Late-war Bf 109 question

[George Hopp]

Near the start of this thread, the Bf 109 G-16 was mentioned. That a/c was first shown in an article by Gert W. Heumann on the Bf 109 in a Flug-Revue of the early 1950s. In fact, the a/c pictured was 109 G-6 Trop, W.Nr. 16 476, SL+EM, and was tested on 20 and 22.4.43, to show the speed difference between the Beulen cowling, the refined cowling, and the 109 G-1/G-4 cowling. In addition to the refined cowling, this a/c had a bomb rack with 2 tandem bombs, main-wheel doors, and underwing gondola weapons. So, Heumann can be excused for thinking this was a new type of a/c.

[Franek Grabowski]

Your version of 18 March events is simplistic to say the least.

[Skyraider3D]

I know Franek I could write it in more - much more - detail but that'd take a good few paragraphs and wouldn't help us finding Bill Lyons' victim of 9 February

I'm in contact with one of the pilots that was involved and I have the Pilot Encounter Reports for the day. Also I have several books of the 359th FG and scans of the somewhat inaccurate AirFan article. The 359th FG historian has been a great help to me in finding out more about this incident. If anybody wants to know more, I'm happy to assist.

The bottom line is that is was a very chaotic event where lots of things happened that shouldn't have happened. Good example of the fog of war...

[Skyraider3D]

After extensively picking Mr Lyons' memory, I think we'd need to look for Me 109s though. Apart from the wing gun firing, everything seems to match an Me 109 better. Also, both Meroney identified it as an Me 109 and the whole squadron watched the guncam footage and it was confirmed as a 109. Without the actual guncam footage we can never be 100% sure...

Originally Posted by Andreas Brekken

I seem too have a few additional losses for this date.

Your listing has 21, I have 39 losses listed for 109's on this date.

Are the additional ones of interest or have you already looked at them and counted them out of the ones that are possible for this action?

Andreas, would you be able to list the additional Me 109 losses for this date? I feel we may need to look beyond JG 300 for this one...
Many thanks in advance!

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi.

Here they are.
http://www.ahs.no/discussion_images/...9-Bf109-01.gif
http://www.ahs.no/discussion_images/...9-Bf109-02.gif
http://www.ahs.no/discussion_images/...9-Bf109-03.gif
http://www.ahs.no/discussion_images/...9-Bf109-04.gif


Regards,
Andreas

[Skyraider3D]

Thanks very much Andreas! I'll have a good look over these tonight.

[George Hopp]

Excellent listing, Andreas. There is possibly a tiny problem in the last a/c shown on page 1, in that by this time, a G-14 would have had a 6-digit number rather than a 5-digit number, as shown.