[Charles Bavarois]

Gentlemen,

great disscusion indeed with a lot of new information on late war production.

As for the “Wertheim” debate: US-Forces found quite a few Bf 109 K-4s at Wertheim :early in April 1945 and reported them as Werknummern 334.060, 334.063, 334.067, 334.070, 334.071, 334.082, 334.084, 334.087, 334.099, 334.101, 334.102, 334.108, 334.112 and 334.114. (AI-report A331). Also Flugkaptän Anton Riediger had an acceptance-flight with 3334.066 at Wertheim Airfield on 23.03.1945.

These Werknumern fit neatly into a limited Werknummern-range, so this is not mere coincidence. Aircraft within the Werknummerblock 334.0xx and 334.1xx belong to the Cham-Airfiled final-assembly complex. With accepance-dates around late March 1945 so the a/c at Wertheim were new ones. When comparing the camouflage we have to look on a/c from Cham, not Wertheim.

At the moment I am working on an essay on late war production of Bf 109s which perhaps with some luck may be published in the future . AFAIK Wertheim never was integrated into Messerschmitt-Regensburgs infrastructure, original Messerschmitt documents are quite clear on this. On the other hand – there is a simple reason why this a/c were found at Wertheim and not at Cham. Please let me have some more time to fix this.

HTH

Carl