[Simon Trew]

Sure - I understand the logic and I can hardly imagine Peltz would have been keen to make the trip. Steinbock losses obviously varied between different operations, but they tended to be at least 5% and sometimes twice that.

Still, Churchill wanted to cross the Channel on D-Day to observe the landings as they happened and sometimes senior officers or politicians do get their way in such things. I'm also struck by parallels in the German ground forces (several examples of senior commanders at the point of contact in May 1940, for example) and Martin Samuels' excellent book on command in the early Blitzkrieg years certainly sheds light on the nuanced but key differences between directive command and directive control within the German forces.

If not Peltz, somebody else? There doesn't seem to be any question that an aircraft from I./KG 60 flew on these missions (P1 is the correct code). It seems to be the only aircraft from this unit that ever did so, and since the unit was long disbanded before Steinbock, that begs the question of why it was still flying with a I./KG 60 code in 1944. Since Peltz commanded the unit for some months in late 1942, I just wondered if he kept the plane for his own use. Monitored conversations between Steinbock prisoners indicate that Peltz flew himself around, rather than relying on somebody else to do so. It just made me wonder.

You're almost certainly right. It was indeed very likely a silly question. Apologies!