Il-2 killer Joachim Brendel

[Johannes]

Hi Guys

I am trying to find Brendel's 1945 victories. There should be thirty-five in total, his 153rd confirmed claim on 24th October 1944 was his eighty-second Il-2, one more claim(Jak-3) occurs on 14th December 1944 then the micro films have no more entries for Brendel. sometimes I read eighty-eight Il-2's , othertime over ninety. The 1945 details I have are as follows, and brings his known total of Il-2's to eighty-seven, but I do believe the final total exceeded ninety, all the claims are with the stab.III./Jg51 as a Hauptmann:-

14th January 1945 unknown type
18th February 1945 four unknown types in the Heilgenbeil area
19th February 1945 two unknown type
20th February 1945 three unknown type
21st February 1945 three Il-2's and an Airacobra
23rd February 1945 unknown type
4th March 1945 two Il-2's(nr.174 and nr.175) found on the KBT documents.
8th March 1945 Pe-2(nr.176) at 1432 hrs, found on the KBT documents.
9th March 1945 two unknown type(nr.177 and Nr.178) at around 12?? hrs, found on the KBT documents.
18th March 1945 three unknown type
29th April 1945 unknown type(nr.189)

Am 99% sure his log-book survived the war, and he seems to have been an honest claimer. Being an Il-2 specialist which involved the risk of flying at low altitude, and thus vunerable to ground-fire, surely he was the most useful of Eastern front aces!

Grateful for any assistance.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Nokose]

20Feb45 Yak-3 (Group Normandie-Nieman) Lt. Pierre Bleton (POW) Pillau
(From Christopher Shores book on Soviet aces). I don't know where he got his information on that one.

[Johannes]

Thanks for that.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[knusel]

Good evening Johannes,

have the 11 missing 1945 claims of Brendel ever re-appeared ?

Michael

[Johannes]

Hi Michael

Have not progressed with Brendel. I know his flugbuch for 1943 exists, was hoping it, or another ran until the end of the war. He does appear on several KBT papers for 1945.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[knusel]

Good afternoon Johannes,

in the internet I've found 7 Brendel claims (1941-1944) that are not in your list.
However, if you have (photographic) proof for his 150th kill being claimed on 18Oct1944 these would be obsolescent.

Have a nice Saturday,

Michael

[Johannes]

Hi Michael

How detailed are these seven claims? If there are really four answers to this:-

1: They are made up.

2: Somebody has misidentified names from the mikrofilms, in which case they will be details.

3: They are unconfirmed claims.......these usually do not have exact times for the claims. I do believe at least his earlier flugbuch survives(but where) flugbücher almost always do not give the exact time of the claim, or altitude.

4: The mikrofilms are less than 100% complete at this point, and I believe they are, your seven would suggest only 95% complete.

If the seven claims are detailed, I will investigate if you give the exact details.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[knusel]

Good afternoon Johannes,

these are the 7 odd kills:

• 16,3.42 2./JG 51 Lt
• 10,6.43 1./JG 51 Lt Pe-2 1937 3000
• 9,7.43 1./JG 51 Oblt Il-2 542 1000
• 22,7.43 1./JG 51 Il-2 1308 100
• 3,8.43 8./JG 51 Oblt LaGG-3 1627 1100
• 6,8.43 8./JG 51 Oblt Il-2 1218 200
• 28,8.44 1./JG 51 Hptm Yak-9 1411 1000

You can crosscheck them here:
http://cieldegloire.com/001_brendel_j.php
They could easily be ruled out if we had some kind of photo or news bulletin that confirms that Brendels 150th kill was indeed scored on 18Oct1944.

Have a nice Sunday,

Michael

[Johannes]

Hi Michael

That for 16th March 1942 is vague, could be an unconfirmed claim, but likely nothing.
That for 10th June 1943 is a confusion/combination of two claims, note two claims with the same amerk number 393.
That for 9th July 1943 again confusion, previous claim amerk out of sequence.
Those for 6th & 3rd August 1943 were made by Hptm Fritz Stendel. moreover Brendel not flying at this period due to wounds.

That for 22nd July 1943 is simply a mis-reading of time, actually 1302 hrs.

That for 28th August 1944 is a mistake on my behave, the details you gave are correct, mine mistakenly had a time of 0845 hrs, and wrong aircraft type of La-5, can't explain how I made the mistake, but my mistake.........sorry.

150th confirmed claim was on 22nd October 1944. Apart from five claims in early March 1945 which can be confirmed from KBT papers, all other 1945 claims must be considered suspect, or at least open to question.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Kapper]

Johannes

In my notes I have the following information on Brendel‘s claims.

1st abschuss on 4th Fiendflug on 29.06.41
2nd abschuss on 120th Fiendflug on 31.03.42
50th abschuss on 412th Fiendflug on 09.07.43
100th abschuss on 551st Fiendflug on 22.11.43
150th abschuss on 792nd Fiendflug on 16.10.44

Unfortunately, I don’t have the reference where I got this information from but such information would only be avaliable from the flugbuch which obviously must have survived, thus could only have come from someone who had access to the books.

I raise this data because of the confusion mentioned with the 28.08.44 claim in the earlier post. The details you have for the 28.08.44 claim in your list (that you sent to me earlier) is for a claim on the 26.08.44 yet it‘s dated 28.08.44. You seem to be missing the 28.08.44 claim as shown below. Both the 26.08.44 and 28.08.44 claims are in the Woods list and Priens work and the annerk number also fits.

26.08.44 Hptm. Joachim Brendel 1./JG 51 LaGG-3  13 264: at 500 m. 08.45 Film C. 2035/II Anerk: Nr. 608
28.08.44 Hptm. Joachim Brendel 1./JG 51 Yak-9  13 245 at 1.000 m. 14.11 Film C. 2035/II Anerk: Nr. 722

I mentioned the Fiendflug information because if you include this extra claim, (and include the 2 ASM claims of 14.12.42 & 28.07.43, that may or may not have been confirmed) to your claims list, the total on 16.10.44 meets exactly 150 abschuss as per the fiendflug data. When not including the 2 ASM claims, then that would make the 150th confirmed claim on 19.10.44 instead of the 22.10.44.

You may want to check this out. BTW I agree with your comments on the other claims mentioned in this thread.

Regards,

Craig...