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Old 23rd September 2019, 23:01
Adriano Baumgartner Adriano Baumgartner is offline
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Re: Walter Nowotny's 262

Dear Srob48,

I guess your own quoting do answer your question:

White 8, werk 110400 was the aircraft actually flown by Nowotny on his last mission
White 1, werk unknown 110??? was in the Hangar being repaired.

What actually happened may be never known...Cajus Bekker do quote a similar passage onto his book "The Luftwaffe War Diaries"; General Adolf Galland also do mention the visit to the Kommando Nowotny.

This book of Held about Nowotny (English version) is on my wish list for years....and sadly I have not read it yet...it seems a wonderful work and at least from what I have seen, may do have some of Nowotny's Flugbuchs (have seen one page)...so he got some kind of help from Nowotny's relatives or other sources.

"The Me 262 Combat Diary" book (Foreman, etc.) do have a lot of information about those combat sorties on the 8th November 1944...and some years ago, I saw pieces of the supposed Me 262 A-1a werknummer 110400 being sold (I bid, believe me!) at huges quantities at Ebay...so, at least part of the wreck may be near where Nowotny do have a memorial.

One may remember that:
a) He was at least 1 year (when he assumed the Kommando Nowotny) without combating (acting as Kommodore of JG 101 at Pau);
b) His career and successes (highly inflated...) were obtained on the Russian Front (not flown against the RAF or USAAF);
c) The Me 262 A-1a were still suffering from technical troubles and a lot of failures (T.B.O. of Jumo 004, etc.);
d) The Training of the Kommando Nowotny airmen may have been not totally suited to transform them (or most of them - at least the non ZG 26 airmen) from single seaters to a twin-engined fighter with a high speed landing, poor slow speed characteristics, heavy weight, etc...
e ) Much was expected from his Kommando...and the losses were similar to the combat claims or successess...so he may have been, during the night of 7th November 1944, very well pressed (by Galland and the other General present) to obtain results! This may have been a burden to a young with the highest medals and a lot on his shoulders (to prove the new machine was a success, etc.). What was recorded of this meeting? There are no clues....no testimony told much about this...

Anyway...I guess that this answers you, sir.

Adriano




b) He
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