German overclaims in the East. Hartmann and others...

[Nick Hector]

Gabor,

B R I L L I A N T.

For the Yak claimed on 25.2.45, I found this info a long while back that might help you:

This was most likely Romanian Bf109G W.Nr. 166248/"Yellow 9" of Grupul 9. Adj. Stag Av. Traian Darjan KIA

Source: http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/darian/darian.htm

Are you able to provide the serial numbers of the Bostons claimed on 8th January, 1945

Nick

[Nick Hector]

Additionally, for his victory on 14.3.45:

I originally had on my listing, 116 IAP. Kapitan Anatolii Alexandrovich Pantelkin HSU, OL, 2 x ORB, Order of A Nievskii, OPW 2nd class and ORS (18 kills), KIA.

Was this also a possibility?

Nick

[HGabor]

Nick,

On January 8, 1945 Lipfert downed A-20B-DL, S/N: 41-2937 first with the Lt. Vetlov crew. Her nickname was "За Победу!" - For Victory! - (See her well known photo below, taken in Bulgaria still in the fall of 1944.) She was a single plane, leading the 449th group and by waving the wings tried to pick up the Yak fighter escort from the airfield of Börgönd, Székesfehérvár-S when Lipfert caught her. Exploded mid-air.

Second he shot out A-20G, S/N: 43-21588 from the formation. Only the pilot, Lt. Kruglov bailed out, but hit the vertical stabilizer, lost his consciousness and did not open his parachute. His body was found far away from the plane. The rest 3 went down with the plane.

The third soviet Boston, lost on this mission was S/N: 43-9596, piloted by Lt. Larionov. It was downed by Lipfert's wingman, Sepp Prokoph. This entirely crew survived, but all 8 men in Lipfert's planes died. The soviets collected the bodies and took back for a regiment ceremony and funeral to their base at Madocsa. They were buried there.

As of the engines the soviet mechanical papers wrote them off together in a common list, so it is hard to match them properly to the planes:

43-104269-23
43-104259-23
57293-23
36247-11
43-102944-23
43-155228-23

Since only one was a regular A-20B, R-2600-11 type engine, therefore 41-2937 must have had mixed engines installed. (An A-20B and an A-20G engine at the same time!)

La-5 on March 14, 1945 - Pantelkin, (HSU):

Answer: NO.

Lipfert downed the La-5 at 12:07 PM near Székesfehérvár. Pantelkin was shot down at 15:00 PM local time at Sárkeresztúr in his 17 VA, 295 IAD, 116 IAP La-5FN, S/N: 39212869, engine: 8213627, tactical '69', while protecting 10 (12, but 2 early returned) 136 ShAD IL-2s. He was ambushed from the back by a 'new model Fw 190'. (?) This really could be anything, a Bf 109, or even pure politics to cover the Hero's fatal mistake by a new, fantasy model's superiority. No Doras in Hungary, anyway.

ml.l-t Iozhitskii (л-т Иожицкий, POW) was downed at Székesfehérvár in his La-5FN, S/N: 39211637, engine: 8211279, tactical '37'. His flight of six 17 VA, 295 IAD, 164 IAP La-5s took off from Tököl airfield at 11:45 AM to cover 12 IL-2s in the Székesfehérvár area. This perfectly matches the battle of 12:07 PM, local time!

So Pantelkin was downed by another pilot for sure, NOT by Lipfert. Lipfert downed л-т Иожицкий (POW) for sure.

Rumanian Bf 109G on 25.02.1945 can be just a speculation, as two 5 VA, 513 IAP Yak-9Ts were lost in the same area. Not sure about it.

I hope this clarifies the cases. Cheers,

Gabor

[Juha]

Originally Posted by Nick Hector

Gabor,

B R I L L I A N T.

For the Yak claimed on 25.2.45, I found this info a long while back that might help you:

This was most likely Romanian Bf109G W.Nr. 166248/"Yellow 9" of Grupul 9. Adj. Stag Av. Traian Darjan KIA

Source: http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/darian/darian.htm

Are you able to provide the serial numbers of the Bostons claimed on 8th January, 1945

Nick

Hello, according to his memoirs, Lipfert was alone when he attacked the two Rumanian 109s, so he didn't have a witness to his victory, did he made the claim? Sometimes pilots didn't bother the paperwork if they thought that it would be a fruitless effort.

Juha

[HGabor]

At least it is not in his claim list...

[GMichalski]

hi,
Incredible info Gabor..


maybe if we can share more it would be in the right way

many times i hit a wall with russian info hehe

You have some little more of these pilots:

Wilhelm Batz
Peter Duttmann
Heinrich Sturm
.......


Aladar Heppes
László Pottyondy
Laszlo Molnar
György Debrődy (very interesting for me)
Istvan Fabian
......

many thanks,
regards

[Nick Hector]

For Juha et al:

The 25.2.45 victory was claimed as a Yak-9. Historians like us who were trying to match the victory to the loss have surmised that it was a misidentification of Darjan's Bf109. Hence, a Bf109 does not show up in Lipfert's victory list and indeed his memoirs state his desire to have encountered a Romanian-flown Bf109 as he thought it would be interesting to dogfight with one. This is because he had trained Romanian pilots and wanted to "see what they had learned."

Or in other words: if he did ever actually tangle with a Bf109 in reality, certainly at the time of writing his memoirs he was unknowing of the fact.

[Juha]

Originally Posted by Nick Hector

For Juha et al:

The 25.2.45 victory was claimed as a Yak-9. Historians like us who were trying to match the victory to the loss have surmised that it was a misidentification of Darjan's Bf109. Hence, a Bf109 does not show up in Lipfert's victory list and indeed his memoirs state his desire to have encountered a Romanian-flown Bf109 as he thought it would be interesting to dogfight with one. This is because he had trained Romanian pilots and wanted to "see what they had learned."

Or in other words: if he did ever actually tangle with a Bf109 in reality, certainly at the time of writing his memoirs he was unknowing of the fact.

In his memoirs he definitely says that he identified his opponents as Rumanian 109s at the beginning of the combat. Now more important is to known what he thought in Feb. 45.

Juha

[HGabor]

Sorry, no info. His 182. official victory on February 25, 1945 at 10:53 is a Yak-9.

Gabor

[HGabor]

Hah, I am glad you like it. Again: credit to my friend(s) in Moscow I work with on the soviet plane losses in Hungary.

But if you do not mind, please be a little bit more specific about the pilots and their claims, as in details all these questions would require a series of books to be written... Which might come in the future, but now it would be too early.

You specifically mentioned Debrődy György (George), one of Hungary's most successful fighter pilots.

Probably you know that he was shot down on November 16, 1944 in a very heavy dogfight with soviet fighters, which basically terminated his fighting career. He, as well as his soviet opponent was a very dedicated and experienced soldier, who chose the most dangerous form of the aerial combat: a head-on, frontal attack. The Yak-9 and the Bf 109G were getting closer and closer to each other with an incredible speed and none of them wanted to turn out... They both knew: whoever turns out first will loose the battle. So they opened fire at the same time and mutually hit each other. The Yak exploded with a large fireball, while Debrődy was shot in the stomach and the bullet(s) passed through his body. He crash-landed near Hatvan and only the fast medical intervention saved his life. Years later, after the war he started to feel a big back pain. They made an X-ray and ... a soviet 12.7 mm bullet was clearly visible beside his backbone!!! A long surgery removed it and it was hanging above his bed for the rest of his life as a literally painful memory from his last battle in WWII. His opponent was most likely gv.ml.l-t Ismail Semenovich Rulev (KIA). His Novosibirsk, factory No.153-built plane: Yak-9D, S/N: 2015329, engine: 415-992 belonged to 5 VA, 6 GvIAD, 85 GvIAP.

Otherwise we just finished a very successful project with our Russian colleauges: identified and recovered an IL-2 near Seregélyes, Hu. Briefly: the plane was downed by flak on March 14, 1945 from 17 VA, 136 ShAD, 210 ShAP. S/N: 18842110, engine: 2510758. The only clue we had to successfully identify the crew was a broken piece of the engine block with the last 2 digits of the engine serial number: .......58. So I started to check the lost IL-2 engine serials of the 17 VA and found only two such cases! One crashed far away, but the other one right here at Seregélyes. This was IL-2 No.18842110, with the Vorobiev-Subbotin crew. Subbotin bailed out and was taken POW, but Vorobiev got stuck in his cockpit and was not able to leave his burning plane... Some time later our Russian friends were able to contact the Vorobiev family in Russia and one of his relative came to Hungary to visit the crash site and to do the necessary DNA testing, since the remains of the killed pilot were also found in the corn-field. His broken comb was handed over to his family...
Finally the whole story was broadcasted in the Russian State Television. Enjoy:

http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/761438/

Also, see the engine-piece, which was our 'key' to solve this mystery: ......58 and a note in the soviet 136 ShAD mechanical papers with the plane and engine serial entry - regarding the repair of this aircraft on November 19, 1944.
Another pilot's late return to his family and homeland...

Gabor