Quote:
Rall had made some seatments about these fighting days over Constanca but no deiatls
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I have a xerox copy of Rall's logbook (I don't mean the published memoirs, "Mein Flugbuch", which nevertheless is just excellent, but the actual wartime handwritten logbook), and there is nothing there which would indicate an air combat on 23 June 1941. This also due to Edmund Rossmann's (7./JG 52) logbook.
The assumption that Prien may have "based on one day late claims" finds no support in these first-hand sources.
The Soviet Black Sea Fleet Aviation despatched 49 DB-3Fs of 2 MTAP and 24 SBs of 40 SBAP, delivering 53.3 tons of bombs, on 23 June 1941. 2 MTAP and 40 SBAP reported eight aircraft losses each. It would seem as though many of the Soviet aircraft were shot down by the AAA fire, which reportedly was so effective that it caused the bombing to become scattered.
Early on 24 June 1941 eighteen SBs and eighteen DB-3s which raided Constanta were intercepted by III./JG 52 and Rumanian fighters and lost ten bombers. III./JG 52 claimed to have shot down 12, against one own loss.
Later on 24 June, fighters from III./JG 52 made an unsuccessful interception of another formation of 32 SBs and DB-3s, which attacked the airfield at Mamaia, destroying two of 8./JG 52's aircraft and causing two casualties on the ground.
Dénes, I look forward to more findings in Rumanian sources!