German aircraft at Eelde airfield

[Dennis Peschier]

Nice pictures!!

The Fw189 in Jansens book it still intact, perhaps that is the other one.

thank you for sharing them,

Dennis

[ChristianK]

A very old thread, but an appropriate spot for the following question: Is this photo of Fw 190 D-9 210037 already known? : http://www.thememoryproject.com/stor...en-richardson/

This aircraft, which had belonged to III./JG 54 at least in November 1944, was rather extensively covered in JaPo's "Fw 190D camouflage & markings Part I" - its tactical marking "11" was said to have been red and in the photos known at that time no fuselage band was recognizable. However, in the photo posted above you can clearly see a fuselage band (I still don't have Crandall's books, so forgive me if this is old news). Of which color might it have been? Perhaps (washed-out) blue of JG 54? AFAIK this wasn't documented on a D-9 so far - What do you guys think?

Regards,
Christian

EDIT: Can someone please repost the Fw 189 photos from earlier in this thread? Thanks!

[Micke D]

Nice find Christian! I don't think either JaPo or Crandall mentions this, so I think this info is new!

[Micke D]

I checked both JaPo’s and Jerry Crandall’s books yesterday and they don’t have this photo. I think it was Crandall who has another photo with this D-9 in the distance standing on the nose but so blurred so the fuselage band isn’t easily seen.

But what color is this band? Light blue? Yellow? I’m not sure.

Could the red of the nr 11 have nearly the same shade as the blue (?) band? And did III. /JG 54 use a light blue band on their A-8's?

I guess that this plane could have been repaired after use by III. /JG 54 and gone to another unit later.

[ChristianK]

Hi Micke,
thanks for checking! My thoughts on the unit? Given the (Dutch) location and the documentary evidence (210037 had definitely belonged to III./JG at the end of 1944) I think it's rather unlikely that this plane had been transferred to a different Geschwader while it was still in service.

- JG 26, the only other D-9 unit in this area, used a black/white fuselage band and did so rather consistently, so this possibility can be discarded.

- The fuselage band on 210037 is mono-colored - this would leave JGs 1, 3, 11, 27, 53 and (early) 300, but none of them either used the Fw 190 D-9 or was operating over northwestern Germany and the Netherlands during the last months of the war. It's also unlikely that a defector or homebound pilot flew 210037 to Eelde around VE-day, as this airfield was captured in April 1945 and the wreck was already present.

- Of course it could be just a simple yellow recognition band but when applied to fighters, they were usually much narrower.

So yes, I think 210037 featured a blue fuselage band, which was just very bleached out when our photo was taken. At least that's my opinion...

Regards,
Christian