Claims by a KG 51 Me 262 Pilot

[Roger Gaemperle]

Hello,

I received the documents of a former KG51 pilot who claimed 5 aircraft as destroyed! The victories are confirmed and signed in the Wehrpass by Adjutant of I. Gruppe KG 51, Oberleutnant Harald Hovestadt. Unfortunately, it doesn't say when exactly these victories were achieved. The pilot had 15 combat missions with the Me 262 in total. Unfortunately, neither the logbook nor the Leistungsbuch mention the claims (I would have expected at least the Leistungsbuch to mention these claims). The Leistungsbuch only mentions that he had a combat with Spitfires and Thunderbolts, however "without success". If "without success" is meant for the enemies or for himself, I can't tell.

When the pilot was still alive, he told that the 5 victories were achieved on the following dates (however, I think without any records, he might have confused the dates with the other dates of his 15 combat missions with the Me 262):

29 January 1945 : One P-47 between Illhausen and Giebelstadt in the morning between 10 and 11am

2 February 1945 : One B-24 near Rheine in the afternoon between 13 and 15pm

21 February 1945 : One P-47 between Hopsten and Kleve in the afternoon between 17 and 18pm

13 March 1945 : Two P-47 between Hopsten and Kleve in the afternoon between 14 and 16 pm

Does anybody have any records concerning these 5 claims?

I attach a copy of the original Wehrpass that shows the confirmation.

Regards
Roger Gaemperle

[Jim P.]

What is the pilot's name??

Franz Gapp from KG 6 supposedly did the same so it is not necessarily a unique occurence.

[Roger Gaemperle]

Hi Jim,

It is Hubert Lange, there was an article about him in the German FLUGZEUG magazine as well as in a British magazine, where you can also read the statements about his claims.

Do you know if Franz Gapp had his victories confirmed or if it was just based on his postwar statement?

Regards
Roger

[Jim P.]

At that late date I doubt that very many, if any, pilots from any unit had their claims 'officially' validated. Gapp lists his in his FB.

[Horst Weber]

Roger !

After I had a look into the MACR's-list, the 9th AF operation-reports and the 9th AF FG Group-Narratives for those days in question, was no match-up with a USAAF loss by date, plane and time.

All days had been cross checked with the event-descriptions of each other day, but there was no result.

There might be a slight chance on 13 March 1945, when 48th FG lost
P-47 44-33202 (MACR 13010). Maybe someone has it and can give more info.

All the best

Horst Weber

[Jim P.]

Do the MACRs include damaged aircraft as well? (Did the P-47 tend to throw smoke if there was a sudden increase in the throttle? Serious question - I think this happened in Pacific in the early days at least. In a number of early encounters with Zeros, F4F pilots would report that they had hit their targets when in fact the Zero's engine tended to smoke at sudden increases in throttle.)