[Charles Bavarois]

Hello Marc,

let me add some thoughts on the fotos in your last posting:

#1
shows a rather scruffy Bf109 with a retrofitted Erlahaube. So this is a Bf109G-6, not a G-14. Most interesting is the old-fashioned high antenna-mast, something I have not seen yet with Erlahauben. As for the pilot: I can't see a Ritterkeuz. Are my eyes getting old and tired?

#3
I don't want to act like a wisenheimer, but I'd like to point at the fact, that there never was something like a Bf109G-6/R6. This labeling is pure fiction invented a long time ago by some writers and since then repeated over and over again. There is no common agreement how to name such a/c, I myself use "Bf109G-6 with Rüstsatz VI" (or "Rüstsatz 6" oder "Gondelwaffen").

The writing on the back of the foto may be
"In xxxxxx Liebe"
"xxxx Mann"
München, d. 5.3.44"
what may be translated as
"Forever loving you"
"your husband"
"Munich, 5th March 1944"

Time and location point towards an aircraft from JG3 which was in southern Bavaria in early sping 1944.


#6
is indeed one of the IIJG52 aircraft flown over to Neubiberg to surrender.
As you can see, it has an overpainted "PIK-AS" shield on its cowlings and therefore is one of the former IJG53 planes, incorporated into IIJG52, when IJG53 was disbanded in April 1945.

HTH

Carl