[Chris Goss]

It was not his Flugbuch but someone else with the same name but a Beobachter. He is a bit of an enigma:


II./ZG 1's new Kommandeur 24 year-old Karl-Heinrich Matern was a very experienced Bf 110 pilot. A pre-war Flak officer, he began flying training in December 1939 and was posted to II./ZG 76 in February 1941before moving to II./Schnellkampfgeschwader 210 (II./SKG 210) later that year. He flew many ground attack missions in Russia with II./SKG 210 (which in January 1942 became II./ZG 1) before moving to the Mediterranean in April1943 by which time he had been promoted to Hauptmann, shot down 12 aircraft (his only known claims two on 30 October 1942 and then one on 31 October, 1 November, 5 November and 18 December 1942) and destroyed countless ground targets. He had been wounded on 29 August 1941 with Stab II./SKG 210 when his Bf 110E-1 was damaged by Flak and on 20 December 1942, now commanding 6./ZG 1, he landed under heavy Soviet shellfire to successfully rescue the crew of a Bf 110C-2, believed to be Ofw Wilhelm Dibowski and Uffz Kurt Maier, who had been shot down near Gramoslawka.


He took over from Heinz Nacke who had been injured in an accident 2 Aug 43 and was awarded RK day after his death