Dates of withdrawal of Zerstörer Gruppen from Eastern Front in 1942 1943

[Paul Thompson]

Originally Posted by Larry deZeng

Hi Paul -

This should fill in most of the unknowns and gaps...

I can provide footnote sources for virtually all of these entries should you need them.

Hope this helps!

Hello Larry,

A quite incredible post from you and it is far from the first time that you have made a major contribution to the subject! Your information fills almost all the gaps and in rather more detail than I had a right to expect . I have to add that I am somewhat embarrassed by the fairly low 'hit rate' of my original message . I will take up your very kind offer of footnote sources in a couple of days, once my file covering KG, St.G. and Schl.G. movements extracted from your and Doug’s books is in some kind of order!

A couple of minor Zerstörer-related points which I wanted to clarify, for the sake of completeness, are below. They relate to the second part of my initial query, namely the return of the Zerstörer Gruppen to operational status following their withdrawal from the Eastern Front:

II./NJG 4 (ex-II./ZG 26)
Did this unit become operational immediately upon re-designation in April 1942, or sometime later? The Bewegungsmeldungen report the first non-operational loss in July 1942, but I have used this source to check other units and have made serious mistakes, so I would like to check my reasoning this time round .

I./NJG 5 (ex-II./ZG 2)
Same question as above, was this unit operational immediately upon re-equipment in October 1942?

I./ZG 1
A look at Don Caldwell’s War Diary suggests this unit was off operations, or at least not intercepting raids by the Eighth Air Force, until 2 October 1943. This suggestion is reinforced by the fact that the Bewegungsmeldungen report the unit was accumulating Bf 110Gs from other units in August-September 1943, but not suffering combat losses. Is this correct?

Regards,
Paul