[ChrisS]

Dear Jochen

Thank you for the reply. Axel may be wrong but the similarity between the 'concept' of the eagle carrying a clutch of roundels over a set of waves, which must have been a pain for the ground crews to paint, and the simplified eagle with only one distressed roundel, much easier for busy ground crew to apply, seems to me to have a strong resonance as both emblems have such similarity.

One of the arguments for 1./JG52 is that the two photographs in LiF 19/2012 are both of wheels-up landed JG52 Bf109-F's, one carries a '4' and the other '10' in a light colour outlined in black which would suggest 1./JG52 who used white numbers outlined black whereas 3./JG52 numbers were yellow outlined in white. I accept that this is a very strong argument however tonally both the 4 and 10 are darker than white especially when compared to the white of the adjacent balkankreuz and that the numbers are far closer in tone to the Russia rumpf/theatre band. With regard to the new emblem, one must ask why would 3./JG52 'pinch' an emblem so similar to 1./JG52 with an eagle and roundell? Could they not have been more 'original'? Then also why would 3./JG52 take a new emblem that contained the emblem of a country they fought almost a year in their past? Why not have the eagle carrying a soviet red star? No, I still believe that the previous emblem in LiF 19/2012 belongs to 3./JG52 and that the second emblem that you seek a better image of is in fact a modified variant of the earlier emblem.

But I look forward to Vol 12/11 with great anticipation!

Best Regards

Chris