Who shot down G. Barkhorn?

[yogybär]

G.B. is a most honorable fighter pilot IMHO. He was doing his duty, meaning flying huge numbers of missions (first fighter pilot with >1.000), and even during this exhasuting kind of "working" he had a lot of success, meaning kills. Just as I understood this, I became curious who took him out of war for 4 months:

He was severly wounded on 31st of May 1944, when II./JG52 was based in Bessarabia. It is said to have been a DF with Airacobras & on the same day, JG52 had 2 more pilot losses. Can anyone identify the soviet unit?

[Christer Bergström]

OK, let me at least state that he was not shot down by Pokryshkin, as has been suggested in various sources.

[NBE1942]

Impossible to identify the exact pilot who claimed Barkhorn. Too many claims against too little losses.

[marsyao]

I guess Mr Christer may know the who shot down Barkhorn, and he would keep this secret until his later volumn of "black cross red star" published

[NBE1942]

I don't think so. It is impossible completely because of the high overclaiming ratio in 9 GIAD and 205 IAD for that day.

Originally Posted by marsyao

I guess Mr Christer may know the who shot down Barkhorn, and he would keep this secret until his later volumn of "black cross red star" published

[Christer Bergström]

That's correct.

[yogybär]

There must have been quite some aerial battles.

Barkhorn claims three on that day (Aira, Il-2, Jak-9). JG52 altogether claims 62(!) kills on that day, nearly all being Airacobras and Il-2. 16 of these claims again are issued by Wilhelm Batz from Stab II/JG52. That's really a lot. Additionally, SG2 claims 13 kills and NAGr.14 three. So, Luftwaffe in sum claims ca. 80 A/C shot down.

Was all this over the area of Targul-Frumos? All claims are in Lw/Wehrmacht map-location 78_5,6,7,8_xx, some "near AF "B."" which might mean Beltsy aka Balti, by then a soviet airbase again.

[Christer Bergström]

Definitely! It was the Battle of Iasi. One of the Luftwaffe's last victories in an air battle.

[Andrey Dikov]

>Beltsy aka Balti

Beltsy and Balty = are two different locations.

>Iasi

Yassy.

[Andrey Dikov]

>Was all this over the area of Targul-Frumos?

All in all 5th Soviet Air Army lost 156 a/c in May (33 Yak-1, Yak-7b and Yak-9D, 12 La-5, 65 P-39, 8 Pe-2, 28 Il-2 - 98 pilots, 4 navigators and 28 gunners were lost), including 121 combat losses.

On May 30 - 36 a/c were shot down for all reasons, on May 31 - 34 a/c.

So, it's just a matter of overclaiming - 1:3 ratio - quite standard for 1944.