RAF Bomber Command Diary... Jan 1945......

[lesofprimus]

Love the paint scheme..... Excellent shot...

[Erich]

intersting to note this might be a Ju 88G-1 but cannot confirm it due to the left crewman standing in front of the rear warning radar set-up ............... move ya bum !

also the D5 code is for NJG 3, so I need to confirm which NJG. NJG 2 and NJG 3 exchanged their III. and IV. gruppes with each others and it is really confusing when observing the old fotos

[Erich]

tis is all a crazy study. Rudi was in 12./NJG 3 for some time before going into 11./NJG 3 whcih then transferred over as the present 8./NJG 2 which he finished the war in. I question whether or not his Ju 88G-6 had the code changed from D5 to R4 ?

[hooter]

fascinating-the germans always told him it was flak-and as my father said-'those boys were good'. Along the weiser-elbe canal at a thousand feet or less and the flak crews levelled their guns to horizontal(more or less) to fire at him-he said he learnt to fly higher after that

[hooter]

They were '88's'

[Erich]

well I got a response from one reseacher and he did say it was 20mm quads from the area of Fassberg ............ as I said when dual claims come in for the sme kill it can get real confusin especially in 1945. in the NARA reprots it says that 20mm guns were the responsible party. I await other notes to verify the claim of R. Mangelsdorf

[Erich]

more on the foto I presented. mangelsdorf died about 15 or so years ago and he is standing 2nd from the left with dark hair. mangelsdorf bordfünker is standing on the far right. Foto taken at Westerland in 1944 but not sure the month or day-week. my responses to the quiry are getting more and more wetted down as to "if" Rudi shot down the Mossie...........do I dare give in ?
it well could have been the quad 2cm flakvierlings.....

[hooter]

evening guys-fascinating
However the airfield he was sent to attack using ash was stendal-but nothing was going down-so they turned for home, and on the way back saw aircraft taxiing in the dark with navigation lights on and hooded runway lights on--my father said this was unheard of
Anyway according to their navigation they were over the area of the steinhuder lake (just sat here and read his draft notes for the author martin bowman)and the airfield he actually attacked was fassberg-he was picked up by the luftwaffe and treated at fassberg sickquarters for a month-then Dulag luft for a month-then to a convent hospital for a month(for RAF pow's)called homemark(the exact spelling I am not sure of), where it was overun by the us third army

[Erich]

actually Beckedorf yes Fassberg not Stendal sorry.........

my question to others is what did Rudi confirm as shot down besides the Hali ?

there are notes in my data base of several Mossie intruders falling to Ju 88G-6's at low altitude due to Mossie overflights of Airfields. The mystery continues

Fassberg is noted at wars end upon the landing of surrendering JG 7 Me 262A-1a's to RCAF personell

[hooter]

Erich-
do you reckon you could find out any info on the german pilots
-two (the first and third)me 109.s
The first was at the taxi point, the second half way up the runway-and a third spun in, crashed and burnt out.
He thought he had come upon Ju88s and was horrified to realise halfway up the runway that they were 109s-he could tell-he was so close that the cannon flashes had lit up the back of the pilots head, as he shot the bottom out of the aircraft

[Erich]

the 109's would of been from a test school. 1./NJGr 10 was based out of Werneuchen to protect Berlin and most of NJG 11 in Janaury 45 were also in eastern Germany doing the same thing. II./NJG 11 was at Jüterbog

so at the present time I have no idea right now
; the hunt continues ............

[hooter]

apparently the guns hit him as he came over the perimeter track in bound at about 200ft in a dive-all the germans said was '8 guns'- I dont suppose that he was too popular at that point, being picked up by personnel from the base he had just straffed!!!
Reading more-sorry for me you have no idea how real this is being his son
I have just come across the last flight which reads
OPN; Intruder, Stendal A/F, not yet returned
the mossie number was YPC and it was a VI fitted with A.S.H-I think it made the mossie look 'bottlenosed' like a dolphin, so my father said

[hooter]

evening all-
The german beaurocracy of record keeping was exceptional-however althougth much (many records) was destroyed at the end of the war -did parts of, or indeed any, of the luftwaffe records surive?
Or did they just get moved piecemeal to russia-along with everything else that could be taken?
What data survives?-or is what information there is has been compiled painstakingly after the war?

[Erich]

I am waiting to see what is avialble, and no none of it went to Russia. It was vaporized in bombings or destroyed at Berlin in the last days. NAHRA has limtied reports but some are quite good and naother researcher is sending me a report out of a book, most likely the Confound andestroy that you already have....

a note from a fellow freind and research historian

a Luftgau report exists for the loss of this Mossie at NARA.

The ref is 151225/66 and the crash location/time is given as:

Beckedorff, 3km SW Hermannsburg (EA4) @ 21.30 hrs.

Both the Luftgau report and the RAF Operational Research Section record the cause of loss for Mossie RS507 as "hit by airfield flak defences of Fassberg" / "Flak" respectively.

There is no correlation between the loss of this Mosquito and Mangelsdorf's claim - the latter have occurred 45 minutes later and some considerable distance further south.

The simple fact is that no Bomber Command Mossie loss exists that matches Mangelsdorf's claim and no Bomber Command Mosquito returned home with damage inflicted by a night fighter (or flak for that matter).

I don't know who originally suggested that the two incidents were linked but, as is usual in 1945 at least, closer inspect of Mossie claims and losses shows that in most cases, there is no correlation...

well according to him there is no correlation but can tell you for a fact that night fighter crews were often mislead by their own observations as to just where they might have engaged enemy a/c. Just my two centws for now

[hooter]

strangely one of the 'true greats' for me, as far as being a pilot in the same boat as my dad is johannes steinhoff - admittedly the office politics were a bit more dangerous (books called 'last chance' and 'messerschmits over sicily' I think)-he, amongst others, upset fatty and hitler