Black Cross Red Star news

[Christer Bergström]

The manuscript of the new edition of ”Black Cross Red Star, Vol. 2, Air War over the Eastern Front” is soon finished.


This new Black Cross/Red Star, Volume 2 exceeds the 2001 edition regarding the quality of the material to the point that the new edition actually is a completely new book. The first edition contained a maximum of 100,000 words. This second edition has much higher quality as far as the research is concerned and contains twice that word count, a very large number of absolutely new photos (many of which are from pilot veterans’ photo albums and have never been published before). See:

https://vaktelforlag.se/produkt/blac...1941-may-1942/


To make a pre-order, please email me at: vaktelforlag@gmail.com


Below follows a sample of the raw and unedited manuscript of ”Black Cross Red Star, Vol. 2, Air War over the Eastern Front.”

[Christer Bergström]

Excerpt from the raw and unedited manuscript of Black Cross Red Star Vol 2 (2023 edition)
by Christer Bergström

Read more about the book here:
https://vaktelforlag.se/produkt/blac...1941-may-1942/

[. . .]

Major Trautloft’s JG 54 Grünherz definitely was the most effective Jagdgeschwader on the Eastern Front by this time. It seems as though its impact on the air fighting was so strong that the Soviets put their most experienced pilots in any operational aircraft to counter the menace from the Grünherz aces. In any case, an exceptionally large number of the best VVS fighter pilots were lost in combat with JG 54 during this period.

On February 2, Starshiy Leytenant Ivan Chulkov, an ace in the 41 IAP with nine personal and two shared victories, was reported missing during a sortie over the Volkhov battlegrounds, possibly the victim of I./JG 54’s Feldwebel Herbert Broennle. Next day, Broennle bounced two LaGG-3s and knocked down one for his twenty-second victory, and his wingman, Unteroffizier Gerhard Proske, sent the second one burning to the ground. The Soviet pilots survived by belly-landing in the wilderness, and returned to their unit, 434 IAP, three days later. Both were in fact upcoming aces: Leytenant Vladimir Orekhov had four kills on his tally, a number that would rise to twenty-two by the end of the war, and Leytenant Mikhail Garam also had four, and would claim another ten before he was killed in action in June 1944.

All attempts by the Soviet air forces to neutralize JG 54 on the ground also backfired. Alerted by a Freya early-warning radar installation that recently had been brought in, I./JG 54 knocked down three of six Pe-2s that attempted to raid Siverskaya Airdrome in daylight on February 3. Two days later, the Grünherz fighters claimed another two Pe-2s, plus three of the escort fighters. Later that day, they warded off an unusually strong Soviet fighter interception against He 111s of KG 1. Five Soviet fighters were claimed shot down in this melee, and the German bombers escaped unscathed. Among the downed Soviet airmen was 3 GIAP/VVS KBF ace Starshiy Leytenant Georgiy Kostylev, credited with 17 victories, who bailed out of his burning LaGG-3 with a bullet wound in his arm. He nevertheless was fortunate to land just behind the Soviet trenches.

Next day [February 6, 1942], Major Trautloft wrote in his diary: “Excellent weather. Escort missions for Stukas are being carried out with strong forces, but only little enemy contact after yesterday's fierce air battles.” Before noon, Hauptmann Dietrich Hrabak, the C.O. of II./JG 54, and Unteroffizier Gerhard Proske of I./JG 54 flew a free hunting mission between Schlüsselburg and Novaya Ladoga when they spotted a mixed formation of three LaGG-3s, two MiG-3s, a Yak-1, and two I-16s. The latter came from 4 GIAP/VVS KBF, and the others from 3 GISP/VVS KBF. The tactic used by the German fighter pilots is perfectly described in Starshiy Leytenants Dmitriy Buryak’s report of the following combat:

"I was the leader of the MiG-3 group. We approached the Zhikharevo station in separate formations. At 2,800 meters altitude we turned left and headed in the direction of the Voybokalo station, the LaGG-3 Zveno was on the right, and the I-16 Zveno on the left, below us. To the left in my Zveno formation was Starshiy Leytenant Ageyev, almost 50 meters in front of me, and 50 meters to the right was Leytenant Aleksey Rudenko.

After turning in the direction of Vystav [10 km NW of Voybokalo], we spotted at about 4,000 meters altitude two Me 109Fs which were fired upon by our anti-aircraft guns. We went into a climbing turn towards the left. Ageyev and Rudenko turned very sharp and came ahead of me. The enemy planes flew 800-1000 m above us to the south, towards the sun. We made a full turn while still climbing, and then we formed a ‘chain’—we climbed in spirals: The MiGs in front, the LaGGs behind us, and the I-16s below. Since I flew straight towards the sun, I lost sight of the enemy. At the same time, I saw anti-aircraft bursts above and below us at 1,500 meters. I looked to the right and tried to find the enemy planes, but they were not there, although I could see new bursts appear in the vicinity of our aircraft. I looked to my left and saw Ageyev's MiG in flames and an Me 109 climbing away from it. Ageyev bailed out of the burning aircraft at 2,800 to 3000 meters altitude. I turned and dived towards his parachute, which soon unfolded. I made three full turns with descent around the parachutist, when two LaGGs overtook me and got in front of my aircraft. We formed a closed circle around the parachutist. Noticing that the Me 109s again climbed in the direction of the sun, the LaGGs followed them. I signaled to the aircraft that were in position behind me to pull up. At that time, I noticed the anti-aircraft guns blasting again from behind at our altitude and below us. As I turned to the left, I heard a bang under my aircraft—it shuddered and went into a spin. Coming out of the spin, I noticed that sparks were shooting out from under the cockpit floor and that long flames were reaching the fuselage behind the armor from below. I made a sharp turn to slow down the speed, and then I bailed out at 1,200-1,500m. I landed in the woods 100 meters from the highway near the village of Dusyevo.”

Hrabak returned from this combat to file his twenty-sixth victory, and Proske chalked up his eighth. Both Soviet pilots survived, but Buryak, an ace with five kills, was wounded by a bullet in his chest and would not return to first-line service until in the fall of 1942.

Farther south on February 6, however, the skies were empty of Soviet aircraft. This is explained by the War Diary of the Fifty-second Army’s VVS: “On February 6, the air units of the Fifty-second Army spent the day repairing malfunctioning materiel.” However, during a transfer flight to their airfield that afternoon, a group of R-Zs from 658 NBAP had the bad luck of coming across a free hunting group of Bf 109s. The Soviet pilots took the last of maneuverability out of their biplanes to evade repeated attacks by the Messerschmitts, but one by one, four were shot down—two by “Fips” Philipp for his seventy-fourth and seventy-fifth kills, and one each by I./JG 54’s Oberleutnant Heinz Lange and Feldwebel Heinrich Bruhn. Four of the Soviet crewmembers were killed, including 1st Eskadrilya’s commander Kapitan Nikodim Stashkov, and, as 658 NBAP’s War Diary points out, “the regiment's favorite pilot, Mladshiy Leytenant Aleksandr Kolesnikov.”

Next day, the commander of 658 NBAP’s 2nd Eskadrilya, Kapitan Vasiliy Varfolomeyev, was killed, and the regimental C.O., Kapitan Yevgeniy Golubyev, was seriously injured in a takeoff accident at Polishchi Airdrome. While at hospital Golubyev was informed that he and the regimental commissar, Starshiy Politruk P.T. Bessonov, had been relieved from their command due to “poor organization of combat operations and accidents in the regiment.”

These light bomber regiments however played a central role in the Soviet air operations against Army Group North. Between January 19 and December 14, 1942, 658 NBAP carried out 1,606 nocturnal bomber sorties, during which, among many other targets, 45 supply stores were hit, and only nine own aircraft were lost.

Particularly intense Soviet night bomber raids were made against the railway station at Lyuban. On February 7, German Eighteenth Army reported: “Lyuban’s railroad station was again hit by heavy bombing last night. Several wagons of a hospital train were destroyed, and six convalescents on their way to the front were seriously wounded. Transit and reloading tracks have been destroyed. One AAA gun has failed. If the supply of I Army Corps is to be sustained, it is essential to strengthen the protection of the Lyuban railway station by deploying further anti-aircraft forces.”

Meanwhile, at this time, the fighters of JG 54—or rather, Stab, I. and II./JG 54—carried out the main activities of Fliegerkorps I in the Leningrad sector. Out of 3,715 bomber and Stuka sorties carried out by Fliegerkorps I in February 1942, only 194 were made in the Leningrad - Schlüsselburg sector.

On February 7 the next Soviet ace was killed when 740 IAP’s Politruk Aleksey Godovikov rammed a German Ju 88 reconnaissance aircraft in the Tikhvin area—his fifth victory. That same day, one of the most experienced pilots in 4 GIAP/VVS KBF, Kapitan Mikhail Alekseyev, was killed when his I-16 was shot down by Hauptmann Eckerle. 28-year-old Alekseyev had flown with VVS KBF since 1937 and had been credited with four shared victories. The Soviet report read: “Six I-16s from 4 GIAP (61 IABr, KBF) carried out reconnaissance of enemy troops for Fifty-fourth Army in the Tosno - Shapki area. Due to carelessness and poor attention in the whole group during the combat mission in the Shapki area, the I-16 of M.F. Alekseyev was shot down. The pilot was killed. When the group returned from the combat mission, the engine in Tikhon Zaboykin’s aircraft failed over the airfield. Having lost speed, the I-16 fell to the ground and was totally destroyed. The pilot was killed.”

Franz Eckerle flew two more missions that day, and on each, he bagged another I-16, rising his total score to fifty-eight victories. Soviet replacement pilots were inadequately trained and proved to be unable to fulfill their tasks as wingmen. In 4 GIAP/VVS KBF, Serzhant Viktor Golubev (not to be confused with Leytenant Vasiliy Golubev) was shot down and had to bail out of his burning I-16, and Leytenant Dmitriy Sotsenko and Serzhants Vladimir Bakirov and Semyon Gorgul were wounded.

Vasiliy Golubev, at that time a Leytenant in the same unit, recalled that the Soviet fighter pilots were in bad need of a morale boost at this time. For VVS Northwestern Front, this was provided by the Shturmovik pilots of 502 ShAP, who rose to a legendary status. On February 10, the famous Shturmovik team of Kapitan Sergey Smirnov and Voytekhnik 1 ranga Aleksandr Kondrashov were part of a large operation that attempted to take advantage of the bad weather on the German side to strike Dno Airdrome. A record of twenty-one Il-2s from 502 ShAP were dispatched on six raids. However, on the last occasion, the weather had cleared, allowing some Bf 109s to interfere. One of the Il-2s was shot down by the Flak, and 9./JG 54’s Feldwebel Eugen-Ludwig Zweigart, who had taken off from Soltsy, blew one of the escorting LaGG-3s out of the sky.

The German anti-aircraft gunners claimed three Il-2s shot down, but in fact, only one was lost. With this, however, the famous Aleksandr Kondrashov ended up in captivity. German war correspondent Rudolf Dietrich was a witness to these raids. Afterward he wrote a report about it: "A favorite target for the Bolsheviks in the past days was our Stuka base. Quite optimistically, they had planned to destroy the hated dive-bombers. Six times during the day the Soviets came sweeping over our place in low-level flight, six times the concentric defensive fire of the AAA forced them to turn away and drop their bombs without aiming."

Dietrich’s description of his encounter with Kondrashov is particularly interesting: “With one of the Soviet pilots, an elderly officer, fate was merciful. He was able to make an emergency landing of his plane near the runway and did not fall like a stone from the sky and smash to the ground like the other two aircraft. [...] He spoke of difficult missions that he had flown over the past month on almost all front lines.

'The Stukas have been hammering among our troops terribly for the last few weeks,' he remarked resignedly. 'We knew that the aircraft were taking off from here. The commissar gave us strict orders to keep attacking the place. We pointed out the long approach flight, the murderous fighter defense, and the strong anti-aircraft artillery. But all our objections were futile. We had to fly, the commissar forced us.'

When the prisoner is told that recently, the Il-2 base was attacked and twelve parked planes were destroyed on the ground, his pale complexion changed to ashen. Nervously, he reached for a cigarette and after a few puffs he said, ‘That's bad...’”

The claim that twelve of the aircraft at 502 ShAP’s base should have been destroyed in a recent German air raid probably amused Kondrashov. He knew very well that such an attack had been carried out on February 4, but only one Il-2 had been wrecked. The participating German airmen did not even take credit for any number of destroyed aircraft, but only reported “Attack on parked aircraft and boxes on the eastern edge of Krettsy airfield, very good hits on parking areas.” It is obvious that Kondrashov told his German captors what he thought they would like to hear. The idea that the regimental commissar, Mayor Vasiliy Shiranov would "force" the Shturmovik pilots to fly was particularly appealing to the Germans. In reality, Shiranov had served with the unit only since January 1, 1942, and as we have seen, together with Smirnov, Kondrashov was one of the highest motivated pilots of the unit.

Ten days after Kondrashov was shot down, the paper Stalinskiy Sokol had an article about 502 ShAP, where it was noted that the team of Smirnov and Kondrashov together had destroyed 33 enemy aircraft “on the ground and in the air.”

On April 16, both Smirnov and Kondrashov were awarded the Order of the Red Banner—posthumously in Kondrashov’s case, since it was assumed that he had been killed. Later, Soviet troops who liberated the area indeed found Kondrashov dead. Whether he was shot while attempting to escape or simply executed is not known. He was buried in Krettsy.

Two days after Kondrashov had been shot down, on February 12, his friend Smirnov organized a retribution raid against Dno Airdrome. Again, exaggerated success reports were made—fifteen German aircraft were supposed to have been destroyed on the ground. In reality, three Ju 88s—from 3.(F)/22 and III./KG 1—were put out of commission, while three Il-2s were lost.

[edwest2]

From the Stone & Stone site:

Author Christer Bergstrom is planning a new, expanded, self-published edition of his Black Cross, Red Star: The Air War over the Eastern Front, volume 2, originally published in 2001.

More info at https://vaktelforlag.se/produkt/blac...1941-may-1942/.

Usual disclaimer,
Ed

[Edward]

Author & publisher Christer Bergström announced today "The manuscript of the new edition of ”Black Cross Red Star, Vol. 2, Air War over the Eastern Front” is completed and is now being laid out by the graphic designer, and then I will send it to the printer. So it will be published soon."

The initial print run will be limited to c. 200 hardback copies.

Anyone who is interested in reserving a book is urged to pre-order

There are two options
1. Support the publication of the book by crowdfunding at $120 US dollars
"All crowdfunders will receive a signed and individually numbered copy."

2. Pre-order a copy at $85 USD (plus shipping?)

"Please email me at": vaktelforlag@gmail.com

Black Cross Red Star – Air War over the Eastern Front Volume 2: Two Turning Points, December 1941 - May 1942
(Vaktel Förlag - late 2023)
By Christer Bergström with color profiles by Jim Laurier
384 pages (A4 size) w/ hundreds of rare b&w photos, color profiles plus maps

Contents
* The contribution of the Soviet Air Force to the counteroffensive at Moscow
* The Luftwaffe’s crucial role in halting the Red Army’s counteroffensive
* Dogfight over the “Ice Road” to Leningrad
* The Air Bridge to Demyansk
* Annihilation from the air at Crimea
* Air Battle over Kharkov

https://vaktelforlag.se/produkt/blac...1941-may-1942/