Crash place of Otto Kittel found

[Old Charly]

Hello,

I'm interested to know your conclusions two years and half after the excavations. Have you found new evidence that it was Kittel's Focke Wulf ?

Thank you.

O.C.

[Evgeny Velichko]

Gentlemen, looking into Soviet documents, I must say that Otto Kittel was shot down in combat with 4 (not 14 !) Il-2 of 502 shap, 214shad of 15VA, flown by lt. V.P.Komendat.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A...B2%D0%B8%D1%87
For this aircombat, he was awarded with Order of Alexander Nevsky.

[Evgeny Velichko]

Gentlemen:

Renner's report give us two locations:

- 6 km SE Djukste
- 25 ost 37187, wich is SW Djukste.

Is it known, what location is correct?

[Evgeny Velichko]

Otto Kittel article.

http://warspot.ru/10237-tma-opustila...andskim-kotlom

It was seriously cutted, because was too large for WarSpot format.
But still is a huge.

For all who are interested, I have a full variant.
During research, I found, that of all Kittel's victories, that I looked in, 95% of them are confirmed by soviet loss records.

[Dan History]

Originally Posted by Evgeny Velichko

Otto Kittel article.

An amazing piece of work, Evgeny, deserving of a separate thread at the least! May I ask how you went about locating the sources that you used to write this article? I will write another reply once I have read your piece thoroughly.

I have sent you a private message.

Regards,

Dan

[PMoz99]

Excellent article Evgeny! Thank you for sharing. I would like very much to see the full version.....
Thanks
Peter

[knusel]

Good afternoon Gentlemen,

was the Il-2 shot down on Kittel's last combat confirmed as his last (267th) kill or was his 267th one of his earlier claims ?

Michael

[Nick Hector]

Originally Posted by knusel

Good afternoon Gentlemen,

was the Il-2 shot down on Kittel's last combat confirmed as his last (267th) kill or was his 267th one of his earlier claims ?

Michael

Sensible question, sensible answer:

As discussed elsewhere on the forum:
(http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showth...=24636&page=5; http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=34771)

His last victory was from 806 ShAP, 206 ShAD. It is known to have made an emergency landing. (Kittel was against 190 ShAP and (more likely) 502 ShAP, 214ShAD of 15VA when he was KIA two days later though)

[knusel]

These links do not answer my question.

Was the Il-2 that was brought down on Kittel's last flight part of his official tally of 267 kills or is it a 268th claim that was not confirmed due to the demise of Kittel ?

Michael

[Evgeny Velichko]

Nick:
-There is no evidence about Kittle's combats / claims on 14 february. Also, on 14 february 1945 weather was such bad that neither VVS nor Luftwaffe flew combat missions.

-On 16 february 45, Kittel fought against 502 ShAP and was killed. Il-2, that was shot down (by Renner's report), was only damaged, and with wounded gunner, could fly back to airfield and land.