Introduction

Aviation enthusiasts have always been interested in the Luftwa e, in particular in the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and in the ghter aces that ew it. e focus always tends to be on the careers of the leading ghter pilots, the Jagd ieger Asse or Experten.

e Experten amassed incredible individual tallies of aerial victories. Some 90 Experten achieved more than 100 kills – the top 100 ghter aces in the history of aviation are all German.

Unfortunately, much of what is still being published is often not far away from wartime or even Cold War propaganda, with its emphasis on the leading aces and their ‘score’. However, some have started to see beyond the idealising approach of those writers who did so much to ‘popularise’ the exploits of the German ghter aces.

From a distance of 80 years, the number of claims led should no longer be su cient reason to focus on this small group of pilots; it seems more appropriate to acknowledge the fact that all pilots, the old ‘hares’ like the young ‘newcomers’ (‘Nachwuchs’), had but one life to lose and that the unnamed or little-known Luftwa e pilots who perished in the war – more often than not in futile combat against the huge Allied bomber formations – deserve the same space in the history of the German ghter arm as do the so-called aces.

While some Luftwa e aces may have had tremendous individual successes – their achievements against weak and largely illprepared opponents trumpeted during the early years of victory –the Luftwa e as a whole proved largely unable to ful l its role as either a tactical or a strategic force for the greater part of the war.

Contrary to the myth, the Luftwa e was not a ‘mighty force’ created from scratch virtually overnight. For the most part German ghter pilots were hopelessly outnumbered. Indeed the Jagdwa e – the ghter arm –never numbered more than 1500 serviceable single seat ghters. By mid-1944 its major opponents could easily eld ve times that number. As with much of the German war e ort, the surprising thing is not that the Luftwa e ghter arm failed but that it performed as well as it did for as long as it did. is publication thus takes a slightly di erent angle on the Luftwa e ‘ace’ pilots and their aircraft. Including many newly translated personal accounts, it details the individual experiences of some less well known Luftwa e pilots, Gruppen and Geschwader.

Neil Page

Author: Neil Page

Publisher: Steve O’Hara

Published by: Tempest Books, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR. Tel. 01507 529529

Typeset by: Burda Druck India Pvt. Ltd.

Printed by: William Gibbons and Sons, Wolverhampton

ISBN: 978-1-911639-71-8

© 2021 Mortons Media Group Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage retrieval system without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Acknowledgements

ank you to the following gentlemen for their invaluable help in compiling and illustrating this publication: JeanLouis Roba, Erik Mombeeck, Jean-Yves Lorant, Dr Jochen Prien, David E Brown, Philippe Saintes, Paul Stipdonk, Dr Hans Krensler and Kurt Braatz at 296 Verlag.

To the veterans; Ernst Schröder, Hans Weik, Karl-Heinz von den Steinen, Günther Ehrlich, Friedrich-Wilhelm ‘Timo’ Schenk, Jules Meimberg and Willi Unger. ank you. All personal accounts translated by Neil Page.

About The Author

Neil Page has lived and worked in Germany and has a BA (Hons) degree in modern languages. An aviation enthusiast, he spent eight years at London Gatwick airport in ight dispatch with a major European airline. In addition to authoring the two volume Day Fighter Aces of the Luftwa e set, published by Casemate in 2020, he is a proli c blogger and aircraft modeller. His website, FalkeEins – the Luftwa e Blog, has garnered close to ve million page views over the past ten years.