Bodenwöhr Waldwerk - Mtt Bf 109 K-4 assembly lines 1944 - 1945

[Marc-André Haldimann]

Roland, Matthias and Mathias the other,

It's a real treat to read your posts: put together, your knowledge gives back some fascinating flesh on those evanescent Waldwerke. I can see and follow your conclusions and interrogations about one place being more probable then another for the "Wertheim" alias Gaunting or Bodenwöhr Waldwerke and this is most interesting.

By following up this rich thread, my main concern remains to tie down geographically the hard evidence given by the US photographs taken in 1945 somewhere "near Wertheim".

With this caption given as certain, I can tie down the following published imagery:

Noro, H. (2009), LO+ST, Dainippon Kaiga:
- p. 100 - 101, pictures 135 and 136: , showing wingless and engineless Bf 109 K-4's stacked along a "Holzrückeweg" in a huge forest "near Wertheim"
- p. 102, picture 137: a railroad tunnel with tracks which portal has been fitted with wooden doors, and with both a pair of Bf 109 wings stacked againt the outer side walls and a third pair lying on the tracks "near Wertheim"

Poruba, T. and Mol, K. (2000): Messerschmitt Bf 109K, camouflage and markings, JaPo:
- p 40: "unfinisehd Bf 109K-4s captured at Wertheim". This is exactly the one and same scene then pics #135 - #136 published by Hideki Noro: engineless and wingless Bf 109 K-4's stacked on both sides of an "Holzrückeweg", most probably taken at about the same period of the year: the fully dressed GI's and the amount of dead leaves on the soil makes one think those shots were taken in early spring or late autumn 1945.

There ends published pictures with "near Wertheim" captions, and thus, our certitudes. There is one unique aspect to be seen on all airframes, pointed out by Tomas Poruba and Kees Mol as a very specific camouflage scheme: bottom of the fuselages was left unpainted, and only a thick looking wavy line of sprayed RLM 76 is to be found on the lower fuselage, cutting off the RLM 81/83 segment and mottle scheme. This is especially shown to its advantage on picture 136 (Noro 2009, 101).


Now, let's look at the possibly connected pictures - based on this odd camouflage with a wavy RLM 76 line cutting off the dark segments and mottles on the lower fuselage and metal bare bottom fuselage:

A. Hideki Noro publishes a dump of Bf 109K-4's fuselages "location unknown" (Noro 2009, 104, pic #139). They do show the same wavy RLM 76 line cutting off the dark segments and mottles on the lower fuselage and metal bare bottom fuselage.
B. This pic ties up with another one published by WW2vet on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/4036184...38498/sizes/o/. This picture discussed already here on the board http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=17708 does show exactly the same wavy RLM 76 line, a feature noticed by both SMF144 and Ouidjat in the discussion thread.

Both those pics do with a high degree of probability show the same fuselage dump in a time setting which must be winter 1945 - 1946, judging by the bare trees and the coldweather gear and gloves of the US personnel standing among the fuselages on pic #139 (Noro 2009, 104).

This ends both the published and unpublished photographical evidence so far... Taking it now to a bit wider circle, I can mention also picture # 138 (Noro 2009, 103) showing at least 8 wingless Bf 109K-4's sitting on an "Holzrückeweg". As they are taken from above, one cannot see the specific camo pattern with the RLM 76 wavy line and the bare metal fuselage bottom. No clear common link thus, but interesting to bear in mind when one thinks of the Waldwerke photographs.

One last point to take into account when thinking on this "near Wertheim" typical camouflage pattern. I perused all published Bf 109K-4 pictures available to me and found at least three operational machines with this same camouflage pattern:

- Bf 109 K-4, W.Nr. unknown, "Black 1" of 10. /JG 51, Ronne stadium, 4th May 1945 (Poruba and Mol 2000, 70 - 73).
- Bf 109 K-4, W. Nr unknown, JG 52 (?), Ceske Budejovice, May 1945, (Poruba and Mol 2000, 63).
- Bf 109 K-4, W. Nr unknown "White 8", JG 52 (?), May 1945 (Poruba and Mol 2000, 46 - 47). This one is illustrated by stills of a colour fim shot by the US Army; the film can be seen on Youtube.


As you see, gang, the "near Wertheim" caption is a real treat for further research...

Cheers
Marc