jet aircraft in Italy?

[Nick Beale]

The only jet unit to appear on the Luftwaffe order of battle in Italy was Kommando Sommer with three Ar 234. We (Gabriele Valentini, Ferdinando D'Amico and myself) found no archival evidence for any other jets apart from the two P-80s already mentioned.

As for the members of Kommando Sommer, Ltn. Gniesmer had only got as far as Lechfeld by 21 February and Stfw. Arnold reached München-Riem the next day. On 27 February they were still in Bavaria, held up by bad weather. Erich Sommer himself only flew to Italy on 14 March.

I corresponded with Erich Sommer (now deceased) for several years and there was no mention of his unit flying by night. Apart from anything else they would have needed some means of deploying parachute flares or flash bombs to take night photographs.

Norman, your account mentions flares and that points to night photography and that was the role of the Ju 188 D-2s and Ju 88 T-3s of 4.(F)/122, based at Bergamo, Italy. I can't account for the measured speed of the contact but can confirm that FAG 122 had aircraft up on the night of 17/18 March 1945.

P.S. to Norman: if you have anything on the 416th's only kill of 1945, by Capt. Lawrence E. Englert and 2./Lt. Earl R. Dickey on 28th February (another Ju 188), I'd be interested in seeing a copy.