Me 323 losses in the Middle East ?

[G.R.Morrison]

GQM = the Luftwaffe Quartermaster's office kept track of losses, materiel & personnel. Much of the records survived the war (not 1944 -- but not much happened that year...!) and were microfilmed: twelve rolls. Some are more legible, some less-so. They include typos, transpositions and pencilled corrections or updates. Some units were more meticulous about supplying loss data than others.

The Luftwaffe Verband was an organization, Barry published a semi-regular newsletter/booklet for several years.

The VM+IO was the Stammkennzeichen of Me 323 WNr.1267, a factory-supplied radio callsign. The C8+DG was the fuselage code that the unit applied to this airframe. Many transport machines operated without unit codes being applied, retaining their SKZ. Stammkennzeichen were unique, but same unit codes might be applied to a number of different machines (there were a series of "1G+BT" of 9./KG 27 as the war continued, for example).

Hope this clarifies, GRM