From: "Charles K. Scott" <Charles.K.Scott@dartmouth.edu>
Subject: Focke Wulf's and JG 26
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 19:52:09 GMT


From "Charles K. Scott" <Charles.K.Scott@dartmouth.edu>

I posted this excerpt from the book JG 26 a few months ago and it seems
so appropriate to the discussion going on at the moment that I thought
I should dredge it up from my archives and repost it, so here it is.
The main thing I'd like to emphasize is that it wasn't just the
superiority of the Focke Wulf to the Spitfire although that was a
factor, there was also the level of operational training of the Germans
(thoughtfully provided for by the constant British fighter sweeps), the
local of the fighting allowing rapid fighter deployment by the German
radar crews (the reverse of the Battle of Britain for the Germans) and
the orders the Germans operated under which simply required them to be
as disruptive as possible without exposing themselves too much.  Corky
Scott

JG 26, top Guns of the Luftwaffe, Donald Caldwell

The most common British fighter in early 1941, the Spitfire II was
markedly inferior to the BF109-2; the new Spitfire V was at best an
even match for the German fighter.  The Germans retained their
superiority in the climb, the dive, and the zoom climb from a dive
which meant that they could join and break off combat at will.  The
British Spitfires and Hurricanes could out-turn any German fighter [due
to lower wing loading], but all German pilots knew this and their rule
was "one pass and away"  The confident and experienced Schlageter (JG
26) pilots were about to begin their most successful period of the war.
 [He's talking about the period from early 1941 to mid 1943]

The ability of JG 26 to penetrate the escort led to larger and larger
British formations.  A circus ultimately required up to twenty
squadrons of fighters, some 240 aircraft, to protect a dozen or so
Blenheims.

Oberst Osterhamp and his two Kommadoren, Galland and Major Oesau of JG
2, understood that their role was to inflict maximum damage to the RAF
while preserving their own limited forces [A charge almost precisely
like that given to Spruance on the eve of Midway].  It was not required
or expected that the bombers be attacked by every German intercept
formation.  Only the most skilled formation leaders such as Galland
himself, could judge the proper moment at which the escort could be
penetrated at minimum risk in order to reach the bombers.

In 1942 "The level of combat skill [in] the RAF's Fighter Command had
dropped sharply as experienced pilots were ordered away to reinforce
the Mediterranean and Pacific theaters."  Across the Channel, the
combat skills of the average German pilot had never been greater, as
the Circuses of 1941 had given the Germans much valuable experience at
minimal cost.  The qualitative superiority of the Jagdwaffe over its
Western enemies was at its Zenith.

British fighter losses increased in April to 103 Spitfires and one
Hurricane.  JG 26 lost 12 pilots plus 5 in accidents.

The cumulative effect of encounter such as these (7 shot down, two
forced landing out of 12 dispatched) was the demoralization of Fighter
Command, from top to bottom.

On July 17, 1942, Sholto Douglas said to his superiors, "We are now in
a position of inferiority. . . . There is no doubt in my mind, nor in
the minds of my fighter pilots, that the FW 190 is the best all-round
fighter in the world today."

After capturing a brand new FW 190A-3 on June 23[the German pilot had
become disoriented and flew the Channel in heavy clouds and landed on a
British airfield.  [Eyewitnesses say he was a hot pilot who made a pass
directly over the field downwind then rolled upside down popping the
gear and flaps in the process and pulling past vertical to land smartly
on the field.  The pilot was considerably despondent and depressed when
he discovered the magnitude of his error], the British flight tested it
extensively and discovered just exactly how superior the aircraft was
to their Spitfires.  The Air Fighting Development Units recommendation
at the conclusion of this testing was to : "draw the Germans as close
to England as possible, and then circle, until the Focke-Wulfs ran low
on fuel and were forced to break off combat."  Not a recommendation
calculated to boost the already flagging Fighter Command moral.

The several Geschwader in Western France so terrorized Fighter Command
during the summer of 1942 that offensive fighter operations virtually
came to a standstill.  A new pilot, Peter Crump, assigned to the 5th
Staffel remarked that "Almost 6 weeks passed before I saw my first
Spitfire.  We pilots whiled away the time in all sorts of ways."

German moral was so high during this period that when several Sptifires
were shot down when they were encountered circling low over the Channel
and it was discovered that they had been searching for a downed
comrade, heated discussions over the apparent lack of chivalry raged
for several days.  "Who started this swinish business?' Crump and
others asked themselves.

Newsgroups: sci.military