Need help for LW-losses Normandy

[Jens]

Originally Posted by Christer Bergström

Even that figure is too low. I'm sorry if I can't give the actual figures here and now, since those will be the subject for the forthcoming volume of "Black Cross/Red Star".

I have researched a little bit the figures of the battle of Kursk. I was also especially interested in the 5th July and there in southern sector.

Germans claimed in Korpmeldungen 26 losses for 423 kills. In southern sector these contains 220 air kills and 40 aaa-kills. Losses according to Luftflotte 4: 12 Bf109, 1 Fw-190, 1 Hs-126 and 5 Bombers (19 losses).
To get a clearer picture i try to look close at the units.
As known by Jg-52 personal losses, at 5th July III/Jg-52 alone lost 6 pilots, including Krupinksi who was very wounded in an aircombat over the own airfield!
loss list by Barbas:
1 ) 8.St Fw Karl Schumacher , W , Notlandung
2 ) 8.St Uffz Martin Leschkowitz , + , Bauchlandung
3 ) 8.St Uffz Manfred Lotzmann ,MIA , unbek
4 ) 8.St Fw Wilhelm Hauswirth , MIA / KIA , Flak
5 ) 9.St Fw Walter Knehs , MIA , Luftkampf
6 ) 1.St OFw Basilio Maddalena , MIA , Lk
7 ) 2.St Uffz Hans Baumgart , MIA , Lk
8 ) 3.St Uffz Edgar Hess , MIA / KIA , Lk
9 ) 7. Staffel, Krupinksi, WIA, LK

The text in "Holt Hartmann vom Himmel" states that 7. Staffle lost alone 5 pilots at 5th July, but according to Barbas most of them cames from 8. Staffel. According to Flugzeugbestand und Bewegungsmeldungen III/JG-52 lost 20 planes, 13 "by enemy". Also Rall states in his biography only the losses known by list. Thats the personal losses of JG-52 at 5th July, together 9. Luftflotte stated 12 109 lost at 5th July, so JG-3 only lost 3 Bf-109, which is quit low for 2 1/3 groups.


Soviets figures for that day states:
airkills: 154 / 71 fighters / 83 bomber / 81 airbattles
losses: 36 fighters / 15 bomber / 27 assault (78) of 2nd air army
17th air army lost 200 planes whole july, of these 68 were lost in combat, greatest part should be at 5th july.

[Ota Jirovec]

Hello Jens,

I believe the following link leading to Pawel Burchard´s excellent site devoted to aerial operations during the Kursk battle will be useful to you:

http://www.lesbutler.ip3.co.uk/tony/pawel/index.html

You can find out that the losses of JG 3 on 5 July 1943 were definitely higher than just 3 Bf 109s.

Hope this helps a little,

Ota

[Jens]

Thanx

I don't know this site was working again.

edit: For me it's everytime a little bit strange, to state simple LW/Wehrmacht statistics, since it is known, that Wehrmacht falsified figures. At the end of 1943 Wehrmacht had 500.000 KIA's more, than appeared in statistics.

[Nick Beale]

Hawkeye says: "Yes, the French language proved its vast superiority over Anglo-Saxon in England after Guillaume le Conquérant took over following the Hastings victory!"

Do you mean the man known at the time as "Guillaume le Batard" by any chance? He wasn't French, he was a Norman (derived from "Norse Man", i.e. a displaced Viking).

As for linguistic superiority, French may have given us aviation terminology but Anglo-Saxon continues to supply all our best swear words!