page_title: Hans-Joachim Jabs
section_title: Battle of France
hierarchical_section_title: Hans-Joachim Jabs / Battle of France
context_page_description: Hans-Joachim Jabs was an officer in the German Luftwaffe during World War II. Jabs was the rare case of a pilot who found success in two distinctly different forms of aerial combat. He was one of the few pilots to obtain Experte while flying a heavy daytime fighter. Surviving the Battle of Britain, he later became one of most successful pilots in the night fighter force. The skill sets for the two operations were completely different. Through 510 combat missions he was credited with 50 victories, 31 of them achieved at night. Following the war he became a successful businessman in the field of heavy agricultural equipment.
context_section_description: As a member of II./ZG 76, Jabs operated over France and the low countries during the blitzkrieg that swept the Netherlands, Belgium and France in the spring of 1940. He was credited with his first victory on 12 May with the destruction of a French Hawk 75A of the Armee de l'air. The following day he shot down a French Morane. Jabs' method with the Bf 110 was to approach from above and dive onto his opponents, using the weight of the aircraft and its heavy forward firing guns to advantage. He declined dogfighting, attempting instead to maintain speed and height, and was conscious of the need to put distance between his aircraft and the opposing fighters when the time came.
  Over the next five weeks he was credited with four more, two French aircraft and two RAF Spitfires.
  On 15 May Jabs was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class (Eisernes Kreuz zweiter Klasse), and two weeks later the Iron Cross 1st Class (Eisernes Kreuz erster Klasse) on 28 May.
caption: Bf 110C of ZG 76 in France 1940, in the same camouflage and "sharks mouth" nose scheme as Jabs' aircraft
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