KG66 Ju88S-3 at Sola, May '45. Pic

[hedgehog6]

How do you interpret the colors on these S-3s? 70/71 or 81/82 splinter uppers with undersurfaces and scribble in 76? Did they continue KG66's practice of omitting swastikas and some or all of the balkankreuz? Are any aircraft kennzeichen known? A 1/72 Ju-88S-3 has finally, after long delay, risen to the top of my stash & I'm thinking this would be a nice marking.

[Marcel van Heijkop]

Hi Hedgehog,

Originally Posted by hedgehog6

How do you interpret the colors on these S-3s? 70/71 or 81/82 splinter uppers with undersurfaces and scribble in 76? Did they continue KG66's practice of omitting swastikas and some or all of the balkankreuz? Are any aircraft kennzeichen known? A 1/72 Ju-88S-3 has finally, after long delay, risen to the top of my stash & I'm thinking this would be a nice marking.

Despite years of research it is still a mystery to me how the I./KG66 camouflage was allowed to develop in such a way beyond any official LW pattern. I have never been able to find an official painting scheme/card, but the application is just too systematic to be the product of a single aircraft painter gone mad.... Maybe the result of a single Gruppe policy?

Based upon an analysis by Tally Ho Decals and my own interpretation I can discern 2 different patterns/periods:

1943-1944 (Baby Blitz till the end of December 1944) :Regular nightfighter/nightbomber dot pattern:

• For Ju 88S-1/S-3: RLM22 (underside)/RLM76 uppersurface/RLM75 dots (maybe 74). Canopy framing looks RLM66 in some cases.
• Ju 188: RLM22(underside)/RLM76/RLM74 dots (squiggles on some 1943 aircraft).
• Swastikas: Some 1943 Ju 188's seem to have a RLM 74 swastika on the fin. On Ju 88S-1/S-3 it looks like swastikas were not applied at all or so oversprayed that they are not visible in your ordinary photo.
• Although very difficult to see in most photos, it looks like fuselage and underwing/upperwing crosses (in white or 77) were (almost) always carried.
• Full aircraft code in small black letters on top of the fin with aircraft letter in white.
• Aircraft letter again in white on the wing leading edge between engine and fuselage. This was definitely a 1st Staffel practice and very likely the Gruppe policy.

1945 (winter) scheme (called by some pilots the "Unternehmen Eisenhammer" scheme):

• I./KG66 got a lot of its replacement S-3's from other (disbanded) units (LG1 e.g.). My impression is that all dots/squiggles in a light colour (white? 76?) went over the older scheme of the original owner in such a dense way that it doesn't matter whether the original schema was 70/71 or 81/82... Sometimes I can see that a new base coat was applied before the squiggles.
• Aircraft letter again (white?) on the wing leading edge between engine and fuselage. This was definitely a 1st Staffel practice and very likely the Gruppe policy.
• Typical of this period is that on some aircraft a big aircraft letter (white?) is also visible on the fuselage sides at the position of or next to the fuselage Balkenkreuz.
• Some aircraft still have the aircraft code in small letters on the fin, some don't.
• Typical is that the squiggles or dots were applied all over the aircraft, i.e. were carried right over the landing gear doors and aircraft undersides. Same for the spinners. In 1943-1944 the spinners were just the standard solid green colour. Often reversed: Light squiggles on darker upper surfaces and dark squiggles on lighter lower surfaces.
• Some aircraft in April/May 1945 have a fully outlined (white?) swastika. On aircraft were it looks that no swastikas are applied, close examination will reveal that the swastika is partly overpainted in such a way that it almost looks like a stencil with intermitted outlines was used.

Maybe the best example of how weird these last schemes had become is demonstrated by "white B", the aircraft which came to grief partly in a canal! It is one of the subjects in AMTech's 1/72 Ju 88 S-3/T-3 kit. Here the uppersides are RLM75 with RLM77 spots, fuselage/engine sides and belly RLM76 with RLM74 (or one of the later greens) spots and squiggles.

Please note that this aircraft is always wrongly captioned. In fact it is Z6+BH of 1./KG66, which skidded off the iced Rollbahn of Celle airfield on the 24th of January 1945, damage 40%.

Note 1: I stand corrected...
Note 2: You will always find a I./KG66 aircraft that is an exception to the (unofficial) rule....

Hope this helps,

Marcel

[Del Davis]

Marcel,
I know that you have been conducting research on KG66 for some time. When do you expect to publish the results of your work?

[Marcel van Heijkop]

Hi Del,

Hmm, difficult question... I seem to say "within 5 years" for some years now...

As most of us, I have to do the writing on top of my everyday life and job. At the moment I'm busy writing everything out in a war diary format. (Because I started seriously considering writing a unit history only late in the 90's, I decided to focus on collecting first and processing second. Maybe not always smart, but with hindsight I was able to record some remarkable veteran stories that way just "in front of the bulldozers", so to speak...) And as some on this forum can tell you, you won't believe how time consuming it is to translate a Flugbuch written in Suterlin into something readable. And we are not all as efficient as Chris Goss or Jochen Prien ;-)

But rest assured that it will be worth the wait. I can say without any arrogance (and looking at my collected "treasures") that I./KG66 is a fascinating unit with more than enough aspects to satisfy the modeller/radar nut/LW buff/historian.

All the best,

Marcel

[Del Davis]

Thank you, Marcel
I do appreciate the complexity of your work and I think you made the right choice in collecting the treasures first. May I also inquire about the fate ot the "Dutch Airfields Study" with which you are also involved.
Cheers

[Seaplanes]

Dear Marcel,

My information is based on the following two documents:
"Aus Dänemark am 5.5.1945 zugeführte Flugzeuge, O.Qu./Ltd.Ing. Br.Nr. 6977/45 geh. 7. Mai 1945".
This document contain a complete list of all aircraft arriving in Norway on this date. However, we know of at least two FW 190 that crashed in eastern Norway and not included in this list, so it seems that the list only covers aircraft arriving on an airfield.

The second document is "Flugzeug-Gesamtbestand geordnet nach Flugzeugmustern, Komm.Gen.d.Dt.Lw. in Norwegen/O.Qu./Ltd.Ing. 6.6.1945". This list give type, W.Nr., location, unit and status of all Luftwaffe aircraft in Norway at the time of capitulation.

Both documents are in the custody of the Riksarkivet in Oslo. Unfortunately, ex. Luftwaffe records are not available for another few years as they are being sorted. I had the opportunity to get access many years ago, but also for me these records has not been available since then.

[atckyrre]

Many thanks for all the input folks, I wasn't expecting such a response! Lots of lovely info for us modelbuilders.
Unfortunately the book I scanned the picture from has no other pictures of German planes, a PM has been sent to Marcel regarding the rest of the info.

Am I right in assuming that this might perhaps be a typical 1945 scheme? (picture borrowed from Kjetil Åkra's photobucket)