August Mor's Last Victory

[kaki3152]

While reading the last segment of the JG-5, I came across the narrative on Lt. August Mor's last combat on August 6,1944 where he was badly wounded, only to die of his wounds on August 8th. His companion on this sortie, Lt. Alfred Lehner,Staffelfuehrer of 3./JG-5, was also wounded and had to make a forced landing.
He scored his 60th victory on this sortie,listed in the JG-5 "Bekannte Abscusse" list as "B-24 B-17". His victory was probably a RAF Lancaster, very probably Lancaster ND 930 of 83 Squadron, which was reported as "Shot down by fighters in the vicinity of Pontoise". What even more interesting is that the JG-5 duo also attacked another Lancaster of 83 Squadron:
"Lancaster PB 140 of 83 Sqn RAF took off from RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire, at 0908 hours on 6 August 1944 to attack the flying bomb storage area at Bois de Cassan, France.
The aircraft reached the target and after bombing was completed it was attacked by three Focke Wulf aircraft. PB 140 was severely damaged in the attack, and with the aircraft out of control the Captain ordered the crew to abandon the aircraft.
In the attack both the Rear Gunner and the Wireless Operator who had been injured,
informed the Captain that they would be unable to obey the order. The Captain cancelled the abandon aircraft order and decided to try and bring the aircraft under control and make a forced landing. Prior to the cancellation of the order however the Mid Upper Gunner, WO Lester had abandoned the aircraft, and his parachute was seen to open successfully. The position of the aircraft at that time was approx 15 miles north west of Paris.
The Captain succeeded in gaining control of the aircraft, feathered the port inner engine, and successfully flew the aircraft back to UK making a crash landing at Ford airfield, Sussex at 1415 hours."

WO Lester, RAAF, has never been found and has no known grave.

One more interesting is that both Mors and Lehsen were downed by RAF .303 caliber machine gun fire, which if often denigrated as useless. No Allied fighter intervention happened.

[John Manrho]

Both of them flew Bf 109's that day. Does not match the "Fw 190" story.

J.

[kaki3152]

It does look like there a variety of claims for Halifaxes,Lancasters, and B-24s on this date. And among the units were JG-26, JG-1 and III/JG-54, some equiped with Fw-190s. Looks like there was plenty of overclaiming by the Luftwaffe. No B-24s were lost by the USAF.in the Pas-de-Calais.

[Nick Hector]

I have a reference from somewhere that Mors did indeed shoot down a Lancaster but that it came from 57 sqn.

[Col Bruggy]

No.57 Sqn did not lose any aircraft on 6th August 1944.

Col.

[Nick Hector]

Col,

I guess that accounts for the fact that I hadn't yet tracked down a serial.

Nick