Airfield Strafing Victims

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Don Caldwell

Are the HW5 files available on line, by any chance?
-- Don

No, only on paper. You can download DEFE3 Ultras free though.

[Larry deZeng]

Next up is Brunnthal, I guess. As you can see under "General" below, this was not really an active airfield or landing ground, but rather a long-term parking lot. The majority of aircraft parked there had been stricken from unit inventories, in fact many of the units they had originally belonged to had been disbanded or were in the process of disbanding. Accordingly, any attempt to definitively associate each aircraft with a particular unit will probably be doomed to failure, especially as this was the last chaotic month of the war when record-keeping often fell by the wayside. I have never seen reference to an active Luftwaffe unit listed as being based or stationed at Brunnthal but, luckily, we do have one German report for the first date that identifies V./NJG 2 as one of the owners.

Brunnthal (GER) (a.k.a. München-Brunnthal, Munich-Brunnthal) (48 00 40 N – 11 41 10 E)
General: remote aircraft parking area (Abstellplatz) and/or satellite field (Schattenplatz) in Bavaria 16 km SE of München (Munich) and immediately N of Brunnthal village. History: set up 1944-45 after the airfields at München-Riem and München-Neubiberg fell under constant Allied air attack. There were two runways, one of which was a section of the München-Salzburg Autobahn. Surface and Dimensions: leveled agricultural land measuring approx. 1420 x 185 meters (1550 x 200 yards). Infrastructure: none. Nearest rail connection 2.5 km to the E. Dispersal: the aircraft were sheltered in bays in the forests that bordered the Munich-Salzburg Autobahn, one lane of which served as a runway and the other lane as a taxiway. There were accommodations for approx. 100 aircraft.
Remarks:
9 Apr 45: bombed by B-17 Fortresses and strafed by VIII Fighter Command P-51 Mustangs – 17 x Ju 88s from V./NJG 2 destroyed or damaged on the ground (incomplete German sources). The P-51s claimed 60 destroyed and 42 damaged, these of various types but mostly single engine and twin engine fighters.
16 Apr 45: low-level attack by VIII Fighter Command P-51s – claimed 22 destroyed or damaged, mostly Ju 88s, Do 217s, Si 204s and a few single engine fighters.
Operational Units: none identified.
Station Commands: none identified.
[Sources: AFHRA A5258 p.279 (7 Sep 44); chronologies; BA-MA; NARA; PRO/NA; web site ww2.dk]

L.

[Don Caldwell]

Nick -- good to know.

Larry -- thanks for some more of the detailed reporting you're noted for. The info that Brunnthal was primarily a storage area, that the strafing claims were excessive, and that one unit for the Ju 88s was V./NJG 2 is all important for the study.

-- Don