[Nick Beale]

Loosely translated/paraphrased from Siegfried Radtke's KG 54 book:

4 April: Shortly after 09.00, 14 Me 262 took off on a defensive operation [and] met the enemy north of Hannover. The pilots reported two B-17s shot down, one of which was chalked up to Lt. Becker of 2./54. The loss of an Me 262 cannot be accounted for.

On 5 April, I./54 was in action with 16 Me 262 from 11.00 against bombing raids with targets in Plauen, Nürnberg and Ingolstadt. Ground control could not bring all the aircraft operating into contact with the bombers, for the Ketten in which Hpt. Tronicke (1./54) and Lt. Becker (2./54) flew came back without meeting the enemy.

With a strength of 37 Me 262 (21 serviceable) I./54 went into action on 10 April. The Gruppe took off around 14.00 with 21 Me 262s in several formations. As on 7 April, targets and combats cannot be established unequivocally, the more so as no aircraft came back to home base. While the planes were still in the air, Zerbst was attacked by 75 Viermots with high explosive bombs and the landing ground and runways hit heavily. Most of the Me 262s on the way back to base heard on the radio "Zerbst unserviceable, land on alternate airfields!"

[He goes on to say that the command post waited until nightfall for reports but the communications were so badly damaged that it took until the 12th to establish what had happened to them all. Returning pilots reported that lt. Paul Palenda of the I. Gruppe had shot fdown a B-17 and damaged another on his second pass but was hit by defensive fire and had to break off. He tried to reach an alternate base in the North but crashed to his death near Genthin.

Lt. Rossow (3. Staffel) also shot one B-17 down and damaged one. He tried to land in Stendal and was shot down by Mustangs. He was severely injured in the ensuing emergency landing.

Lt. Becker also shot down a B-17. He was out of fuel and tried to make an emergency landing at Barby. Mustangs intercepted him and he bailed out of his "B3 + yellow 9." they fired at him in his 'chute and he came down in a meadow wounded and with his parachute considerably holed.

Other pilots shot down a B-17, a B-24 and a P-51 and damaged several other bombers. Six Me 262s crashed with combat damage or landing on bombed aerodromes, with no personnel casualties. three machines were destroyed and nine had splinter damage in the bombing of Zerbst.