Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

In another thread I asked about the Bf 109G-10's that landed at Kjevik, Norway, on May 5 1945.
Hauptmann Krause was one of the pilots that was ordered to fly to Norway from Leck, along with Willi Buder, who crashed his G-14 on landing. I have not found out whether Krause flew a G-10 or G-14.
Krause was apparently Staffelkapitän in (7.) III./NJG 11 and flew an aircraft with two blue chevrons, <<, according to Axel Urbanke in Aeroplane Montly July 2005.

So far I have not found a picture of one single Bf-109G from III./NJG 11, while I and II Gruppe seem to be covered a bit better.

As I've come to understand this unit was a bit of a mix towards the end of the war, having been assembled from several units. I have a few questions I was hoping someone could answer:

- Was 7./NJG 11 and III./NJG 11 the same thing in may '45? I mean, was that the only Staffel left in the Gruppe? Or had they become a part of II Gruppe with a 4-staffel-to-the-Gruppe splitup?
- When flying with a blue double chevron (which I would think was for a Gruppe Commodore rather than a Staffelkapitän) would that be with a III gruppe wave behind it? Or did NJG 11 skip these kind of markings as a whole?
- Fritz E. Krause can not be found in any ace lists in my references. Did he actually claim any aircraft shot down?

Any input or possibly literature references are appreciated,

Regards,
Kyrre,
Harstad, Norway.

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Using my thread as a kind of a blog I'll be writing up a bit about what I've found so far.
According to Axel Urbanke in Aeroplane Monthly 2005 Fritz E. Krause was Oberleutnant and Staffelkapitän at the time of the flight to Norway. Michael Holm writes that more or less the whole I./NJG11 was absorbed into III./NJG which in turn merged into just one staffel, namely 7./NJG 11. I guess one should consider 10./NJG 11 with their Me 262's to be part of III. gruppe but it actually appears that they worked as autonome units and it certainly appears so in different charts available.

In any case I assume there were a plethora of different markings on the planes in 7. Staffel and can only guess why Krause's Bf-109G (Urbanke) was marked with a Blue double chevron. Did they consider blue to be the Stab-colour in NJG 11? or in III. NJG 11?

Further on, what kind of marking would this aircraft carry behind the cross? I'm inclined to think that since the Doppelwinckel was blue and since Krause was Gruppenkommandör/Staffelkapitän there'd be no markings behind the cross.

White rudder. Formation leader.

G-10 or G-14(AS?)? High rank best aircraft? The question is what is considered the best aircraft of the two? I'm inclined to think he flew one of the two G-10's that landed at Kjevik. That means the werkenummer should be 150794 or 150701.

Paintjob? Hmm... standard RLM75/83/76 with perhaps a yellow band behind the cross. Could also be painted all over 76 with perhaps just a little mottling over the topsides, though that would be highly conjectural.

Any comments are appreciated

Kyrre

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Hi, Kyrre

This late in the war I would be VERY sceptical about a white rudder as a formation leader marking. The rudder could possily have had kill markings on it if he had any, but not necessarily, even if he had a multitude (and he wouldn't necessarily fly his own aircraft for this flight!).

If he functioned as a Gruppenkommandeur or was flying the aircraft assigned to the Gruppenkommandeur he COULD have flown a double chevron marked aircraft, but it could also just have been number '3' or whatever number.

Also bear in mind that the NJG 11 never had a formal Geschwaderstab, thus the Gruppen operated more or less as autonomous units.

I am not familiar with the history of the Sonderkommando Welter, but as it was a Me 262 unit I am certain others on this board are. I would be surprised if the remains of the piston-engined equipped parts of NJG 111 had much to do with this unit, which as far as I know was used for Mosquito night intruder hunting. Correct guys? What amazes me most when researching some of the luminary personalities of the WWII Luftwaffe is how the die.... in this case this person having survived the havoc of the late WWII airwar was killed when his car was crushed by logs falling off a train while he was waiting at a railway crossing...

With regards to unit strength - during 1945 the units at Gruppe level could in practice consist of only a handful or dozen aircraft and pilots.... no practical need for a Staffel substructure... and thus in this case it posibly was none!

With regard to the colour of the markings I would say the standard Black double chevron, but it could have been green, or blue, or brown... Best tip here is to try to locate some Namentliche Verlustemeldungen for the unit, if You are lucky a few of them from this period have colour on the marking mentioned. Then ---- an educated guess is probably as close as You will get! Unfortunately - the losses available from Genst.Gen.Qu.6.Abt documents have no personnel losses for the Bf 109G's of III. Gruppe in 1945...



Regards,
Andreas

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Andreas, you are quite correct. Kommando Welter or 10./NJG 11 as we have come to know it was very independent of any prop driven unit, although in some German docs it is listed under II./NJG 11. Typo or just German shrift....

atckyre: each of the gruppen in NJG 11 had just three staffels. and in fact II. gruppe although listed as 4 staffel only in late spring thus did operate as a combined 5/6 staffel besides the 4th. Bf 109G's most in fact were painted in "plain" day fighter camo, but there were also all light blue-grey birds and some with undersides in black for night ground attack and also the addition of the old 2cm underwing weapons pods for these hectic missions.

more coming in our book .....

E ♫

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Thanks for your replies guys!

A few things:
- Krause flew according to his own words the Blue Doppelwinkel on his flight to Kjevik. In the Aeroplane Monthly there's a quite detailed account written by Urbanke about the different movements on the final days of the war as the Leck-based planes flew North through Vejle and Århus in Denmark on their way to Kjevik, Lista and also Stavanger
- One of the G-10's at Kjevik had the gondola guns according to Hafsten's list from May 45.
- (One Schwarm from I./JG 11 got to Norway, the rest of that Gruppe remained in Denmark) Irrelevant. Wrong Geschwader.
- Quite a lot of aircraft from 7./NJG arrived, though only one appears to have been nailed down to that unit, possibly the Bf 109G-14 flown by Willi Budel who did a ground loop on landing due to exhaustion from the tight formation flight with Krause. Budel's plane was apparently damaged perhaps even before departure and ended up as a 60% damage after landing if my interpretation is right.

Edit: JG 11 has nothing to do with this.

Kyrre

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

According to Bereitschaftmeldungen from Luftflotte Reich III/NJG 11 became as all other NJG-Gruppen a Staffel,thus III/NJG 11 became 7/NJG 11. On the 1. april 1945 III/NJG 11 had 40 Bf 109 on strenght, of wich 25 wre ready for combat! On the 12. april 7/NJG 11 had 26 Bf 109 of wich 21 was combat-ready!

Entry from KTB 7/NJG 11 on 5. may 1945:
05.05.1945 at 06.30 start of 4 Bf 109 to Norway! Oblt. Krause, Uffz. Buder, Ltn. Steininger and Ofw. Rullköter. Steininger and Rullköter experienced trouble with the landing-gear and returned to Leck!!!

Only 4 Bf 109 took of, and 2 arrived in Norway. I have never heard about 1/NJG 11 aircraft in Denmark???

Junker

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Just so it's said, we're talking Fw190s from I./JG 11, not just 1. Staffel. And whether the remaining Fw's actually stayed in Denmark it does not say. Here are the paragraphs:

"Also landed at Aalborg-West were parts of I. (GrKdr Hptm Leonhard) and III./JG11 (GrKdr Hptm Kutscha), making a total of 11 Fw 190A-8s. Both groups left Leck between 0630hr and 0700hr with at least 20 machines for Kristiansand in Norway. They were due to refuel at Vejle, but only a few found it. By 0830 several had returned to Leck, and the above-mentioned 11 had diverted to Aalborg-West. Once refuelled the latter, led by Hptm Kutscha, tried again to reach Kristiandsand, but were forced by the bad weather over the Skagerarak to break off and return to Aalborg-West. In the event, just one Schwarm (Flight) of I./JG11 succeeded in reaching Kristansand from Vejle."

Scanning as we speak, folks. Let me know in PM if you're interested.

Kyrre

edit: Wrong JG in original post.

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

I/NJG 11 was renamed 1/NJG 11 in april 1945! But what has JG 11 to do with NJG 11??

I do know about JG 11.

Junker

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Doh! My bad. I was so hung up on NJG I read what I wanted to read. I'll be going back to my previous posts and edit, just so it's said.

Sorry. :o

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Hi guys

After having read what precedes, I believe some more infos will perhaps be useful. By order of IX.(J) Fliegerkorps of March 30th 1945, the strength of III./NJG 11 was reduced to that of a reinforced Staffel as previously stated. So III./NJG 11 + 5./NJG 11 became the new 7./NJG 11. From April 5th 1945, this last Staffel operated under command of 2. Jagddivision in Stade. Oberleutnant Fritz E. Krause acted as "Kommandeur der 7./NJG 11" and flew regularly with a double chevron marked Bf 109 G-14/AS and G-10 from February 14th, 1945. Here an extract of the Kriegstagebuch for that night:

- Einsatz 19.52 Uhr - 21.21 Uhr. Startbefehl für 11 Bf 109 6000 m über Platz. Angriffobjekt Chemnitz, Einflugweg über Koblenz-Kassel. Keine Feindsichtung, schwache Böenberührung zwischen Leuchtfeuer Ida und Hermes. Landebefehl durch 3. Jagddivision.

Krause himself was airborne from Bonn-Hangelar between 20.02 and 21.01 with a double chevron 109.

I was lucky enough to meet this very nice man during a visit to my old friend Gerd Stamp at the beginning of the 80' in Nassau an der Lahn. Fritz Krause's logbooks reveals that he flew double chevron marked 109s on each combat mission until the war's end - excepted in the night of 21/22 February 1945 (white 9). No mention of coloured chevrons in his logbook, so possibly black (why did Axel said blue ? - I will ask him).

Oblt. Fritz E. Krause claims:

1) Nachtjagdgruppe 10 = 07/08.07.1944 Mosquito 01.48 Uhr
2) 3./NJG 11 = 11/12.09.1944 Lancaster 00.20 Uhr
3) 3./NJG 11 = 04/05.11.1944 Lancaster 19.45 Uhr
4) 3./NJG 11 = 31.12.1944 Lancaster 18.50 Uhr

Hals und Beinbruch an alle !

Jean-Yves Lorant

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Jean-Yves,

Many, many thanks for a very thorough answer. One can't ask for much more!
One clarifying question: Did he keep both the G-14/AS and G-10 at his disposal at the same time? I am not sure in Luftwaffe how higher ranks were equipped and for all I know he could very well have two aircraft available to him at the same time.
My assumption would be he got the G-10 after the G-14/AS.

A little more about the nature of the NJG's flying towards the end of the war: Can one assume that the aircraft available to these fliers were all MW-50 equpped? Considering their task, intercepting high flying bombers and Mosquitos I would think it was a minimum but perhaps they flew different planes for different sorties?

My own summary for Krause's plane on May 5 1945, most of the information would be considered conjectural:

- Fact: Doppelwinkel. Urbanke claims it was blue
- Likely paintjob: Standard. Possibly all RLM76.
- Likely plane: Bf 109G-10. Possibly with gondolas under wings
- Being in the 150-series I assume early type with smaller tires and small wing bulges.

She who must be obeyed, the little one at 17 months, calls,

Kyrre

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Actually they seem to have spent the April-May 1945 period flying night ground attack sorties against Allied road traffic (source: decoded German signals) not in high altitude night fighting.

Also, when you bear in mind that the unit had been consolidated into a single Staffel (I agree that 10./NJG 11 was probably operating independently of the rest) this is not a sign that they had lots of spare aircraft available - I suspect that each man flew whatever machines they could keep airworthy and filled up with petrol.

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Cheers Nick. I've certainly learned a lot about the final movements of the Luftwaffe these last days. I get the distinct impression that when facing the inevitable Luftwaffes main effort was stalling the Russians in order for the Allies to cover the most ground...

One more question regarding nightfighters of NJG 11. No RVT? I've got one picture of an NJG 11 Bf 109G-14 and it seems to carry a broad yellow band but I have not found any references on this. I understand it was quite common with yellow splashed out several places. I was just wondering if Nightfighters in general were to carry either a yellow quick ID band or some other sort of RVT? Perhaps not much point considering their original task but with increasing daylight ops they were perhaps more needed. On the underside at least?

Kyrre

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

In my opinion, after about mid-1944 there was no such thing as a Reichsverteidigung band, at least not as a "badge" of "belonging" to the Reich Defence. That was a deduction made by Karl Ries about 40 years ago from the limited photographic evidence available at the time (and when RAF wartime intelligence documents were still classified).

I think that the bands were a functional device originally developed by units to aid reassembly after a pass through an American combat box. In the same way, white tail surfaces denoted unit leaders at one stage (see http://www.ghostbombers.com/various/markings1.html). This was found to be useful for fighter units in general and it spread: the order of December 1945 which formalised the banding system doesn't speak of Reich Defence but of "better differentiation in the air."

I wouldn't think that a coloured tail band would be much help to a night fighter unit - they didn't enter combat in formation and didn't need to reassemble. Anything's possible of course...

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Hello Nick and atckyrre

I have a few pictures in my collection made by a scale modeller of
Bf 109G-10/R-6 Green 3 of l/.NJG11 flown by Hauptmann Friedrich Karl Muller which has a distinctive half white-black underside not disimilar to RAF fighters in the early war period. Perhaps this was done to help flak units distinguish friend from foe during daylight operations?

Regards
ChrisS
Oxfordshire England

Re: Hauptmann Fritz E. Krause, NJG 11?
 

Chris,

Many thanks for posting those. I have seen half black undersides on 110's before so it's certainly plausible that there should be 109's dressed up like that as well. It looks very striking too!
One of the G-10's at Kjevik was an R-6 I believe, at least it carried the gondolas.
I guess you would have written if you had any other references but it would be nice if this was a verified paint scheme.

I'll probably go for something like this on my Messerschmitt. :)

Kyrre