Bf109 massacre on 30 July 1943

[Juha]

The Gruppenkommandeur of III./JG 77 at that time was Kurt Ubben, had been almost 2 years, but I have no info did he fly that day or not.

Juha

[Oberst]

Hello Juha,
Where did you get your information from? Thanks.

[Andrew Arthy]

Hi,

Below are some pilots with III./J.G. 77 in June/July 1943. Victory tallies are approximate, and I'm not sure how many of them were involved in this particular combat.

Stab III./J.G. 77
Fw. Hans-Werner Renzow - 4 victories (involved in 30 July 1943 combat)
Major Kurt Ubben - 109 victories

7./J.G. 77
Oblt. Eberhard Niese - 14 victories
Ofw. Johann Pichler - 35 victories

8./J.G. 77
Hptm. Emil Omert - 62 victories
Ofw. Heinrich Hackler - 50 victories
Ofw. Eduard Isken - 34 victories

9./J.G. 77
Lt. Heribert Bertram - 0 victories (involved in 30 July 1943 combat)
Oblt. Wolfgang Ernst - 28 victories (involved in 30 July 1943 combat)

There are indications in interrogation reports that Gruppe morale was quite low in the summer of 1943, but as the above reveals, there were still some experienced and successful pilots in the unit.

Cheers,
Andrew A.

Air War Publications - www.airwarpublications.com

[yogybär]

Thanks, Andrew!

The numerical advantage of the 325th FG must also be taken into account:

36 P-40 vs. max. 22 Bf109 from III./JG77 is a factor of 1,6. I think that in such situations, it was extremely difficult to keep up "coordination and good tactics" in a prolonged dogfight even if the Germans had surprise on their side in the beginning.

[keith A]

Hi,

I take the point that the P40s outnumbered the Bf109s marginally but the 325th was an inexperienced Fighter group with just 3 months front-line combat behind them. The 33rd, 57th and 324th all had more experience and much lower victory tallies in largely the same timescale. I agree the LW fighter units casualty figures and the lack of an Italian option indicateS massive overclaiming. The absence of evidence to the contrary doesn't mean the evidence to substantiate these claims has been misplaced. Without a credible reason to dismiss them the facts speak for themselves.The 325th never show any shared victories at this time. If the pilots all thought they were claiming individually then surely that's the best explanation? There's more than enough evidence of this in other units, both RAF and USAAF. Without a rigorous examination by their I/O then perhaps the claims were in good faith. Did the 325th fighters have camera guns? If they did indeed shoot down 4 Bf109G then that's a pretty decent result on their side.

It would be interesting to know that the other USAAF units thoughts of their performance in these engagement.

regards

Keith

[Oberst]

Now I see the picture:

30.July.1943 32 P-40s of 317th & 319th FS was on routine sweep over southern Sardinia. They were jumped by as they say 30 Me 109's & another force of C.202's. The P-40 claimed 21 Me 109's, but III./JG 77 records show five losses for that day. Overclaiming for sure. But with that many aircraft twisting and turning, its to be expected

[keith A]

Yep. To shoot down 4-5 Bf109s is a decent result. They got more accurate as the war progressed, especially against multi-engined opponents... although shared claims again are absent, and like many of the more famous fighter groups they seem to get involved in a race for "kills" which still is misleading. If the losses were true one wonders how Air Intelligence was able to reconcile German war production with LW fighters being shot out of the sky in amounts that would produce serious problems for LW morale!

I wonder if later claims of post-war encounters with LW pilots who admit catastrophic losses are an indication that there were questions as to the validity of claims at the time?

regards

Keith

[Juha]

Originally Posted by Oberst

Hello Juha,
Where did you get your information from? Thanks.

From several sources on JG 77 and on Kurt Ubben. To mention two Holm's site http://www.ww2.dk/ and Kacha's site http://www.luftwaffe.cz/ .

Juha

[Juha]

Hello Andrew!
thanks for the info on the aces of III./JG 77.
I should have remembered Omert and Pichler.

Juha

[Oberst]

Thanks for that Juha!

Reading some of the reports of the P-40 pilots on that day, they seem to indicate that the 109's went into a luftberry and the Mc.202's did the same in the opposite direction.

I thought that the -40's were doing a low level sweep, if thats the case, the 109's would 'zoom & boom', not go into the circle.