[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Matti Salonen

Thanks Andrey for additional info. Here the rest I have for those days:

Matti

Matti,

Thank you very much for taking the time to provide that comprehensive list! Clearly there was a lot of bomber activity on 22 April, but just the three aircraft lost, which is a small number for this period of the war. The losses on the 11th don’t appear to have been much more significant. Perhaps the Luftwaffe was experiencing serviceability problems, so experienced crews flew a large share of the missions. A look at Michael Holm’s website seems to support this hypothesis, III./KG3 in particular had few aircraft available.

Originally Posted by Andrey Kuznetsov

Hello Paul,

No. BF from He111H-16 1G+AD was saved by Romanians, the rest of the crew have drowned.

Correction to the Ju88 off Poti: Beobachter and Bordfunker, not BS, have drowned. My typo, sorry.

By the way, results of the Poti raid were poor, mainly due to use of smokescreens. A fuel oil pipeline was damaged. Visual effect was probably impressive but damage was insignificant.

Best regards,
Andrey

Hello Andrey,

Thank you very much! It must have been difficult to survive a ditching in the Black Sea. The information about Poti is interesting, I didn't know that Soviet forces used large-scale air defence smokescreens at this stage of the war. Was this a routine measure, or was it a trial?

Since I get the impression that you are researching this air battle, may I ask whether you think that it was a significant influence on later events, in terms of its effect on the relative effect on the strength of the German and Soviet forces?

Regards,

Paul Thompson