Strafing losses JG 11, Gelnhausen, 5th Sept. 1944

[Norbert Neuser]

Dear Board,

possibly I posted this enquiry some years ago. Silly enough - I had all lost Fw 190 with Werk-Nr.'s etc - I didn't store the data. Instead the only hardcopy I owned, was handed to a friend of mine. Now this printout is somewhere lost in his "paper-orbit"...

Anyone here is able and willing to fill out the gap?

Attack at Gelnhausen airfield by date of the 5th of September 1944 was carried out by about 40 P-38's and somewhat around 30 P-47's.

Well-known is the unique picture, presented in the booklet "Strafing aces of the 8th Airforce" (Osprey Publication), showing a razorback P-47 in flight shortly after the attack. Of special note are some burning remains, clearly visible in the background, obviously at the airfield of Gelnhausen (location today is named Gruendau-Rothenbergen).

Thanks in advance for everey helping hand.

Kind regards
y/s

Norbert

[Charles Bavarois]

Hello Norbert,

you wrote

>>possibly I posted this enquiry some years ago. Silly enough - I had all lost Fw 190 with Werk-Nr.'s etc - I didn't store the data. Instead the only hardcopy I owned, was handed to a friend of mine. Now this printout is somewhere lost in his "paper-orbit"... <<

Do you realy have the losses with Werknummern etc.? I./JG 11 was attacked that day at Gelnhausen and lost on the ground 24 Fw 190s totally destroyed and 2 damaged. This information is from the "Summarische Verlustmeldungen" which do not report Werknummern or anything else on the a/c.

Could you please tell me, were your information is from. Is it from a private source or do you have reports from the Bodenorganisation or a Bergekommando?

Thanks in advance

Carl

[Norbert Neuser]

@ Carl:

as far as I remember, this loss-list came from a private source. For that I'm not 100 percent sure about this, I was posting My request again here at "TOCH" as well as at the "LBB".

As mentioned before, this precious thing is in a friends hand.

Assuming that this case is worth some recovering action...

Kind regards

Norbert

[Christer Bergström]

In fact, there were 40 P-38s and 29 P-47s attacking. Yeah, that was a whole lotta airplanes strafing the same field. Anyway, these obviously belonged to 56th FG and 479 FG, and they claimed 132 aircraft destroyed on the ground.

Due to Prien (“JG 1/11”, p. 1258) 24 Fw 190s from I./JG 11 were destroyed on the ground at Gelnhausen.

These 70 American fighters encountered a single German fighter in the air, but this German pilot was fortunate to evade their attacks for 30 minutes by repeatedly seeking refuge into clouds.

Only 55th FG came across any other German planes in the air on 5 September 1944 - and not only German!! First they spotted a group of primary trainers and claimed to have shot down, or caused to crash, 17. Then they attacked three Bf 109s and claimed to have shot down two. Later they were happy to learn that they had shot down only one - since it proved to be a Swiss Bf 109, over Swiss territory.

[Norbert Neuser]

@ Christer:

Thanks a lot for Your kind reply and the additional, interesting informations.

Kind regards

Norbert