[oquaig]

Yes, what is it about II./JG 53 that is so hard track down? What we do know is that the Group was at Neusiedl until 25 June when it moved to Lemonsky. The 25th was also the last day they scored any kills for the remainder of June. In John Weal's book he states that the Group "were employed primarily on uneventful freie ]agd patrols along the Baltic coastline (when not being scrambled in response to yet another Red Air Force bombing raid)."

First, I don't think they went to Vilnius. That was VIII Fkiegerkorps zone of operations and if they had they would have seen a lot more action. Now, correct me if I am wrong, when all the fighter groups displaced forward in June and early July they moved to former Soviet airfields. I attached a map showing where JG 54 Groups moved to. If II./JG 53 was patrolling the baltic coastline, it seems logical that it would have moved closer to the coast, that leaves out Kaunas and Kedainiai. I have looked at Siauliai but can not find any VVS air fields with towns or villages with names resembling Lemonsky or could be garbled into a germanized form. Then I thought maybe they went to Liepaja (Libau, now Klaipeda), but that airfield was in artillery range of the Soviet garrison and the port didn't fall to the 291st Infantry Division until 29 June.

My working theory at the moment is that they went Memel. At the time II./JG 53 moved the VVS was launching day and night raids against Memel and Koenigsberg. (See the second attached map). If you look at the map Memel had three landing at Memel and the civilian airfield. Maybe one of those three landing fields is Lemonsky, then again maybe not. We won't know until we get information about them, and maybe someone knows. Otherwise I am fairly certain II./JG 53 moved North with JG 54 and remained under Fliegerkorps I control and if not in Memelland it was in Lithuania.