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Old 23rd November 2015, 00:59
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Re: JG 51 victories (Part 2)

Okay, after looking into the event on the 10 Jul 1943 it looks like the scoring was "pretty good" for the JG 51 pilots after all. In Vitaliy Gorbach's book "Над Огнееой Днгой" he describes in the beginning of the paragraph that the 233 IAP had 8 Yak-7B but that was not the case. St. Lt. A.S. Vinogradov only had six. He said he observed eight Fw 190 come below the clouds and then go back into it. The 234 IAD sent 6 Yak-7B under Lt. V.S. Novikov to his aid. Vinogradov stated that a minute after the Fw 190 went into the clouds that 18 Fw 190 came out. It was probably more then a minute as Novikov's fighters were claiming and approaching. Then at 13:00 Hptm. Diethelm von Eichel-Streiber Stabsstaffel/JG 51 shot down a MiG-3 (20). This was followed by Obfw. Hans Pfahler 12./JG 51 with a MiG-3 (30, his last claim) and then Oblt. Karl-Heinz Weber 7/JG 51 with a MiG-1 (57). At this point all the fighting was at 2000-1600 meters. Apparently all of these were Yak-7B of the 233 IAP. Vinogradov claimed 2 Fw 190 in this fight as they fled to a lower altitude.
It was probably Lt Gerhard Beckh of Stab IV/JG 51 who first ran into the 133 IAP and damaged the Yak-7B of Lt. U.A. Mamin (Gorbach stated the plane was wrecked on arrival at the airfield). The last loss of 233 IAP was probably by Uffz. Rudi Meyer 9/JG 51 of a LaGG-3 (18) at 200 m. which would account for the last loss of that group. If you look at the PlQu. map his claim was at 35 Ost/53662 at 100 m. which is going west away from the battle area instead of east.
Lt. Novikov stated he couldn't find the 233 IAP which was probably correct as the last two were fleeing the area and the rest had gone down or were about to go down. Novikov had his on hands full by this point but with one Yak-7B leaving with damage there were only 5 left.
In Priens JFV 12/I it states Uffz. Oskar Romm 1./JG 51 has a La-5 (13) but as I pointed out in Tony Woods it is listed as a LaGG-3. It was probably the Yak-7B wingman of Mamin who was by himself at that point. The rest of the battle plays out with I/JG 54 accounting for the rest of the losses of 133 IAP. Lt. Gunther Scheel 2./JG 54 a LaGG-3 (56) 13:33 tiefstflug, ObFw. Otto Kittel 2./JG 54 LaGG-3 (66) 13:50 at 200 m., Uffz. Ludwig Uschmann 2./JG 54 14:04 LaGG-3 (5) at 500 m.
The Soviet pilots claimed 5 Fw 190 of which only Pfaher was lost I found that the other Fw 190 loss that day was probably to another Soviet pilot who watched the pilot parachute out.
Gorbach confirms that out of 12 Yak-7B that one was wrecked from damage and eight were lost. Matching the claims.
Two of my favorites to follow in this dogfight are Romm and Kittel which I've found that sometimes they filed reports (or someone filed for them in Kittel's place believing he was lost) which maybe were off by one or more but never overly so.
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