Dornier Do 217 top pilot Wolfgang Hankamer

[knusel]

Good morning Gentlemen,

"Dornier Do 217 Units of World War 2" by Chris Goss is an excellent sequel to his Do 17 book. It describes how that bomber had to serve in a very demanding environment and also includes the nightfighter missions of the Do 217.

I wonder if it is possible to define the pilot who flew the most Do 217 missions and think a very promising candidate is Wolfgang Hankamer. He had a total of 264 missions and his units were mainly equipped with the Do 217 in the following periods: 6-7/41, 9/41-2/43 and 7-10/44 = 21 months. Therefore he might have ~151 Do 217 missions. The closest runner-up by that approximative calculation is Karl Kessel. The nightfighter ace Rudolf Schoenert might even have flown more Do 217 missions.

Cheers,

Michael