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Re: Help with early nightfighter loss
Dear all,
An interesting sideline to these early Nachtjagd experiments is a story from the I./NJG1 history that Marcel mentions, and I quote: The first cruel setback inflicted on the Gruppe was the loss of Feldwebel Thier who was shot down near Paderborn by a Bf110 flying a lone night fighting sortie. It appeared that Thier had suffered radio failure and as there was zero ground visibility at Rhein, he had elected correctly to divert to Paderborn. With his navigation lights illuminated he found himself easy prey for a pilot doing a little "moonlighting" in the air. An over-ambitious single-engine pilot from the field at Paderborn was also airborne on his own initiative on a "night-fighting" sortie; as ever in such cases his first and only victim proved to be the brave crew of one of our own aircraft in difficulty.
Does anyone have the right date to this incident & the name of the 'friendly fighter' who shot down Thier?
Cheers, Theo
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