Egon Mayer (fighter pilot)

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Egon Mayer (born August 19, 1917 in Konstanz , † March 2, 1944 southwest of Montmédy , France ) was a German Air Force officer , most recently lieutenant colonel and commodore of Jagdgeschwader 2 "Richthofen" . With 102 confirmed aerial victories, he is one of the most successful fighter pilots of World War II and developed a new tactic for attacking American bombers, which made their defensive armament largely ineffective.

Military career

In 1937 Egon Mayer joined the Air Force and trained as a pilot . In December 1939 he was assigned to the 6th squadron of Jagdgeschwader 2 . There he achieved his first aerial victory in the western campaign on June 13, 1940. On June 10, 1941 he was appointed Squadron Captain of the 7th Squadron in his squadron. After his 20th victory in the air on August 1, 1941, he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . In November 1942 Mayer rose to group commander of the III. Group of his fighter squadron. On April 16, 1943, he received the Oak Leaves Knight's Cross for his 63rd victory in the air. On July 1, 1943, he was appointed commodore of the squadron, succeeding Walter Oesau . Mayer subsequently increased his aerial victories to 102.

Among his 102 aerial victories were 25 four-engine Boeing B-17 and Consolidated B-24 bombers , which were brought down using a frontal attack on the closed bomber formations flying in so-called combat boxes , using a tactic developed together with Georg-Peter Eder . During the frontal attack on B-17 squadrons (until the introduction of the improved version B-17G with remote-controlled twin bow gun), the approaching fighter was below the firing angle of the upper twin tower and above the angle for the lower ball turret machine gun. The frontal attack became largely the standard method of attack against closed bomber formations, since in this way the blatant danger of fire was reduced by the efficient defensive armament of the bomber formations when approaching relatively slowly from behind. Mayer first introduced the tactic on November 23, 1942, during an aerial battle over the St. Nazaire submarine base .

death

On March 2, 1944, Mayer was involved in a dogfight with an American P47 near Montmédy and shot down; he died in the process. Mayer is buried in the St. Desir-de-Lisieux cemetery. Posthumously on March 2, 1944, he was awarded the Oak Leaves Swords.

Awards

literature

  • Ernst Obermaier: The Luftwaffe Knight's Cross Carriers 1939–1945, Volume I Fighter Pilot , Dieter Hoffmann Verlag 1966, p. 43

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Veit Scherzer : Knight's Cross bearers 1939–1945. The holders of the Iron Cross of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and armed forces allied with Germany according to the documents of the Federal Archives. 2nd Edition. Scherzers Militaer-Verlag, Ranis / Jena 2007, ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2 , p. 531.
  2. ↑ Stephen Wilkinson: Man and Machine . Globe Pequot, 2005, p. 49
  3. ^ Alan Levine: The strategic bombing of Germany . Greenwood Publishing Group, 1992, p. 81
personal data
SURNAME Mayer, Egon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lieutenant colonel and fighter pilot in World War II
DATE OF BIRTH August 19, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Constancy
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 1944
Place of death Montmédy