Discussion on the air war in Tunisia

[JeffK]

Originally Posted by George Hopp

Your excellent summary of combats between the US and German forces beautifully illustrates comments made elsewhere about such battles: the Germans may have shot down lots of Allied escort fighters, but the Allied fighters were almost always completely successful in protecting the bombers.

George,

This trait of the Luftwaffe pilots was also seen in the Western Desert, while some fighter units suffered heavy losses, the Desert Air Force Light & Medium Bombers were able to do their job without "disastrous" losses. In return, a DAF pilot dreamed of little more than a "Stuka Party"

Marseille, in his 150 plus claimed kills, only shot down 3 2-engined bombers. (But some single engined would have been fighter-bombers)

To those who know the eastern Front, did the Luftwaffe concentrate on the fighters there??

[Kutscha]

Interesting George and Jeff.

It would seem that the so called superiority of the jagdfliegers over Allied a/c was not so superior as some try to claim. Thanks for putting the air fighting in proper perspective.

Since BoB was mentioned in a post,

RAF a/c lost - 1017
LW a/c lost - 1882
109/110 lost - 871

from After the Battles 'The Battle of Britain-Then and Now'

The jagdfliegers did not do such a great job in protecting their bombers unlike the Americans in Tunisia.

[Christer Bergström]

Reading through “Fighters over Tunisia” gives the impression that most Axis aircraft lost to Allied fighters during the Battle of Tunisia were either unescorted bombers (Ju 88s and He 111s) which flew long-range missions against shipping targets in Algeria (and thus could not be provided with any fighter escort due to the long distance) or transport planes.

The Allied bombers usually operated in formations of about 10 - 20, provided with an escort of about twice as many fighters. When Luftwaffe fighters caught Allied bombers without fighter escort - which was very rare - a brutal massacre generally was the rule. One such example was the so-called “Boston tea party” in Libya. Another example was the massacre on Bisleys on 4 December 1942.

On 4 December 1942, a whole formation of 11 Bisley bombers was completely annihilated in a German fighter attack over Tunisia. I have to say that the German bombers or Stukas which operated over Tunisia never sustained such a disastrous defeat at the hands of Allied fighters. As I have mentioned before, the old Ju 87 Stukas of StG 3 flew regular missions over Tunisia without being much troubled by Allied fighters, apart from a few isolated cases. In total, no more than 22 of StG 3’s Ju 87s were shot down by Allied fighters in North Africa during the four months January through April 1943 - i.e. only slightly more than five per month. Like Erhard Jähnert, who flew a Ju 87 with StG 3 in Tunisia, told me when I interviewed him the last November: "The Allied fighters were mostly taken care of by our Messerschmitts."

One reason why the German fighter pilots shot down more fighters than bombers in Tunisia is that there were many more Allied fighters than Allied bombers in the air.

Here are some examples of Luftwaffe fighter attacks against Allied bombers in Tunisia:

On 13 January 1943, JG 77 attacked 21 Baltimores of 21 SAAF Sqn, escorted by 44 P-40s and Spitfires of 57 FG, 112 Sqn and 92 Sqn, and shot down three bombers. Those losses were admitted by the Allies. (“Fighters over Tunisia”, p. 148.)


On 14 January 1943, 36 Kittyhawks from 3 RAAF Sqn, 250 Sqn, 260 Sqn and 450 Sqn succeeded in their task to protect 18 Boston bombers against attacks from 20 Bf 109s (due to the Allied report). Instead, the Kittyhawks took the brunt of JG 77’s attack, and these Kittyhawk pilots were shot down by the German fighter pilots: S/L Gibbes, F/O Diehm, P/O Tonkin, P/O Weatherburn, Sgt. Caldwell, F/S Nickolson, Sgt. Frost, Sgt. Cameron, Sgt. Harrison, Sgt. Webster, and Sgt. Kirkman. In all, JG 77 shot down 11 Kittyhawks in this massacre - without own losses. (“Fighters over Tunisia”, p. 151.) Major Jochen Müncheberg claimed three shot down, bringing his victory total to 126.

On 15 January 1943, 12 Bf 109s of II./JG 51 attacked 18 B-26s of 17th BG escorted by P-38s and shot down two B-26s and two Lightnings - losses due to Allied sources. (“Fighters over Tunisia”, p. 153.)

16 January 1943: No info on Allied bomber operations.

17 January 1943: 16 P-38s escorted six B-25s, no fighter interception.

18 January 1943: 33 P-38s of 1st FG escorted 13 B-17s of 97th BG. II./JG 77 and Italian 3 Stormo intercepted with approximately 15 -20 fighters and shot down at least one P-38 and a B-17 without own losses.

If we then turn to the Battle of Britain, it is a well-known fact that the Bf 109s did not succeed to provide their bombers with an effective fighter cover. But let’s not go into the likewise well-known reasons to that. At least not in this thread.

[Juha]

If we compared the failed LW and RA bombing campaign against Malta during the first part of Oct. 42 and the Tunisia campaign, it seems to me that the Axis problem was the weak defencive power of their bombers which their fighter pilots could not effectively compensate if they operated against well integrated fighter defence. I don't have time to read the Shores' et al Malta the Spitfire Year (1991) but have to rely on Playfair's et al The Mediterranean and Middle East IV (1966) but Shores' article The Long Struggle for Malta in his Duel for the Sky (1985) is in agreement with the first book. Axis flew 2400 sorties against Malta in 9 days and the defending fighters flew 1115 sorties.Playfair p. 195 "...At first Axis used formations as big as 80 Ju 88s escorted by nearly double that number of fighters, but by 15th Oct. as few as 14 bombers were being escorted by nearly 100 fighters. By 18th Oct, after heavy losses in bombers, the enemy had given up using his Ju 88s altogether in favour of Me 109 fighter bombers...The British lost 30 Spitfires in the air ... and only 2 a/c - one Beaufighter and one Spitfire - on the ground. German records disclose the loss of 9 fighters and 35 bombers, some of which fell to the guns" and Italian losses were unknown. Later in same page"...so effective were the air defences of Malta that strikes against Axis shipping were carried out every night exept one, on which no enemy ship came within range of the island."

Shores, on the article p. 92 "...Again and again the formations of Ju 88s, protected by swarms of Messerschmitts and Macchis, attempted to fight their way through to their targets. And again and again they were thwarted."

On losses, on same page "...at least 30 Ju 88s were lost and 13 more damaged seriously, some of them to written-off levels...at least a dozen Bf 109s and MC 202s being shot down and another 10 or so badly damaged...27 Spitfires being shot down during seven days and more than 20 more crash-landing or suffering heavy damage..."

Juha

[Juha]

To comment my earlier message, IMHO Bf 109G was in early 1943 a good short range air superiority fighter, but the early Gs suffered a lack of fire power as interceptors, Spit V had appr. a twice the firepower than early Bf 109Gs and the fact that Spit's firepower wasn't so concentrated didn't matter much in attacks against bombers. Bf 109G-1/-2/-3 and -4 were maybe too optimized for fighter vs fighter combat and that made the stopping of Allied bombers (excluding Bisleys) difficult. On the other hand Spit Vs had enough firepower to hurt the German bombers if they got to firing position and if the British had a good fighter control system as on Malta they usually got there even if the German and Italian fighters could make them pay a price but British fighter pilots based on Malta had the guts to force their way to bombers in the extent that the were able to force the bombers away from their targets.

Juha

[Christer Bergström]

All I can say is that I think you are right, Juha. Thanks for sharing those interesting Malta loss figures with us.

[Boandlgramer]

hello everybody.
hello christer bergström.
nice to meet a very good writer in an forum.
have your BC & RS series . great books.

when you are talking about the airwar over northafrica.
i have also a question.
do you have some infos about the so called " palmsunday massacer " ?
do you know which german transportunits took part ?
which italian units ?
how high were the claims from the allieds and the real losses, and the same about the german claims /losses.
if you have the time to answer, it would be nice to read about.

thank you.
Hans