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Old 22nd May 2008, 16:50
digedag1 digedag1 is offline
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Re: Aerial Photo Halberstadt Airfield

Scott,
-your photo shows the south part of the Halberstadt airfield with the
two big, one smaller hangar and the big servicing hangar.
-Because of the shadows of the buildings, the photo was taken short
after noon-time.
-Most of the craters left by the bombs are making an impression as
they were "new" and many are not filled up.
-The roofs of the big hangars are in for repair.

Halberstadt airfield was a target for the 8th AF and was bombed on:
-11 April 1944 (29 paratroopers died)
-30 May 1944 (heavy attack; a direct bomb hit in an air-raid shelter
caused the life of the complete staff of "2.Inspektion/
Luftkriegsschule III" - 7 Luftwaffe soldiers and officers
and the wife of one of the high-ranking officers)
-16 August 1944 (9 Luftwaffe soldiers and 3 female members of the
Luftwaffe died)

Was the reconnaissance photo taken on 7th of July '44?
Halberstadt was not a target that day!
Assuming that the date is correct, there is an high probability that the 3 parked planes on the concrete strip in front of the hangars are german fighters.
On the 7th of July '44 a great aerial battle took place in the triangle between Bernburg-Oschersleben-Halberstadt with high losses on both sides.
The german propaganda called it the "Blitzluftschlacht von
Oschersleben".
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/neilpage/sturmgruppenactions.html

Quiet possible that the planes we see took part in this fights and afterwards landed at Halberstadt airfield.
There is an eyewitness-report by Oblt. Strothmann, member of the airfield staff, that at 9:55 hours 4 Fw190 and 1 Me109 landed in short intervals.
Oblt. Gabler, JG300, writes:
"Four pilotes of my Stabsschwarm had exhausted their munitions by then and broke off, so that Knoll and myself were on our own.....
We dived headlong towards Halberstadt where we landed to refuel
and rearm at 10:10."

With regards
digedag1
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