Stuka photograph mystery solved

[biltongbru]

This is maybe an insignificant find but I think it is quite interesting.

Here is the well known and famous published stuka photograph:



It was presented in the Bison published book "Stuka Ju-87" by Lt-Col A.J.Barker, 1980, captioned: "...2nd Staffel of St.G 3. are being flown solo over Trapani, Sicily in1941". Subsequently a colour profile of this particular aircraft was published in an Osprey Aviation booklet with the caption:" No uncertainty here......a 2.Staffel machine depicted during I. Gruppe's brief stay on Sicily in the spring of 1941..." by John Weal.

The significance of this photograph is that my friend and veteran stuka pilot, Heinz Migeod ( http://www.heinzmigeod.com/ ), was a member of 2./St.G 3., same as the aircraft in this picture. He said they were never in Trapani during 1941. It is also confirmed with his flugbuch entries of 1941.

Okay, how to find out where this picture was taken; I tried to match the coastline profile with Google earth landscape imaging. Soon I discovered that this picture was shot over Rhodes as the Google earth image matched 100% with the stuka picture.




Now everything make sense; Heinz's 2./St.G 3 was stationed in Rhodes after the Greece and Crete campaigns for quite some time. I am also of the opinion that the yellow nose and -tail paint of operation Marita was replaced with normal camo paint some time after the Greece/Crete campaign.

[thenelm]

Nice work!!

[Doolittle81]

Great Detective work!

[Sergio Luis dos Santos]

That´s the pleasure of the research. The question size do not matters. What counts is to fix another piece in the historical puzzle. That´s great.

[Modeldad]