Re: North Africa! Where was the Luftwaffe?


"BernardZ" <bernardZ@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:MPG.1ee6f04fb99c74129899ce@xxxxxxx


He perfected the technique of diving on a circle of P-40s
or Hurricanes, knocking one down with a few shells, zooming up and then
doing it again. On 6 June 1942, he shot down six P-40s of 5 Squadron
SAAF in twelve minutes in this way, taking his score to 81. On 18 June,
he passed 100 and was whisked off to Berlin to pick up a Knight's Cross
with Swords and Oak Leaves and do some photo-shoots. However, his
greatest day was 1 September. Flying three bomber escort missions, he
claimed 17 British fighters. Fifteen of them correspond to actual
British losses. No other pilot had ever shot down so many of the enemy
on a single day. His armourer calculated that he had expended the
astonishingly low average of 15 shells on each victim.


You have to be really careful of such claims

I couldn't find any entry in 5 Squadron records for June 6th but on the
16th they lost two aircraft when escorting Bostons on a raid on
German road transport with no 2 Squadron also losing a plane.

Overclaiming by the Germans was very common.

In an engagement on 11 July Luftwaffe fighters of I & II Gruppe reported
meeting
a total of 40 to 45 British fighters.

Unteroffizier Josef Vavra of 5 staffel claimed a Spitfire at 16:03 east of
El Alamein.
Feldwebel Heinrich Steis of 4 staffel claimed a Hurricane south of El
Alamein at 16:05.
At the same time Leutnant Werner Schroer of 8 staffel claimed one Spitfire
10km
south-east of El Alamein
Oberleutnant Ernst Börngen of 5 staffel, who claimed a Spitfire south-west
of El Alamein.

Four P-40s were claimed at 16:10 by Leutnant Werner Schroer
Unteroffizier Walter Timmerman, Leutnant Hans-Arnold Stahlschmidt of 2
staffel
and Feldwebel Heinrich Steis (west of El Alamein).

So they claimed in total to have shot down 3 Spitfires, a Hurricane and 4
P-40's

They were actually engaged by 12 Kittyhawks of 2 SAAF Squadron, and
12 Tomahawks of 5 SAAF squadron who's losses that day amounted
2 Tomahawks of 5 squadron and 1 Kittyhawk with 2 more Kittyhawks
being damaged

Marseille made a wonderful warrior-hero, and was the most famous
German serviceman in Africa after Rommel, a real Aryan superman.
However, warrior-heroes do not win modem wars. Shooting down British
fighters did not stop the bombers. Instead of attacking them, which
would in any case have been rather a dangerous thing to do, most of the
pilots of JG27 milled about watching in awe as Marseille exhibited his
graceful if gory skills, and making sure that nobody interfered.
Protecting their superstars was a full-time job. Marseille's own wingman
flew 100 sorties before making his first claim. On 1 September, German
pilots only made 26 claims in all. The British actually lost 20
fighters. Therefore, assuming, as seems most likely, that Marseille got
15 of the 17 he claimed, all the rest of the 100 or so German fighter
pilots between them only got five.

I'd be very dubious of this conclusion. Sept 1-2 was the height of the
battle of Alam Halfa and Desert Air Force fighters were heavily involved
in strafing attacks on the exposed German panzers. I'd expect a number
of those aircraft lost to be attributed to ground fire



The British lost no bombers at all.


This is a valid criticism. The aircraft of 223 Wing including 5 SAAF
squadron
were tasked with escorting the bombers during this period and none
of those aircraft were shot down by fighters, the two that were lost
were recorded as having been hit by AA fire from the ground.

Keith



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