JG 301 extraordinary late war markings !

[O.Menu]

Up till now, photos from JG 301 airplanes have been rare and often puzzling:

* why did Ta 152 "black 13+-" from Stab./JG 301 have a strangely non outlined but still visible red horizontal group bar over yellow/red RVT ? (See the Ta 152 book from Dietmar Harmann p102)


* why did wreckage from Fw 190D-9 of Gefr. Kleinstuck, 2./JG 301 show a white horizontal group bar ? (See Kagero JG 301 book p 66)

* Why did Ta 152 from III./JG 301 at Alteno show a yellow horizontal group bar and is therefore wrongly said to be from 7./JG 301 instead of the awaited 11./JG 301 ? (See Peter Rodeike "Focke Wulf" books p419 & 433)

* why Erich Brown tell us that Me 109G-10 from IV./JG301 had a red horizontal bar, but again strangely not outlined but with visible contrast over the yellow/red RVT ? (see Me 109G-10 "yellow44+-" in "broken eagles 3" p18)


* why did the Fw 190A-8/A-9 "yellow 8+-" have a white horizontal second group bar and not the awaited black or yellow" ? (See Luftwaffe at war 6 "defeat in the west 1943-1945" p16)
And in the same way why did Fw 190D-9 "white 12+-" or A-8/A-9 "white 21+-" have a red second group bar and not a black or white as it could be expected ?


>>> The only solution i found to the above questions is that, probably around December44/January 1945, JG 301 began to use a very unique group marking system:

One horizontal group bar with specific group color was used in all units, with same color arrangement as for the staffeln:

* Stab.JG 301 > black digit + green horizontal bar
* I./JG 301 > white horizontal bar
* II./JG 301 > red horizontal bar
* III./JG 301 > yellow horizontal bar
* IV./JG 301 > blue horizontal bar

> Note: It's only in April 1945, when all Ta 152 joined the Stab, that Stab markings were changed to the well known green digits without any horizontal bar.
> Note: In the same way, it seems that at the very end of the war, I./JG301 went back to the no horizontal bar marking. Especially after III./JG301 and IV./JG301 had been disbanded, at the end of March 45 (even if they still flew war missions during April)

* Indeed, it is also possible that 5 & 6./JG301 used the red horizontal bar, and 7./JG 301 a white one, when I./JG 301 didn't use any horizontal bar at all.
So even if this latest possibility can't explain the questions asked at the beginning of this article, until we find more photos showing, for intance, a "white or red digit" + white bar OR a "yellow digit" + red bar, we may never be 100% certain.


Olivier MENU ( aka LLv34_Doc ) - France - February 14th, 2005. email: llv34doc@wanadoo.fr

Stab:


I./JG301:


II./JG301:


III./JG301:


IV./JG301:



**************************************************

> Note: All photos from I./JG301 without horizontal bar are strange:

- Fw 190A-8 "yellow 17+ " viewed at Pilsen is though to be from a school group: I./Erg.KG(J) (see "Luftwaffe over Czech territory" p42)
- Fw 190F-8 "<4+ " as well as Fw 190A-8 "black? 9+ " got inverted RVT! (See "Fw 190 walk around" from squadron signal)
- Fw 190A-8 "<4+ " with red+Yellow nose ring is probably more from I./SG2 or I./SG10 than from I./JG301.
- I have no information about Fw 190A-8/A-9 "white 5+ " and I dont know were to find the corresponding photo ? Could anyone give help ?

[Charles Bavarois]

Oliver,

I can only support you in your conclusions. When Willy Reschke published his JG 300/301 chronicle some years ago he included a foto of a Bf 109 G-10 from IV/JG 301 with a Rumpfband and a thin horizontal bar which did not fit to the known "regular" allocation of Gruppenbalken.

I had the pleasure to discuss this topic with Jerry Crandal, who had also noticed the strange useage of Gruppenbalken on Fw 190s and Ta 152s of JG 301. Based on that, we came to the same conclusions as you did. Due to the lack of published fotos we were not able to fix the exact time, when this strange group-markings were introduced, but we were quite sure, that it was common at the end of the war. Perhaps Jerry - has some new information which he will publish in his planed book on "Dora-Nine"

Greetings

Carl

[Ruy Horta]

As posted by Andy Mac in a separate topic:

http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/viewtopic.php?t=599

[Andy Mac]

Hey Ruy how dod you do that ! ? Brilliant

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by O.Menu

why did Ta 152 "black 13+-" from Stab./JG 301 have a strangely non outlined but still visible red horizontal group bar over yellow/red RVT ?

You have an interesting theory here, with some valuable support from that colour shot of the Fw 190 that Ruy has posted.

However, by this stage of the war tail bands had nothing to do with Reich Defence, they were ordered to make air-to-air recognition easier (Goering's order was intercepted and decoded by the Allies). If “bands = Home Defence” that doesn’t explain why Bf 109s of JG 5 in Norway carried them while Fw 190D-9s of III./JG 54 in Germany didn’t (even though they were attached to JG 26, which did have bands).

Also, Reichsverteidigung is made up of two words (Reichs/Verteidigung), not three and so the "T" in "RVT" is unecessary - it doesn't mean anything.

[O.Menu]

Thanks Nick, i havent really notice that fuselage band could no more be called 'RV' at the end.

Thanks for support Carl, and yes it seems Jerry will say more in his "Dora" book.