Unknown RK Träger Hptm and unit symbol Kharkov 1943

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Originally Posted by Adriano Baumgartner

Csaba,
Your man CAN be from .8/ JG 51 ( almost certainly ).
There was a Uffz Heinrich Hoenisch from JG 53 that had a similar personal emblem ( see pg.65 of PRIEN´s vol.1 JG 53 ). However Honisch became a POW on 9 September 1940 after obtaining 6 victories ( so, no RK and no time matches ).
JG 71 had this symbol of the cat arching its back before the war and it seems to have been used as far as 1940 ( am not sure on that date ). Your man ( RK-trager ) should have flown with that Squadron...Had to cross-check .8/JG 51 RK-tragers to find out a man that was with the Squadron since its beginning...
I will send you the photos on your e-mail.
Hope that it will help...
Yours friend and sincerely as ever
Adriano

Many thanks, Adriano. Here is a bigger part of the photo which shows him and the other Oberleutnant. Unfortunately, the RK Träger pilot wears only a German pilot badge and an EK I, nothing other (that's why I showed above only his face with the small badge, since he wears no other particularly interesting in his clothes)

I tought, that he is a recce pilot, since the fighter pilots wore their Frontflugspange generally, but the recce pilots are less frequently (and the Hungarians behind him are from a tactical recce unit)

It is also possible, that the pilot got this badge as a gift from a friend. It was not rare, that the Hungarians and Germans changed unit badges as a friendly gesture, and it happened among German pilots as well, I guess (I can show you photos, for example, in which Lipfert is wearing the Hungarian 'Ricsi' badge, but not at all the JG 52's one - but it is not a Hungarian badge for sure)