More silly questions from Nick

[NickM]

Guys: It's another one of these 'damned fool questions from Nick'!

Two odd things popped into my head so here goes:

A mission by Johannes Naumann; sometime 'in the fall of 1942' Naumann was involved in a mission to intercept one of the early missions by the 8th AF; the narrative said his FW's engine exploded, bring his mission to an 'abrupt end'; Had to ask if Naumann had to bail out or if he succeeded in making a dead stick landing.

And

Hermann Staiger led III/JG26 in Southern German to a VERY successful mission on April 22, 1944, against USAAF Heavies; I was wondering if the records show how the MEs were armed; The book said Staiger's 109 had a 30mm cannon in the nose but I wondered if it or the other planes had also been equipped with underwing cannon pods;

Thx, ahead of time.

[drgondog]

Nick - Staiger's mission over Munich was April 24. The LW claimed and were awarded 11 Mustangs and one P-47 in the Munich area. The actual losses were 6 P-51's, two of which were lost in mac with the Me 110's they destroyed (357FG). A total of four P-51s were shot down in air combat covering the 1st BD attacking Erding, Oberphaffenhofen and Landsberg.

I have researched tha mission extensively - my preliminary effort is on Mike William's site but I have a significant update.

I have found two that conceivably match Staiger's personal claims to the east of Munich.. but JG26 claimed five in that area.

His 109 and most of the JG 26 Me 109s were equipped with underwing 20mm gondola's.

[Leo Etgen]

Hello Nick

It was interesting to read your question regarding the incident in which Naumann suffered an engine explosion while attempting to intercept one of the early USAAF raids. I came across the same reference as well while researching my thumbnail biography on him but was unable to find any corresponding entry in the loss list included in the JG 26 War Dairies. If this event did occur then perhaps the damage was insufficient for the incident to have been included in the loss returns or this particular loss was one of those that for whatever reason were not included in the loss returns. Hopefully someone else can shed additional light on what happened.

Horrido!

Leo

[Jim P.]

The JG 26 War Diaries generally don't include any losses where the pilot was not injured in some way, and many of those where the pilot was OK I suspect were extracted from FB. On the other hand, the Gen.Qu. reports losses don't include the pilot name if unhurt, or the aircraft loss was assessed as <10% damaged. Is the date of this incident known? Or even within a range of say a 10-day period?

[Leo Etgen]

Hello Jim

This is the paragraph included in JG 26: Top Guns of the Luftwaffe by Don Caldwell which describes this incident:

"A typical interception in the fall of 1942 has been described by Johannes Naumann, at that time an Oberleutnant in II/JG 26. The Gruppe was ordered to attack the bombers on their return flight, as there was no chance of reaching them before the bomb run. The B-17s were flying in a staggered formation at about 26,000 feet. The Focke-Wulfs finally struggled up to 27,000 feet, only to see the American formation receding into the distance. The speed of the FW 190s at that altitude was little greater than that of the bombers, and a stern chase closed the range only very slowly. Frustrated, Naumann opened fire with his MG 151/20 cannon at the extreme range of 750 yards, to no effect. By this time, half of the original formation of twenty-four Focke-Wulfs had dropped out of the chase for one reason or another. Suddenly there was a loud noise from in front of Naumann's feet—his engine had exploded, bringing his combat sortie to a sudden end. No bombers were downed; none had even suffered visible damage."

Unfortunately, there is no particular date given nor information on the aftermath.

Horrido!

Leo

[NickM]

Originally Posted by drgondog

Nick - Staiger's mission over Munich was April 24. The LW claimed and were awarded 11 Mustangs and one P-47 in the Munich area. The actual losses were 6 P-51's, two of which were lost in mac with the Me 110's they destroyed (357FG). A total of four P-51s were shot down in air combat covering the 1st BD attacking Erding, Oberphaffenhofen and Landsberg.

I have researched tha mission extensively - my preliminary effort is on Mike William's site but I have a significant update.

I have found two that conceivably match Staiger's personal claims to the east of Munich.. but JG26 claimed five in that area.

His 109 and most of the JG 26 Me 109s were equipped with underwing 20mm gondola's.

Thanks, my bad! That's what I get for leaving my books at work. As I understood it, the Mustang Unit that III/JG26(AND II/JG3-I think) battled was the 355th.

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by NickM

Thanks, my bad! That's what I get for leaving my books at work. As I understood it, the Mustang Unit that III/JG26(AND II/JG3-I think) battled was the 355th.

Nick - Both the 355th and 357th were assigned target escort, the 357th about 15 minutes behind. Bud Anderson was in this fight. The effective escort making R/V was 83 Mustangs from the two groups attempting to cover 40 miles of bomber stream. The 355th was awarded 22 destroyed and the 357th 24 destroyed including 9 Me 110s and one Ju 88 -

The total shot down by Mustangs according to the research I have done on the LW side is 1 Fw 190 plus 30 Me 109s plus 9 Me 110s plus one Ju 88 destroyed as well as six Me 109s and one Fw 190 crash landed but no data on condition. I have the werk numbers for the destroyed, but none for the crashlanded/damaged.

From my book -

In all, over 230 German fighters made contact in that area. The order of engagement seems to be Sturmstaffel I. with 1/JG3 flying top cover around 1315-1320, followed by JG26 in the 1315-1320, then III./JG3 around 1325, then Stab IV./JG3 with IV./JG3, Stab./JG301, I./JG301 and III./JG26 in the 1330-1335 timeframe. IV./JG 27 and I./JG5 appeared in the 1336-1340 timeframe followed by II./ZG26.

JG26 departed when the 355th made R/V at 1318 and stalked 41-B until the IP and re-engaged the B-17s form se of Munich all the way through the bomb runs. By that time all of the 355th and 357th with the exception of three flights (358FS/355FG) still escorting the lead 41-A were scattered all over the area in mixed engagements

[NickM]

Wow...Looks like III/JG 26 got off lucky to escape unscathed. A pretty credible performance even though they had gunpods.

NM

[drgondog]

They were smart - when the 355th showed up, III./JG26 slipped into the cloud cover to stalk the bomber force. If they were the gruppe that shot down Norman and Hillman (357FS/355FG) it was because they caught them alone to the east southeast of Erding as the bomber stream was heading south from Erding to the IP in the SW of Munich.

Then the 41-B separated from 41-A at the IP and headed toward Oberphaffenhofen alone. One flight of the 354FS/355FG intercepted a staffel of JG3 and shot nine of them down (Bob Woody got four and shared a fifth for a DSC).. as they were engaged with this smaller force, JG26 filled the vacuum and shot down several more B-17s plus forced several to seek Sweden.