Salut!
Like so many times before when searching something totally different some interesting question arises totally irrelevant to the original searched item.
This time it is Hptm Klaus Mietusch, 7./JG 26 at Leningrad area (late February to July 1943) and three-color camouflaged Fw 190s.
First the question: does there exist any photos of 7./JG 26 Focke-Wulf of their Ostfront period? If they followed regulations that should be white numbers and vertical bar behind cross, yes?
I have seen couple photos of I/JG 26 Focke-Wulfs at Ostfront and it seems like at least some did have three colours used on the upperside camo. For my focus of interest I Gruppe JG 26 was too much south. What I would like to know is if the 7th Staffel had similar camouflaged Focke-Wulfs too?
I do remember reading a question about three coloured "machhi"s met by Soviet pilots at Leningrad area. The question was posed in the Russian vif2 -forum (
http://vif2ne.ru/nvi/forum/ ). Unfortunately I was not able to find it again in their archives. It would be interesting to see if the given date for the sighting (if it was given) matches to location and time of the 7./JG 26 claims (Tony Wood).
EDIT 18.3.2007: The Russian thread was this:
http://vif2ne.ru/nvi/forum/0/archive/57/57602.htm
Timeframe is July 1943. And it seems it was my (wishful) thinking that Italian-type camo would have resulted in the indentification as Machhi. No colours are mentioned in the original posting which was based on 14 GIAP archive material.
I mean that if the planes looked like Italians AND were actually from 7./JG 26 that would give food for wild imagination about the three coloured camouflage (if it was used by 7th Staffel).
One claim by Mietusch is particularily interesting for me:
May 21th, 1943 he claimed a I-153 at grid (26 Ost)70 221. That is just West of Lavansaari island and the possible victim would be from the 71 IAP, KBF. Ofw Kemethmüller claimed an I-16 and Hptm Kelch a LaGG-3 in the same battle.
I believe that Finn Tuomo Soiri writes about this very same battle in his book "Mersut tulevat" (Apali Oy 2004, ISBN 952-5026-38-8 ) although Germans are described flying Messerschmitts. From Finnish side in the battle joined lentomestari Turkka (MT-218 ) and vääpeli Paronen from LeLv 34 flying Bf 109 G-2s. Turkka claimed one I-153.
Any new info, comments, speculation, leads, links etc. welcomed.
Regards,
Kari