Losses of LW for the 16 oct 1944

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Hi, Andreas,

This day the French pilots of Normandie-Niemen claimed 5 Ju 87. I have in my files that Ju 87 were lost during the month of October 1944 by the following units (not counting NSGr units):
I./SG1 (2 to enemy action)
10./SG1 (3 to enemy action)
10./SG3 (1 to enemy action)
all of which were operating over East Prussia
(and also by III./SG2 (1 to enemy action) and 10./SG2 (2 to enemy action), but both over Hungary, so outside of our study field here).

Can you please check the losses of SG 1 and SG 3 for this day, especially Ju 87s ? Thanks in advance

As for your list of losses, a French source describes a morning battle between JG 52 and Normandie-Niemen, with JG 52 boucing Soviet bombers with some success and then losing 5 Bf 109s. Oblt Rudolf Trenkel of 2./JG 52 and his wingman, Fähnrich Windish, were both shot down (first force-landed and then his Bf109 was strafed and destroyed, second bailed out). Both were apparently unhurt so won't be in surviving official loss lists.

Can anybody here confirm that Trenkel was shot down this day ?

Also, I any of the Russian contributors of this forum is reading this, it would be interesting to know how many victories were scored by Soviet units in the same area. From my only source ("Stalin's Falcons"), Soviet pilots scored also a number of victories this day.

The Soviet communique of 18 Oct 1944, midnight, reported a total of 73 enemy aircraft destroyed by Soviet forces aircraft (very probably including Normandie-Niemen) and AA fire on all fronts on the 16th. Ok it is not the best available source but at least gave an idea of what the number of claims was.

As for overclaiming, I'm quite sure the French pilots didn't shot down 29 AC this day... Twenty will be normal overclaiming, but the true number may well be less than that, given the number of units in the air this day.