The II./JG 300 on 27 July, 1944

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Gentlemen,

Anyone have some very exact details about this Gruppe's combat on that particular day? I am interested in especially Fw. Konrad "Pitt" Bauer's claims (how it is possible, that three Liberators were confirmed to him during only one minute)?

TIA,

[Erich]

Csaba:

about a dozen FW 190A's attacked with Klaus Bretschneider leading. From what I understand all ammo was used on this mission from 2cm and3cm weapons. for Konrad Bauer if he was flyng red 3 he may have had the advantage of pumping out mor rounds thatn the other pilots and could have easily enough destroyed 3 B-24's in a minutes time or the timing is minimally off . . .

have a portion of cine film showing such an attack on 2 B-17 from slightly above. the closest B-17 is hammered with rounds, the tail gunner and upper turret positions are torn to shreads plus the top of the fuselage and as the German pilot scores rounds into the inner engine on the right wing, he overshoots on purpose and hits a B-17 slightly lower but forward of the closest Fortress, hitting the right wing and both engines ripping them up. As the film ends I will assume both B-17's were confirmed in a matter of some 30 seconds or so. Had Konrad been on the edge of a B-24 pulk, he could of destroyed the "end" Liberators in staggered flying formation before going completely through the formation.

have thrown some ideas out for your consideration and hopeful Jean-Yves or Richard can add their comments to this .........

Erich ~

[shooshoobaby]

Csaba - according to 8th AF Combat Chronology , 2 B - 24s lost this date.
# 295207 44th BG crash landed England - salvaged
# 294930 34th BG crash landed Hadlow, England - salvaged
Cheers

[Erich]

Michael :

II.Sturm/JG 300 attacked the 15th AF in this case near Budapest. Allied escorts were nowhere to be seen . . .

E ~

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Erich,

There was a fight with the Mustang escort - as usual... BTW close to all of the lost B-24's in this area (IIRC 8 crashed) were victims of Messers (mostly by Hungarians and few by I./JG 300 - the US remembrances confirmed the attacking types), not the Fw 190's. And the Liberators crashed not the area, where Bauer claimed his three kills during a minute. So, I am not a bit sceptic, what did they attack and shot down on that day...

[Erich]

the Stangs encountered 109G's that is a fact but not the SturmFw's as I indicated. Looking at Tony's claims listings the 9 claims by the SturmFw pilots are very close in proximity for the most part. further studies by yourself may indicate otherwise. Remember this does not necessairly mean the single engine pilot watched the B-24 go down at the crash location but that the engagement with the bomber happened in the general quoted area. So Bauers claims could fall miles from each other upon crash point.

450th bg lost 1
451st bg lost 2
455th bg lost 5

455th bg mentions 28 B-24's on the raid and they were the last bomb group flying in their wing formation (sitting ducks). the history in brief mentions attacks by some 90 enemy fighters and it ranged onward for 30 minutes, losing 5 B-24's and 7 B-24's landed with severe damage and another 2 with slight damage. No escorts were present and the bomber gunners claimed 17 German fighters with another 14 as probables...........this was for the 455th bg only

[Jean-Yves Lorant]

Hi Csaba

As described in our book "Jagdgeschwader 300 - a chronicle of a fighter Geschwader in the battle for Germany"(ISBN 0-9761034-0-0 Eagle Editions, 2005), II./JG 300 clashed with B-24s between Pàpa and Budapest on 27 July 1944. Konrad Bauer kills (claimed in the vicinity of Mör between 10.00 and 10.01) were all confirmed on 27.12.1944. This would signify that corresponding B-24 remains were found by the germans. As far as we know, the claim filed by Gefreiter Karl-Heinz Schöffmann of 3. Staffel (B-24, north of Platensee, 10.00 - 6500 m) remains as VNE-ASM, so not officially confirmed. On that day, the Sturmgruppe pilots obviously "overclaimed" during the attack of the B-24 boxes, as we explain in our footnote on page 257.

All the best

Jean-Yves Lorant

[Csaba B. Stenge]

Gentlemen,

well, yes, the overclaiming was common during the WW II, but to me it is still odd, how was it possible so easily confirming three Viermot claims during one minute (was it not doubtful for the RLM?)

The Hungarian pilots overclaimed many times as well, of course, but the evident heavy overclaims were never accepted in Hungary and were not confirmed later.

[Andreas Brekken]

Hi, Csaba.

I guess Bauer fired on and claimed all these aircraft in a single pass through the formation, and we will never know.

Seeing from original film footage from Sturm aircraft what some of these guns could do to even a four engine bomber, I am assured it would be possible to make such a claim. On one of the films I have available, a continous scene show the destruction of two B-17's in about 23 seconds (the first one hit between the fuselage and inner port engine, the entire wing seems to burst into flames and the inner port engine is seen falling off the aircraft entirely, the pilot go over this aircraft and fires on the aircraft to its left, you can see that this aircraft also burst into flames after being hit several times in the port wing).

I would thinkt that a minute in that environment would feel quite long.....

However, and this is of course entirely possible, if the pilot in question knew he attacked at a given time and that his engagement was over a very short time after, he might note the same time for these claims even if they were 1 minute 50 seconds apart, or 3 minutes.

I would use the claim times as a pointer as to when the aircraft were engaging the enemy, and try to establish which aircraft were attacked from unit combat reports.

I have the same problem when researching Flugbücher... some pilots seem to have been a bit sloppy, and all researcher should be aware that some Flugbücher were in fact rewritten after the war, because the originals were lost during the war or soon after.

Regards,
Andreas