9./JG27 under Fritz Gromotka over Kos Island in 1943

[HarryB]

Hi! I hope this is the right place to ask.

My father-in-law was a member of the South African Air Force 7th squadron that was severely mauled by Jagdgeschwader 27 'Afrika' during Churchill's crazy Agean adventure in 1943. We are trying to get as much info as posible about the events of the day of 27 September 1943, when my father-in-law, Lt. Arnold Loubser "Bassie" Basson was downed as wingman to SAAF 7th Sq leader Maj. Van Vliet. By the end of that day, 7 Sq. SAAF had only 4 serviceable Spitfires left.

I am trying to uniquely identify who shot "Bassie" down and what the circumstances were. After that I hope to find out as much as I can about the invidual. In the end, I believe my question reduces to whether anyone here has the following two books, as I badly need a page from each:

1. Jagdgeschwader 27: Die Dokumentation über den Einsatz an allen Fronten 1939-1945 by Hans Ring. I am looking for the page describing the events of 27 September 1943 over Kos and Kalimnos.

2. Jagdgeschwader 27 'Afrika' by John Weal. Page 99 ( the same day)

------------ My picture so far for those interested ----------------

Using just the Internet and my copy of "Eagles Victorious" about the SAAF, I have so far:

1. "Eagles Victorious" acknowledges 3 Spitfires shot down that day. Two were downed just as they were taking off from Kos. Both pilots died. The third one was Bassie over the ocean, after he and Van Vliet intercepted seven Bf 109s. The book lists no loss of a 4th Spitfire.

2. On the Internet (http://www.cieldegloire.com/jg_027c.php) I find four Spitfire kills claimed for JG27 on that day. The two Spits shot down at the airport happened at 15:17 and 15:20 and were credited to Gromotka and Scheit. Gromotka is credited with another Spitfire 1-2 km from Kos at 600 foot at 11:20 in the morning. The fourth was at 11:18 10-15 km Northwest of Kos by Hannes Löffler.---the question is, which of the last two kills was Bassie?

3. We know that an Arado 196 tried to pick up Bassie, but he kept dodging under the plane until the Germans flew off and left him. An Italian caique then picked him up and took him to Kalimnos, the big island northwest of Kos. It seems very unlikely that the boat would have taken Bassie to Kalimnos if he were shot down "1-2 km from Kos" as was supposedly the case for the 11:20 claimed kill on the part of JG27.

4. It seems (though I can only see snippets on Google Books) that Unteroffizier Jakob Herweg must have been the single JG27 man that was downed by Van Vliet, the SAAF Squadron Leader, to whom Bassie was flying as wingman that day. Herweg was picked up by an Italian boat which "already contained some "Engländer" " (Bassie?). When the Arado put down on the water nearby, Herweg jumped overboard and swam for it. He was killed in a bombing run by Mitchells a few days later.

From the above I conclude that Bassie, as Van Vliet's wingman, would have been shot down near Van Vliet's own kill, who was most likely Jakob Herweg. I also conclude that the "Engländer" was none other than Bassie. "Eagles Victorious" says that Herweg was picked up some 20km from Kos. This also checks roughly with the distance at which Bassie was downed, placing both somewhere between the island of Kalimnos and the Turkish mainlaind.

If this is correct, then my father-in-law, Bassie, was the Spitfire kill by Uffz. Hannes Löffler of 9/JG27 under Gromotka 10-15km Northwest of "Insel Kos" at 100 m.

I know "Harry" Löffler went on to become an ace and listed 11 kills, seven of them heavy bombers, and that he went MIA over Paris on 29 June 1944. Bassie evacuated via Turkey and was declared MIA [I have the actual notice to his father], but was actually ok. He then went on to fight in Italy in a ground support role to the Canadians in the 8th Army. There he went down to ack-ack in early 1945 in a bizarre case where he took rounds thorugh both wings and his ammo box blew up. This jammed his aileron, forcing him into flying in a circle through the ack-ack. He eventually baled near his base, barely missing the powerlines and ending up in an Italian hospital with a bust back, which plagued him (along with malaria) for the rest of his life. I have Bassie's tattered flight log for Italy. The Kos log was unfortunately destroyed in the evacuation.
-------------------

I should be able to confirm all these kill-circumstances if I could lay my hands on the two pages of the two books I refer to above. I would really appreciate it if someone could help. I have ordered the Weal book from Amazon.com, but it has been months in arriving and I have nothing yet. I am starting to despair. Meanwhile I have two super pictures of (i) Bassie posing in full kit and (ii) of him next to his "personal" Bf 109 ("My and my 109"). He was qualified on that plane which they took in the African campaign.

Harry

[Steve_Fossey]

Harry,

There are no details on page 99 of Jagdgeschwader 27 'Afrika' by John Weal. The only mention is "III./JG 27destroyed seven Spitfires without loss in the same area [off K\s] on its first two days back in action".

Steve

[HarryB]

Steve,

Thanks!
...one wonders then how Jakob Herweg got to be in the water!?
..as quoted by Orpen ( "Eagles Victorious") from Ring's book.

Harry

[robert]

Hi,

the loss of Uffz.Jakob Herweg is listed in J.Prien`s "III and IV/JG27" book on the 28.09.43. As reason of loss the engine`s problems were given but it could be not excluded that they were caused by enemy fire. He bailed out northwards of Kos over the see and was later rescued by Italian sailing ship.

Regards

Robert

[HarryB]

Robert,

That's interesting!

Here is the quote from Martin & Orpen:

"Maj. C.A. van Vliet and Lt. A.L. Basson, operating from Lampi, intercepted seven Bf109s south of Kos, and Basson was shot down into the sea, apparently by III/JG27 (ref Ring p.275). He was picked up by an Italian caique [a type of sailing boat...Harry] and taken to the nearby island of Kalimnos (Calino). Balancing this, Maj. Van Vliet destroyed a Bf109, probably that of Unteroffizier Jakob Herweg of III/JG27, who baled out and was also picked up about 20 km from Kos by an Italian boat which already carried some "Engländer". Herweg jumped overboard and swam to an Arado 196, when it alighted on the water near by (Ring p.275), but the intrepid Luftwaffe pilot lost his life a few days later when Mitchells raided Argos (Ring p.276)"

REF: Ring, H., Jagdgeschwader 27 (Motorbuch Verlag) Stuttgart, 1975.

Assuming Dr. Prien to be correct about Herweg on the 28th, I'm still left having to make the same conclusion, namely that Bassie was brought down by Löffler 10-15 km north of Kos on 27 September 1943. If he had been brought down SOUTH of Kos (where Martin & Orpen say the interception took place), then why would a sailing boat go out of its way to go to Kalimnos!? Take a look at the map on Google Maps. Again, if he was downed 1-2km from Kos, why would a Caique plod onwards to go to Kalimnos if Kos was a stone's throw away? Also, I'm not convinced an Arado 196 pilot would try to alight 1km from an enemy controlled coast to pick up an enemy pilot...makes no sense to me....and Bassie was adamant about the Arado trying to pick him up. Hence I say Bassie is the Löffler-10-15km-from-Kos case...and then it was NOT he who was in the boat with Herweg the next day.

The only other solution I see here is that Martin & Orpen have the date wrong. In that case all bets are off. The point is that they DO specify the losses on the 28th and do NOT confuse the loss of Bassie with those. For this reason I have taken the date of 27.9.43 as fixed.

SO, maybe Herweg was downed on the following day and NOT by Van Vliet. On the 28th Lt. E.M. Taylor of 7Sqn. SAAF baled out over the sea. Captain E.A. Rorvik was shot down and did not survive. Eight more 74Sqn. RAF Spitfires arrived at Lampi the afternoon, apparently in time for a 5.45pm Ju88 bombing run on the Lampi airfield escorted by Me109s.

Bassie never told me about an event in which he shared a boat with a German pilot....then again, he never told me the specifics of his baling out at Kos...and now it is 25 years too late.

He DID tell me about being intercepted by a Me262...but that's a story for another day.

Harry
Vancouver
CANADA

[NickM]

Guys:

This is TOTALLY Unrelated to the question of who shot down whom but what Allied base were these Spits flying from? I've vacationed on Kos YEARS ago & AFAIK the islands of the Dodecanese are QUITE far from any known allied base in North Africa or Sicily or even Southern Italy....

What's the scoop?

Thanks ahead of time

nickm

[HarryB]

Nick,

You'd be forgiven for scratching your head at this. So dit the SAAF at the time.

The events of Gallipoli in WWI might give you some clue to the fact that Churchill had an obsession with
1. the Bosphorus and Greece as being the way to get to his enemies in Europe.
2. daring but ill-considered pushes beyond the natural front line against a competent enemy.

So it was again with the Italian armistice.

Churchill then wanted the Greek Islands rapidly occupied. One of these was specifically Kos. My father-in-law's 7 Squadron SAAF was flown in to provide aerial protection. They flew out of Antimachia and then from Lampi right at the northern tip, where a base was hastily put together.

As you can imagine, the effort was a nightmare of liaison with the Italians, on whom they were reliant. The SAAF guys were driven to distraction by comms problems. Naturally the Germans were not going to stand for this deep penetration into their territory and threw some of their best, JG27, at the little collection of SAAF fighters. At that point Germany had air superiority in the area and they really mauled the guys and the airfield. It was quite a bad period for the SAAF after they had done very well in Africa.

Like Galipoli and Dieppe and Market Garden it was probably a daft idea from beginning to end with little regard for logistics. The South Africans were certainly not amused. In the end there was a full scale German invasion with the entire spiel of parachute brigades and stuff and they took the island back. Then they executed the Italian officers.

My father-in-law was one of only 100 guys who managed to finally escape from Kos. They nicked an Italian boat and made their way to the Turkish mainland, where they were relieved of pretty much all they had, but were eventually allowed to get back to their own lines via the island of Castelrosso. It was then that Bassie's father received an incredible telegram. 99% of it expresses regret for his son being lost at the island of Kos, followed by a P.S. right at the bottom saying that he has just been found safe and sound on Castelrosso island.

There is an article on BBC about this escape, but they refuse to allow me access to the gentleman who provided the info. He was obviously in the boat with my father-in-law. I could scream in frustration here. What he describes is exactly what my father-in-law told us....a bunch of airmen, minus planes, and with no clue how to handle a boat. I'd love to be able to talk to him.

Harry
Vancouver
CANADA

[Brian]

Harry

Have you checked your PMs - I sent an e-mail several days ago.

Cheers
Brian

[HarryB]

Brian,

I found your message inside my profile(!!?) and not under my messages.
I e-mailed you some two or so days ago, but have not received a reply.

Harry

[Brian]

Hi Harry

Nothing in my message box (or under my Profile!)

Please try again

Cheers
Brian