The Stab JG26 Ritter emblem and the 1939 a/c of Gesch Kde Oberst Eduard Ritter on Schliech

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

Am working on the 1939 EoE Profile project for the Gesch Stab of JG26 during 1939. The Kde of JG26 at the beginning of the war until almost the end of 1939 was Oberst Eduard Ritter on Schliech, a WWI fighter "ace" with 35 victories to his credit. He was a winner of the Pour le Merité as a result.

I know of no photos of v. Schleich's a/c as JG26 Gr Kde during the last four months of 1939. By the beginning of the WC some five months after v. Schliech had turned command of the Gesch over to Maj. Hans-Hugo Witt, two photos of Witt's a/c show a mounted medieval knight insignia (Ritter) on the fuselage of his a/c and that of another member of the Gesch Stab. So the Ritter insignia was presumably the insignia of the JG26 Stab at least by circa April 1940. Intuitively it would make sense for this knight insignia to have been originated by and carried first on the a/c of Ritter von Schleich when he was Gesch Kde, although no photography exists to confirm this.

Does anyone know of any evidence to indicate that this knight insignia was ever carried on Schleich's Bf109E?

Who can help?

Regards,

Larry Hickey
EoE Project Coordinator

[Larry Hickey]

Hello,

Typo here that I can't fix.

Name should be Oberst Eduard Ritter von Schleich.

Larry Hickey
EoE Project Coordinator

[ChrisS]

Larry,

He was known as 'The Black Knight' in WW1 so I think the probability that the 'Knight' was his is very likely


Chris

[Larry Hickey]

Chris,

I fully agree, which is why I'm asking the question. The problem is that there is no photo evidence to back this up. That's what I'm seeking. Doing a profile of von Schleich's a/c in 1939 with the knight emblem is highly-speculative at this point, and it would be nice to have more than my intuition to go on before we profile it that way.

Regards,

Larry

[Doug Stankey]

Actually I have a copy of a biography of von Schleich:


Whiteside, Darren J. Rampant Lion (Warren/MI: A & S Publishing, 2007). ISBN: 978-0-9791946-0-3.

In it there is a photo of a Bf 109 D of his but it is not reveal an insignia. No Bf 109 E is shown in this book. The book illustrates ( in black and white!) what apparently was his personal insignia: a stylized rampant lion wearing a crown, all on a circular white (?) field filled with scores of small diamonds.

Incidently, his full name was: Eduard-Maria Joseph Ritter von Schleich.

[sidney]

Here one can find a photo of his personal emblem, dating to the Great War period. http://www.wingnutwings.com/ww/www/p...yngarden)2.jpg . The apparently white disc was filled with the Bavarian blue lozenge pattern.

[Larry Hickey]

Doug,

Thanx. We've already checked out the bio, and knew that it contained no photos of the JG26 Geschstab "Ritter" insignia. Somewhere I hope that we can turn up a photo of the Gesch Kde a/c for JG26 from the latter four months of 1939. Either that shows no insignia, or it solves the issue by showing it is there. If it carried no insignia, it might be in the "unknown" files of a number of collections, including ours.

Regards,

Larry Hickey
EoE Project Coordinator

[ouidjat]

Hi Guys,

Just one "apparté".
The lozenge pattern is described as follow:
"the diamonds of the Wittelsbach family, Dukes of Bayern".

The depicted WWI emblem on his plane was the arm of The Pflaz: Lion + blue diamonds ... And, of course his plane was a Pflaz, wasn't it? (I'm not sure .. )

Regards, Franck.

[sidney]

Hmmm.... I thought that the aircraft featured in my post No.5 was an Albatros D.V. in fact

[ouidjat]

Sidney,

Frankly I don't know ... I've no idea; my memory is playing with me without support.
I just thought it was a funny coincidence If I had had this name "Albatros" in mind I would haven't wrote this - without being able to make the difference.

Still, the emblem is Pfalz arms.

BR, Franck.