8-8-44 Iii/jg3 In Combat With 19 Sqn ?

[hautemarnechris]

Rob

by "allied report" I assume you mean the Jedburgh mission. Well, the Special Operations Executive had an operation in the Marne during July/Aug 1944. It was called Pedlar - a stange mission made up of 2 SOE agents and three Jedburghs. The Pedlar group split up. The Jedburghs went to the Haute-marne to do what Jedburghs did - training the resistance, blowing things up, etc. The SOE agents went to the Marne and set up a base in the village of Bouzy which is close to several airfields in the Chalons area - one of which was Athis /Tours-sur-Marne where it looks as though II/Jg3 was based for a short time in August 1944. III/Jg3 was based, from what I've read elsewhere, at Chalons.

The agent's report is a bit hazy about dates but I think he was at Bouzy from about 8th August until end August by which time the area had been over-run by the US 3rd Army.

In the Pedlar report on operations written by the SOE agent he says the following:

"As a result of our request the RAF carried out a most effective bombing both of TOURS airfield, where the Udet fighter squadron was based, and was largely exterminated, and of Von Kluge's HQ at VERZEY. Von Kluge himself had a miraculous escape by the simple proccess of letting his other officers be killed and taking a remaining staff car and driving it himself rapidly into the countryside."

For various reasons I'm suspicious about the SOE agent concerned - hence my interest in verifying this and other aspects of his report. The Von Kluge incident stacks up although the agent is wrong about some of the detail. For example, The air attack on HQ OB West was carried out by aircraft from the USAAF (using napalm apparently) on the 25th August – a week after Von Kluge committed suicide whilst on the way to Germany (HQ OB West had moved to Verzy on the same day) and Von Kluge’s replacement, Field Marshall Model, was probably not at Verzey on the 25th August.

That's all I knew until contacting this site which, incidentally, I've used before and find extremely impressive. I looked at some material in the NAs today but it didn't take me any further forward.

Chris

[Jochen Prien]

Gentlemen,

according to my copy of the Notizen zur Geschichte der III./JG 3, based on the Gruppen KTB of III./JG 3, which were compiled by Karl-Heinz Langer, the low level attacks discussed here, took place on August 7th, 1944. So it seems to be a matter of conjecture, which of the various sources is correct and which is wrong.

Regards

Jochen Prien

[hautemarnechris]

Well, I think that seems to settle the matter. As I understand it the world experts on the Udet are saying:-

1) An attack on occurred on III./JG3 on the 7th August in which it was severely damaged. It was not based in the Chalons area when the attack happened.

2) II./JG 3 was based at Athis/ Tours-sur-marne from 10th - 20th August. It suffered no significant damage from air attacks during that time.

Therefore, the report from the Pedlar mission that it called down an RAF air attack on Athis/Tours-sur-marne in which the Udet was "exterminated" cannot be correct.

The only other explanation I can think of is that another Luftwaffe unit (JG 76?) occupied Athis after II./JG 3 left on the 20th. It was that unit which was attacked from the air. The Pedlar agent was, therefore, wrong to say that the Udet had been "exterminated"

Alternatively, the agent made the whole thing up which knowing what I do about him is quite possible.

Thank you everybody for taking the time to share your extremely impressive knowledge of the Luftwaffe with me. If anything occurs to you which may be relevant I'd be really grateful to hear about it