Luftflotte 4 losses Apr.-Jun.1943: a comparison of the different data

[Andreas Brekken]

Hello, Andrey (and Matti since I call for your comments later on).

I do believe that the system as a whole would function quite well - as long as one take the command structure and war into the picture.

As is stated by the Generalstab - the O.Qu. at Luftflotte level was delegated the responsibility for the units operating under its command.

If we look at the chain of reporting (follow the paper trail) for for example I./St.G. 2 in April 1942:

The unit consists as far as I can see of Stab I., 1., 2. and 3. Staffel.

Thus the detailed list of Ab- und zugänge would be filled out by the individual Staffeln as well as the Stab.

As I./St.G.2 was under the command of Geschwaderstab/St.G.2 at the time the list as compiled by the Gruppe would be transferred to the:

I.) Geschwaderstab St.G.2
II.) Do you know which Fliegerkorps they sorted under at the time - I am still looking...
III.) Luftflotte 4
IV.) L.E.2

The O.Qu. at Luftflotte 4 would be responsible for the transfer of detailed loss information to the Gen.Qu.

I find the loss records at GenQu level lacking for I./St.G.2 - but when you look behind the figures as you present them Andrey, I think you will be intrigued, and maybe interested in trying to complement them, rather than dismissing them.

To me, when I look at the information present, something special happens at the end of March - up until then (I think it will probably coincide with the move of the Geschwader from Stalino to Kertsch) the average time from loss to report date seems to be about a week for the unit. (Not strange considering the distance the documents - yes paper trail! - need to travel to reach the offices of the Generalquartiermeister in the Ministerium in central Berlin - the few scraps of documentation we have left stems from these offices - at operational unit level almost all is lost).

For April 1943, beginning already with one recorded loss on April 1st 1943, this time lag between loss and report date jumps up to almost two months! Loss date April 1st 1943 - report date May 27th 1943. The other two losses as recorded by the unit happened on April 23rd and 27th, the loss record they are included in at central level is dated May 24th - a time lag of one month...

But! And this is my point - even if the detailed loss records which might have been in one of the post sacks blown up in a railway attack or in a shot down transport Ju 52? - nothing seems to indicate that the Bestand- and Bewegungsmeldungen which might have taken another route suffered the same fate - from those it seems that the records reached Berlin and was incorporated in the central and more statistical overviews on which Michael Holm has been able to work.

So how do we make sense of this? In my opinion it is like laying a jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing.

We know the following details:

The unit was moved to Kertsch in April 1943. How was the communication from the operational area to the command structure? Are disturbances in the communication by paper likely?

Was there any heavy fighting going on in the area at the time? My answer is yes - they had their work definitely cut out for them - I think you and others can add more detail than me with regards to this.

So to the jigsaw puzzle - what do we have:

We have the Bestand- und Bewegungsmeldung for the unit, stating the outflux of 5 aircraft - 3 combat related, 1 non combat related and one transferred to the industry (which would never be reported in the loss records at Gen.Qu.6.Abt. level)

We have the Summarische Verlustmeldung which is a statistical sheet for the losses, and we can see from it that the loss on April 1st is deemed as non-combat related - while the losses on April 23rd and April 27th are stated as being combat related.

April 1st - non combat related: http://www.aviationhistory.no/ref_db...?lossid=132526

April 23rd - combat related:
http://www.aviationhistory.no/ref_db...?lossid=132782

April 27th - combat related:
http://www.aviationhistory.no/ref_db...?lossid=132781

So - bringing this together we seem to be one aircraft short.

And here comes my theory - the losses for I./St.G.2 between the dates of April 27th 1943 and May 26th 1943 - where there in theory should have been 12 losses reported are missing at central level due to one or more of the above mentioned factors.

The maths are:
1 missing Ju 87 D-3 loss for April 1943 - probably sustained in one of the last days of the month

13 - 5 (known losses for the dates May 26th, 28th, 29th and 31st) = 8 Ju 87 D-3 loss records missing for combat losses - probably sustained in the date period May 1st through May 25th 1943

3 Ju 87 D-3 loss records missing for non combat losses - probably sustained in the date period May 1st through May 25th 1943

1 Ju 87 D-1 loss record missing for combat losses - probably sustained in the date period May 1st through May 25th 1943

So no mystery - no propaganda - just war...

I believe Andrey - that if we look into the existing records still remaining on the Luftwaffe side - and try to correlate information from the other combatants with the same open mind - we will be able to bring the research forward - the other approach which I have seen far too much of is to dismiss information just because it does not fit some kind of hero story from one side or the other...

In this specific case it would be highly interesting to do the same exercise I just did to I./St.G.2 to the other units operating in the same area and under the same command structure. We might find that a ´mystery´ can be rather easily solved.

And if it would be possible to get any reliable data - by that I mean hard facts like crashed enemy aircraft reports with WNr or call signs or something like that - or POW records for St.G.2 personnel not listed in the records we have from the German side - that would help us shed a little more light to this.

Matti - do you have any NVM info that are not in the GenQu lists?

Regards and keep up the good work guys,
Andreas B

[Matti Salonen]

There are NVMs only for the following losses in April-May 1943:
1943-04-01, 1943-04-27 and 1943-05-29. These are also in GQM lists.

I fully agree with Andreas that Bestand- und Bewegungsmeldung is correct and discrepancy between it and GQM list can be explained by missing documents between the Gruppe and GQM. However, I would also consider loss of the source documents at the Gruppe due to bombing etc. En route missing documents should have been very easy to replace by resending, but if you have lost the source information at the Gruppe, you are having a lot of trouble when trying to reconstruct what happened to which aircraft (KTB would be of some help). This might take weeks, when you have to fight at the same time. Also, from the practical point of view, it would not be necessary to find out actual WNrs of the lost aircraft any more - just the quantity of them is enough to keep replenisment system working. With personnel losses the situation is of course different and as far as I can tell, all personnel losses are accounted and properly reported.

I have a faint recollection in my mind, that something similar happened in North Afrika, when the Allied found a lot of crashed aircraft, which were never reported as such in GQM lists.

Interesting thread - please go on.

Matti

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

Hello friends,

thank you for the interesting and informative answers. I'll post the detailed answer in the evening.
Andreas, you are right, maybe the analysis of the whole StG2 is more indicative.

What about the examples with 4.(F)/Nacht and 2.(F)/100 from my previous post? In comparison with StG2 their situation was quite a different but some losses are absent too. And losses of these Staffeln are more easily for a checking due to small number of losses.

Matti, I'll send you a E-mail with a question.

Nikita, thank you for the info and I'll looking forward your E-mail with TsAMO reference.

Best regards,
Andrey

[Andreas Brekken]

Hello, all

In addition to the sources you have nicely summed up, Nikita, we have all the bits and pieces as transferred between units on both a detailed level and a aggregated level.

These additional sources are not complete - to give a picture I would say they are only singular stamps from a stamp collection taken by the wind...

To your question on aircraft that were on transport etc, the moment the aircraft were listed as damaged and going for repair this would be out of the units roster - and on the roster of the industry. Vice versa - when an aircraft was on its way from the industry to a unit it would go for example from having the following 'owners':

Flzg.-Werke Erla

Flzg.Überführ.G.1

Flugzeugleitst.Lfl. 2

3./JG 53

Before the aircraft was taken over by the frontline units, a loss would be recorded in the Flugzeugunfälle und Verluste bei den Schulen un sonstigen Dienststellen, see for example the large number of Ju 87's reported by the Flugzeugleitstelle/Lfl.2 at Bari on April 26th 1943.

Regards,
Andreas B

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

Hello all,

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

II.) Do you know which Fliegerkorps they sorted under at the time - I am still looking...

During the 1st half of April it was IV.Fliegerkorps, the rest of the timeframe in question - I.Fliegerkorps except 29.Apr.-7.May.43 - thereat Stab StG2 was in Charkow-Nord (VIII.Fliegerkorps area), don’t know whether it was a temporarily attachment or short-living full subordination.

What is your source about the units’ subordination to the Fliegerkorps?

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

The unit was moved to Kertsch in April 1943. How was the communication from the operational area to the command structure? Are disturbances in the communication by paper likely?

Was there any heavy fighting going on in the area at the time? My answer is yes - they had their work definitely cut out for them - I think you and others can add more detail than me with regards to this.

StG2 on 1.Apr.43 has made a big raid against Batajsk railway junction, then some activity on the Miusfront and off Isjum (IV.Fliegerkorps area). Bad weather has hampered the air actions in the first half of April. In the middle of April StG2 have relocated to Kertsch for the operation 'Neptun' against the bridgehead S of Noworossijsk. Then up to the end of timeframe in question StG2 has operated on Kuban except the short time between 28/30.Apr. and 4/14.May (time was different for the Groups) then the base was Charkow (VIII.Fliegerkorps area).

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

… something special happens at the end of March - up until then (I think it will probably coincide with the move of the Geschwader from Stalino to Kertsch) …

If to be a frank, I can’t find any special. The frontline on the whole Ostfront was surprisingly stable during the Apr.-Jun.43. Territorial changes has measured in several kilometers in the few places. There were no chaotic retreats, encirclements, sudden losses of airbases etc. StG2 was active during the timeframe but it was active during the previous and following months too. Kertsch wasn’t an improvised air base, had the normal network. So the problems with the loss reports, if they were, had the internal nature probably.

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

April 1st - non combat related: http://www.aviationhistory.no/ref_db...?lossid=132526

It was over Batajsk during the raid against that key railway junction. Hope to find the Russian evidences about that midair collision.

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

And here comes my theory - the losses for I./St.G.2 between the dates of April 27th 1943 and May 26th 1943 - where there in theory should have been 12 losses reported are missing at central level due to one or more of the above mentioned factors.

The problem is in the point that we can find only few additional losses/damages in KTB StG2 during the May-June 1943. It maybe:
28.May.43 (II./StG2, forced landing on the German side due to AAA damage) [2 Ju87 in KTB, but 1 of them mentioned in GQM returns]
2.Jun.43 (II./StG2, forced landing normally on the German side due to AAA damage) [3 Ju87 in KTB, but 2 of them mentioned in GQM returns]
8.Jun.43 (I./StG2, forced landing normally on the German side for unspecified reason)
9.Jun.43 (II./StG2, forced landing normally on the German side due to AAA damage)
12.Jun.43 (III./StG2, forced landing normally on the German side due to AAA damage)
And maybe some others. But their % of damages unknown and maybe less than 10% in all or some cases.

Also, if the hypothetic bags with loss records were lost en route to Berlin due to railroad sabotage of Ju52 crashes as you wrote, it was a random sample and probably contains all degrees of losses from 10% to 100% partly with personal losses. So some of them should be find in the NVM records. But Matti wrote that can’t add any personal loss to GQM returns in this case.
Also, as I wrote above, almost all losses of Luftflotte 4 in Apr.-Jun.43 that became really known to Russians in 1943 can be found in the GQM returns except few uncertain cases. I can’t find yet any additional loss from StG2 in the Kuban area for the timeframe in question though I use a huge amount of various documents from the POW’s interrogation reports up to the technical command which has evacuated crashed and damaged planes. Continue to hope but…
So hypothesis that the reason of the difference between Bewegungsmeldungen and GQM returns was the losses of the some reports seems doubtful.

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

So no mystery - no propaganda - just war...

I don’t think about German propaganda in this case. Dr. Goebbels haven’t needed internal Luftwaffe papers for his propagandist masterpieces.

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

I believe Andrey - that if we look into the existing records still remaining on the Luftwaffe side - and try to correlate information from the other combatants with the same open mind - we will be able to bring the research forward - the other approach which I have seen far too much of is to dismiss information just because it does not fit some kind of hero story from one side or the other...

'Hero stories' isn't the point. The point is that 60+ % difference in the losses is a significant factor for the analysis of the operations.

About 4.(F)/Nacht and 2.(F)/100 - a bit later.

Best regards,
Andrey

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

I foget to post the losses info for rest of StG2.

I./StG2 see the previous post.

II./StG2:
April: 2 d.F and 6 o.F.
GQM etc.: 2 – 100%, 1 – 30%, 1 – 20% (and at least 1 <10%)
Difference is 8-2=6 (or 4 if we count the losses 10%-39%)

May: 6 d.F and 8 o.F. (and 6 'Überholung').
GQM etc.: 7 – 100%, 1 – 40%, 2 – 25%, 1 – 10%
Difference is 14-8=6 (or 3 if we count the losses 10%-39%)

June: 6 d.F and 1 o.F. (and 4 'Überholung').
GQM etc.: 4 – 100%, 1 – 60%, 1 – 25% (and at least 5 <10%)
Difference is 7-5=2 (or 1 if we count the losses 10%-39%)

III./StG2:
April: 5 d.F and 4 o.F. (and 2 'Überholung')
GQM etc.: 5 – 100%, 1 – 45%
Difference is 9-6=3

May: 4 d.F and 2 o.F. (and 2 'Überholung')
GQM etc.: 3 – 100%, 2 – 60% (and at least 1 <10%)
Difference is 6-5=1

June: 4 d.F and 1 o.F.
GQM etc.: 1 – 100%, 1 – 70% (and at least 3 <10%)
Difference is 5-2=3


Stab StG2 had a Stabskette (Ju87) and Stabstaffel (Ju88). According to Bewegungsmeldungen, only Stabstaffel had the losses during the timeframe in question.

April: 3 o.F.; GQM: zero. Difference is 3.
May: 3 o.F.; GQM: 1 - 40% (29.5). Difference is 2.
June: zero.
Maybe Ju88-Stabstaffel had the losses beyond Ostfront? Andreas, can you check it?

Regards,
Andrey

[Andreas Brekken]

Hello, all

Very short this time to ensure the message isn´t obscured:

I believe that what we see for the units subordinated to Luftflotte 4 at this time is that for some reason the losses were personnel was not injured, killed or went missing, these have not reached GenQu.

The losses were personnel was involved did reach the GenQu.

As can be seen by the orders describing how these losses are to be reported, the records ending up as Namentliche Verlustmeldungen have a higher priority - personnel more important than machinery.

Regards,
Andreas B

[Andrey Kuznetsov]

Hello Andreas,

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

Further - the same picture for 4./Nachtstaffel where you have the last report before the gap reported on April 30th - and then the next loss reported for April 21st 1943 appear in the GenQu report of May 25th.

The enigmatic April/May gap is interesting really. Is it was for all Luftflotte 4 units (or even for Ostfront units in whole) or it was a local phenomenon?

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

For 2.(F)/100 you have the last loss before 'the gap' reported for March 30th 1943, in the report of April 1st 1943. March 1943 is 100% in line between GenQu 6 Abt and Bestand und Bewegungsmeldungen - the same with April 1943 (no incidents).

To me this indicates that we have a 'missing loss' in the same timeframe as for the I./St.G.2.

It isn’t a gap but the real absence of losses between the March and 27.5.43 apparently.

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

For example for my main area of interest I have been able to locate so-called Luftlage Einzelmeldungen. These are in fact the original Fernschreiben strips - the paper strips that came out of the telegraph or teleprint machines and were glued to report sheets - pink color! which detail all operations for a given area and date, number of aircraft and their task for the day. All special incidents - claims, losses etc are outlined here.

The Luftflotte 4 and I.Fliegerkorps especially are unsuitable command structures for the timeframe in question. I have found the good daily reports of Luftflotte 6 and partly the daily reports of the VIII.Fliegerkorps. But have only the poor daily reports of Luftflotte 4 (even without the number of missions with few exception) and nothing at all from the most interesting for me I.Fliegerkorps and IV.Fliegerkorps. The reports of the Flak units attached to the infantry forces are interesting but specific. The info about Luftwaffe actions in the Heeres and Kriegsmarine documents is valuable but specific also.
Don’t know if the Einzelmeldungen of Luftflotte 4 for the timeframe survived the war.

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

I can not see that there were many units operating Do 217s in the area of Luftflotte 4?

Do217 had 1.(F)/Nacht (no losses) and 4.(F)/Nacht only.

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

So we could assign operations and losses of Do 217s if we are to find any to 4. Nacht.

What is the sources for the research of Do217s in particular?

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

But for now I find it safe to state that you can use the Bestand- und Bewegungsmeldungen to say that in addition to the losses given in the reports from the GenQu6Abt you have some additional aircraft losses without personnel being killed, wounded or missing in action, which you can not give an exact date for due to missing information.

It seems yes.

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

It is also interesting to note that the apparent loss of a Ju 88D-1 by 4. Nacht is a 4.(F)/122 aircraft with (possibly) crew from 4./Nacht (April 10th 1943)

Speak by call sign (F6+EM) the aircraft was from 4.(F)/122 indeed but why do you think that the crew was from 4.(F)/Nacht? I thought the info about 4.(F)/Nacht is the obvious error in GQM list.

Probably I made too many messages during a short time
But the theme seems interesting and important really.

Best regards,
Andrey

[kalender1973]

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

Hello, all

Very short this time to ensure the message isn´t obscured:

I believe that what we see for the units subordinated to Luftflotte 4 at this time is that for some reason the losses were personnel was not injured, killed or went missing, these have not reached GenQu.

Not only for the Lfl 4. The JVF12,2 indicates huge difference also for JG51 subordinated to Lfl6.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

I will not add much to the discussion, except one personnal opinion and one question.

I have always thought that the losses reported in the "Bestand und Bewegungsmeldungen" were not only total losses, but all aircraft destroyed and damaged enough to be repaired outside the unit.

Can someone confirm this from official Luftwaffe documentation ?