[vlupiano]

According to Robin Neillands book, The Bomber War: the Allied Air Offensive Against Nazi Germany, by mid-1943 there were four Gruppen of ME109s totalling about 120 A/C in Romania, specifically to defend Ploesti. One of those pilots Hauptmann Wilhelm Steinmann, Knights Cross winner of 1./JGf, claimed 2 B-24s at 1430 hours and 1440 hours on 1 Aug. '43, the date of the raid on Ploeisti's oil refineries. While shooting down his second B-24 that day, Steinmann himself was shot down by the same plane, then crashed landed near the wreckage of the B-24 he just shot down, but escaped injury. A photograph shoes Steinman talking to a flak crew. In the distance, about half a mile away, are two columns of smoke: the larger one is the burning B-24 he shoot down, and the second is hi fighter. So, there was a Luftwaffe figher presence in Romania and it seems to have gone beyond just trainers.