting ones I had forgotten and will be reading tonight ;) ): it's in Aéro-Journal n°6 (April-May 1999), where there several articles on D520 use by Italians, French (in 44-45) and Germans.
The latter article has a list of losses between 19 March 1943 and 20 August 1944. There are only two losses in air combat, the ones liste above in Febrary 1944. In both cases the D520 was flying a training flight when it was surprised by marauding Allied fighters.

For losses under Allied losses, the list is the same than what wrote Matti with the following exceptions:
_ the four losses listed by Matti on 27 March 1944 at Chartres were on 28 March 1944 according to the list in Aéro-Journal.
_ these losses include the D 520 1584 according to Matti, the number is 584 in Aero-Journal

On the other hand, another French article in the Magazinz Avions n°88 (July 2000) shows that the 4 D520 of JG 105 were lost under Allied bombs at Chartres on 27 March (with a Bf 109 and an AR 96 of the same school). Chartres was bombed again the next day but only a Fi 156 was destroyed.

So I guess the only thing to correct in Matti's listing is the 1584 serial. By the way the Avions' article has also the WNr as 1584 (probably coming right from German loss lists), but as it had been said above, this serial was never produced.

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

The list was provided to me by someone whose name may be familiar to many: Winfried Bock.
I corrected myself the serial number (1584), which obviously was a typo in the original file (the Germans used the French serial numbers as Werknummern).

Chris

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

Hi
Erasmus actually claimed he shot down an "enemy mustang" on the 9th Feb.
Unfortunately i have a different pilot, anyone able to confirm I have the wrong name from the luftwaffe loss lists.

Below from my notes used for Harrowbeer in focus"


On the 9th the squadrons sent Typhoons out on a sweep again, this time P/O Erasmus of 266 Squadron spotted an enemy aircraft which looked at first like a ME-109, and as he turned in to attack it, the enemy aircraft carried out violent evasive action, but after two bursts of fire, the enemy aircraft caught fire and crashed into a wood to the south east of Chartres, P/O Erasmus noted that the enemy aircraft was painted grey/green on the upper- surfaces, and yellow underneath with large black crosses on its wings, and the Squadron diary records it as having been a captured P-51 Mustang , It was in fact a captured ex French aircraft, a Dewoitine D520, Wn 483 , Flown by Uffz Wedelin , from JG 105, who was killed in the crash.

Cheers
Jerry

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

Jerry, correct name is Wendelin Woll. You have for some reason hirst first name (without "n") as a surname.

Matti

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

Hi Matti,
Many thanks for the info.
Cheers
Jerry

Re: Luftwaffe Dewoitine 520
 

Gentlemen,
Thank you all for your input. It's all starting to cross-reference itself nicely.

Regards,
...geoff