Field Marshall Kesselring

[Bruce Lander]

Hi,
just reading Rick Atkinson's excellent book "Day of Battle" about the Italian campaign and he notes that the German C in C Kesselring was shot down AGAIN in late January 1944 while flying his own Fi.156.Storch.

There are 2 claims for this type in January '44 :-

29 Jan 1944: Maj, George.W.Holmquist (523rd F.S) - Fi.156

30 Jan 1944: 1?Lt. Neal.O.Kitchen ( 318 F.S.) - Fi.156 Villaorba L.G.

Any idea who shot down Kesselring ? I understand that he was actually shot down on several occasions ! do we have details/dates/locations etc
Bruce Lander

[Bruce Lander]

Hi,
further to my original I now can add the location of the claim by Holmquist
thanks to Peter Smith's Book "Straight Down".
8 - A.36's were heading North between Siena and Grosseto when they encountered the Storch. They then went on to strafe some 20 enemy aircraft on the ground at Maliganao airfield setting 3 on fire, then on to Pein del Lago airfield were they destroyed another 3 aircraft
Bruce Lander

[Nick Beale]

While I can't help on this (interesting as it is to me!), I think that "Maliganao" is Malignano, SW of Siena while Villaorba is a long way off, in NE Italy near Udine, so if you can get a line on where Kesselring came to grief you should have your answer. It's easy to see that the recent Anzio landings might have taken him to the south of the country but of course he did have theatre-wide responsibilities.