Fritz Sengschmitt

[knusel]

Johannes Mathews performed a herculean job when he compiled and presented the kill tables of all Luftwaffe aces. He rectified common mistakes and indicated the few cases where the lists are incomplete and open to addition of new data. It's astonishing that kills lists of the Jagdflieger aces have survived in a complete form in most cases while the lists of many Zerstörer aces have gaps. Let's presume the top Zerstörer scorer were Tratt, Albrecht, Weißenberger, Jabs, Schob, Heller, Kutscha, and Dassow. Complete lists are available for Tratt and Weißenberger but not for Albrecht, Jabs, Schob, Heller, Kutscha and (to my woe) Dassow. Is it because the Zerstörer aces or their seniors cared less for documentation ?

[Nick Beale]

The claims lists are there on the Bundesarchiv web pages, available to download and free of charge.

[knusel]

Indeed, I found Dassow by the given name of Rudi:
https://invenio.bundesarchiv.de/invenio/main.xhtml
But unlike the files of higher ranking officers like Udet, Dassow's file doesn't seem to have been digitalized yet. I'm looking for to further things to come.

[Johannes]

Hi Michael

The ZG units are not very well represented on the earlier typed-out mikrofilm claims per unit, thus we have only the daily claims(usually start late July 1942) I can confirm that no earlier typed-out claims have come to light for both ZG1 and ZG2, and only one Gruppe each for ZG26(III) and ZG76(II), therefore nothing would be on the microfilms prior to July 1942 for your man.

I have therefore omitted him because I could not find five confirmed claims for him. Quite often ZG pilots scores included some on the ground. Remember the jabo pilot Liesendahl(JG 26 by memory), we were quoted "50" then "5", but the truth was "0", got his decorations for destroying shipping and ground targets.

Unless other mikrofilms come to light, or a abschusstafel or flugbuch(or his bordfunker) appear the only source to help you will be the early KBT papers.

Kind Regards

Johannes

[Chris Goss]

Liesendahl (JG 2) was not a good fighter pilot being shot down twice with no claims but was much better as a jabo pilot. Likewise Sengschmitt. Bombers to June 1943, then limited if any intruder missions with with V./KG 2 to Aug 43 after conversion to the Me 410. Then becomes a Bf 110 day fighter pilot, joining newly formed I./ZG 26 in October 1943. Not sure when this went operational but he lasted under 3 months being killed 11 Jan 44. Little if no chance to shoot down anything

[edwest2]

Don't forget these:

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Axel-Urba...s%2C217&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.de/Die-Ritterkreu.../dp/3941437097

[Johannes]

Hi Michael

I checked Ernst Obermaier's Ritterkreuz book, he is very vague, but I had written underneath his biography fifteen "kills" but which front, I would say I had read somewhere his total is fifteen, but I wouldn't put too much faith in that. Obermaier also states Staffelkapitän of 2./ZG 1 from 7th April 1943, I have all this units claims after 19th July 1942, none for Sengeschmitt, moreover at this time there was a Hauptmann flying and claiming for 2./ZG 1 called Oskar Gehring, surely he was the Staffelkapitän, I think he was never with ZG1, Chris eludes to this, and I agree that Sengeschmitt had no time to make claims, well very little time, fact is I found not a single claim on the mikrofilms for him.

Kind Regards

Johannes

P.S

If anybody would like my "all claimers" list(pilots only 7767 of them) drop me your e.mail address.

[knusel]

Good morning Johannes,

nice you join in. Do you expect that the files in the Bundesarchiv might tell us something new about Zerstörer claims once they release them in digitalized form ?

Best greetings from Switzerland,

Michael

[Nick Beale]

Claims lists are already digitised and available to download.

[John Manrho]

@Knusel, if you mean the Personalakten than that will surely take some time. I believe the many different formats of documents in it (A4, A5 and others) make it more difficult to scan.

If a Personalakte exists of an officer (I have an approx. 60% hitrate) than the number of pages can vary between 10 or 400. I have never seen claimlists but if it is a good one you will see Beurteilungen which lists their total score by a certain date. In a few cases I found a Feindflugliste.

John