Mietusch 7./JG26, Leningrad area & three-color camo Fw 190s

[Kari Lumppio]

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

[FRANCESCO M LENTINI]

D.Caldwell in his "JG 26 Photographic History of JG 26 of the Luftwaffe top guns" Airlife ed. 1994 wrote:
" The only photograps showing JG 26 aircraft on the Eastern front that are known to this author are in the hands of a private collector who has not released them for publication. The fuselage of the first' gruppe FW 190 A5 were green/gray segmented camouflage charcteristic of JG 54, with wich they shared the nortern section of the front."

I hope this help also if may be a little bit old news.

Francesco M. Lentini

[Don Pearson]

I believe "The JG 26 War Diary, vol. 2 (1943-45)" by Donald Caldwell contains some of these photos.

Don

[Kari Lumppio]

Hello!

Few comments about the theme.

It looks like I/JG 26 and 7./JG 26 were used as separate entities. Dislocation maps for Luftflotte 1 do not show I/JG 26 but do show JG54 and 7./JG 26.

For me 7./JG 26 is interesting because it is a Lw unit which could and did participate in battles over Gulf of Finland. Look for their claims in grids (26 Ost) 70, 80 (parts) and 90 (parts).

I have not ever seen photos of 7./JG 26 at Eastern Front. First Gruppe JG 26 Fw 190 photos are published IIRC at least in "Luftwaffe: a Pictorial history" by Vera Willams and Eric Mombeek. Not only fuselage is in odd camouflage. One photo shows wing upperside which is also painted in way which looks something like the JG 54 "snake skin" camo on fuselage sides!

At Michael Holm's excellent site ( http://www.ww2.dk , Michael's site is one of the cornerstones of Lw research as far as I am concerned, THANKS Michael.) we can note one interesting thing from the monthly strengths:

June 1943
III/JG 26 12 Fw 190 A-4&A-5 "an andere verbände"
4./JG 54 12 Fw 190 A-4&A-5 "von andere verbände"

I am pretty sure what happened was that 4./JG 54 received used Fw 190s from 7./JG 26. It is quite logical as these two Staffeln were swapped to each other in the first place.

In early 90's almost intact Fw 190 was found in Leningrad area (grid 36Ost 20124). The plane was from 4./JG 54 and lost in July 19th, 1943. The camouflage is described as "...consisted of a dark green, brown violet and tan (sand)" (Mark Sheppard in this Forum's thread http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=6339 ). The colors sound to be similar to Italian camouflage.

In my first posting I mentioned about the 14 GIAP sighting/shoot down of two "Machhis" ("Makki") near town Mga July 1943. If one makes a search of Luftwaffe claims near the location (grid 36Ost 10178 ) it becomes clear that the "Machhis" are very likely to be from II/JG 54. And if taken as Italian because of camouflage perhaps from 4./JG 54?
AFAIK 14 GIAP flew Yak-7 at that time? Interestingly Fw Paul Brandt from 4./JG 54 claimed a Yak-1 at grid (36Ost) 10 214 (not far from Mga and return to base would be over it) 19th July 1943, the same day the Fw 190 mentioned above was lost. There are no other Yak-claims for 4./JG54 for the duration of July 1943. It might be the very same Fw 190 found recently which was back then took to be a "Makki"!


I think it is also an interesting topic to discuss if it was JG 26 which inititated the odd camouflage experiments at Eastern Front and not JG 54? Or at least was involved in the developement. I can also see the old "RLM 02 Grey/RLM 71 on Fw 190 or not" theme surfacing it's head. The "snake skin camo" was - at least originally - of such colours, yes?

Are there identifiable photos of JG54 planes from April-May 1943 after the winter white camo was removed? During Summer three-tone camouflage was in use for sure and there exists the widely known colour photos for them. From my point of view not so interesting because by then JG 54 was sent to South away from Gulf of Finland region.


Cheers,
Kari