Jagdgeschwader 27

Jagdgeschwader 27
Squadron badge of the staff / JG 27
active	October 1, 1939 to 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Wehrmacht
Armed forces	air force
Branch of service	Air force
Type	Jagdgeschwader
structure	Squadron staff and 4 groups
Installation site	Handorf
Aircraft type	Bf 109 versions E to K
Second World War	Western campaign Battle of Britain Balkan campaign Eastern front African campaign Defense of the empire
Squadron commodors
First commodore	Max-Josef Ibel Lieutenant Colonel
Last commodore	Ludwig Franzisket Major

The Jagdgeschwader 27 (JG 27) was a flying unit of the Luftwaffe in World War II , which was best known for its missions in connection with the German Africa Corps . Hans-Joachim Marseille , one of the most successful pilots in action on the Western Front, mainly flew for this squadron.

history

Lineup

The staff and the first group were set up on October 1, 1939 in Handorf near Münster . The second group followed in January 1940 in Magdeburg . The third group was added in June 1940 by renaming I./JG 1. In 1943 the fourth group was formed in Kalamaki near Athens . By 1944 all groups were expanded to four squadrons.

Western campaign

During the participation in the western campaign , the squadron moved from the Lower Rhine to northern France and then to the English Channel . Fighters of the squadron penetrated the Dutch and Belgian airspace in the early morning of May 10, 1940 to ensure air superiority. On May 12th, allied forces tried to stop the German ground forces near Maastricht by destroying the bridges. The squadron covered the advance of the army units and shot down 35 enemy machines, four of their own machines were lost, but no pilot. Due to the rapid advance of the German troops, airfields in the Ardennes were captured, to which the majority of the squadron was relocated on May 16. On May 20, the squadron reported its first casualty. Fierce dogfights resulted in 18 kills and four lost pilots on May 23. As a result of the encirclement of the British Expeditionary Force, the first aerial battles with British Spitfires took place . The squadron, which was subsequently relocated to the vicinity of Saint-Omer and Saint-Pol, was supposed to attack the evacuation fleet's fighter protection. On June 2, the squadron reported the shooting down of six Spitfires without loss of their own. After the evacuation of the British troops, there was again more fighting with the Armée de l'air. On June 5, there was heavy fighting with large French units, the squadron scored 22 kills. The first group and the I. / JG51 left the association on June 6th and were placed under other squadrons. Over the next few days, the resistance of the French Air Force continued to level off. On June 12, parts of the squadron were transferred from Saconin-et-Breuil to Auxerre. The last kill of the squadron during the western campaign was achieved by Oberleutnant Nebenführ on June 18. With the surrender of France, England became the next target. The second group was briefly in association with JG 26 in the Belgian area during the western campaign .

The squadron reported 218 aerial victories and the I./JG 51, which was subordinate to JG 27, 32 more. Eleven pilots were reported as favors or missing. Captain Wilhelm Balthasar became the most successful pilot of the Western campaign with 23 kills and was the second German pilot after Werner Mölders to receive the Knight's Cross .

Other "flying aces" of JG 27 in the western campaign:

• Wilhelm Balthasar (23 kills)
• Adolf Galland (12 kills)
• Gerhard Homuth (9 kills)
• Ludwig Franzisket (9 kills)

Battle of Britain

After the western campaign, the squadron took part in the Battle of Britain , the three groups were at airfields in Pas-de-Calais and Normandy during this time .

In the autumn of 1940 the squadron staff as well as the II. And III. Group to Romania . At the Balkan campaign , it took then by Bulgarian courts in part, eventually reaching the end of April 1941 Eleusis in Athens . From May 1941 a part of the III. Group of Sicilies from operations against Malta . The rest of the squadron was transferred to the Suwałki area to take part in the war against the Soviet Union . While the Geschwaderstab and the III. Group were in action here until October 1941, the II. Group was withdrawn from the Soviet Union on July 1 to equip for the campaign in Africa .

North africa

Bf 109 E-4 / Trop of I / JG 27 in flight over North Africa

In April 1941, the first group of the squadron was transferred to Gazala to support the German Africa Corps (DAK). Eduard Neumann took over the command . At this point, the Desert Air Force had air superiority. The Regia Aeronautica (Italian Air Force) was clearly inferior to the British forces. The German participation in the aerial battles over North Africa should break the British dominance. On March 31st, Rommel's offensive began, which pushed the British back to Tobruk . The first group provided successful air support during this phase. The group's first aerial victories were reported on April 18.

In September the second group was transferred to Africa after participating in Operation Barbarossa . At this time the conversion was carried out of the squadron to new Bf 109F . At the end of October, the third group began to be transferred from the Eastern Front to Africa. In December the entire squadron was stationed in Tmimi, Africa.

Immediately after the start of the missions it became clear that the successful Desert Air Force was inferior to the JG 27. The air superiority switched to the Axis powers . The losses of the British units increased, which was partly due to the inferior aircraft and the worse pilots. The Allies mainly flew the Hawker Hurricane and Curtiss P-40 . Many German pilots had massively gained experience during the initial phase of the war through many enemy flights and were now able to bring this to bear.

By the end of 1941, Rommel's troops were pushed back to the Cyrenaica . The airborne units covered the retreat either in "free hunt" or protected Stuka units, which were supposed to slow the British advance. It turned out to be difficult for the Germans to provide the necessary supplies, which was particularly bad for the air force. The squadron was severely limited in its efficiency due to a lack of supplies. Due to a lack of fuel, only a small number of aircraft could fly at the same time. On January 21, 1942, Rommel's troops started another offensive against the 8th Army and pushed them back again. On March 24th, Lieutenant Friedrich Körner scored the 1,000th kill of the squadron.

Marseille next to a downed Hawker Hurricane

On June 21, the German company Theseus ended with a spectacular victory. In the course of the attack on Gazala, Hans-Joachim Marseille scored his 100th kill on June 17th. This brought him the swords to the Knight's Cross as the first pilot of the squadron . On August 8, planes in the squadron shot at a Royal Air Force transport aircraft . In this plane was Lieutenant General William Gott , who had just been appointed Commander of the 8th Army , who became the highest ranking British soldier killed by enemy action. Lieutenant General Gott jumped from the plane during the emergency landing and was fatally injured. After the Operation Theseus, the attack on el-Alamein followed . The last few months have been very successful for the German pilots. They scored many kills with relatively few losses of their own. This culminated in one of the most successful days of the squadron: On September 1st, 22 enemy machines were shot down. That day, Marseille brought the diamonds to the Knight's Cross.

After the German-Italian advance at El-Alamein was stopped, the sky over North Africa calmed down. On September 7th, the squadron had to cope with the loss of Hans-Arnold Stahlschmidt , who with 59 victories in Africa was the most successful pilot of the squadron after Marseille. He was considered missing after aerial battles near El Alamein. The numerical superiority of the Allies became more and more overwhelming. At the end of September the Germans owned 112 machines, of which only 65 were operational, the British, on the other hand, had 800. Even the first new Bf 109 G couldn't do much about the material inferiority .

A modern Bf 109 G "Gustav" with the badge of I./JG 27

The first six new G-versions of the Bf 109 were all assigned to the 3rd season (Marseille). The "Gustavs" were used for the first time on September 26th and were able to shoot down eight enemy machines without losing their own when they encountered a formation of 56 aircraft. On September 30th, the third season was on a free hunt without enemy contact. When the squadron was on its way back, Captain Marseille's plane caught fire due to a technical defect and the pilot had no choice but to parachute off the plane. In doing so, he hit the rudder. Marseille (158 kills), the "Star of Africa", did not survive the maneuver.

By the end of the month, the first group had lost several of the most experienced pilots and was thus severely weakened. The German pilots had a more difficult task in Africa than their British counterparts. Due to extreme numerical inferiority, the Germans were forced to fly a lot more missions. In combination with the climatic peculiarities of the desert war, this led to a noticeable exhaustion of the pilots. The first and third groups were temporarily taken out of service in October 1942 and transferred to Sicily . From there, they were mainly used as an escort for bombers whose aim was to disrupt the operations of the Allies, which threatened the Axis powers' supply routes from Malta. This company was canceled due to lack of success.

At the end of October they were relocated to North Africa to be used against the British offensive that was under way. The defeat of the Axis powers at El-Alamein ushered in the turning point in this theater of war. On November 12th, large parts of the squadron were relocated: the third group to Crete , the staff and the first group back to the German Reich. The second group stayed in Africa a month longer. The unit was replaced by Jagdgeschwader 77, which also took over aircraft and equipment from JG 27. The last aerial victory of JG 27 was achieved on December 6, 1942 by Lieutenant Hans Lewes.

The entire squadron achieved 1,166 confirmed kills. 588 kills went to the account of I./JG 27, 477 to that of II./JG 27, 100 to that of III./JG 27 and one to that of the staff / JG 27. About 200 machines were lost in the air battle . JG 27 reported 83 fallen or missing pilots over North Africa, another 27 were taken prisoner.

Imperial Defense

The squadron scored 3,142 kills and lost 1,400 machines in the process. 725 pilots died between 1939 and 1945.

	Kills	Fallen
Staff JG 27	82	12
I./JG 27	989	180
II./JG 27	962	234
III./JG 27	851	173
IV./JG 27	258	126

Awards

24 pilots of the squadron received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross . Nine of these pilots were awarded the Knight's Cross with the Oak Leaves. Three of them also received the knight's cross swords. In Hans-Joachim Marseille, the squadron also had a knight's cross with diamonds. This award has only been presented 27 times.

• Dates highlighted in blue show that the award was posthumous.

Surname	Knight's cross	Oak leaves	Swords	Diamonds
Balthasar, Wilhelm	June 14, 1940	0July 2, 1941
Ibel, Max	22 Aug 1940
Lippert, Wolfgang	Sep 24 1940
Schlichting, Joachim	?
Homuth, Gerhard	June 14, 1941
Rödel, Gustav-Siegfried	June 22, 1941	June 20, 1943
Honest, Karl-Wolfgang	0July 9, 1941
Franzisket, Ludwig	July 20, 1941
Count von Kageneck, Erbo	July 30, 1941	Oct 26, 1941
Marseille, Hans-Joachim	Feb. 22, 1942	0June 6, 1942	June 18, 1942	03rd Sep 1942
Schulz, Otto	Feb. 22, 1942
Reinert, Ernst-Wilhelm	0July 1, 1942	0Oct 7, 1942	0Feb. 1, 1945
Stahlschmidt, Hans-Arnold	Aug 20, 1942	0Jan. 3, 1944 *
Koerner, Friedrich	06 Sep 1942
Schröer, Werner	Oct. 20, 1942	0Aug 2, 1943	Apr 19, 1945
Bendert, Karl-Heinz	Oct. 30, 1942
Steinhausen, Günter	0Nov 3, 1942
Ettel, Wolf-Udo	0June 1, 1943	Aug 31, 1943
Kientsch, Willy	Nov 22, 1943	July 20, 1944
Remmer, Hans	0June 9, 1944
Düllberg, Ernst	July 20, 1944
Börngen, Ernst	0Aug 3, 1945
Gromotka, Fritz	Jan. 28, 1945
Shipyard, Dr. Peter	Jan. 28, 1945

• Fields highlighted in blue show that the award was posthumous

Commanders

Squadron commodors

Lieutenant Colonel Max-Josef Ibel	October 1, 1939	-	October 10, 1940
Major Bernhard Woldenga	October 11, 1940	-	October 22, 1940
Major Wolfgang Schellmann	October 22, 1940	-	June 21, 1941
Major Bernhard Woldenga	June 21, 1941	-	June 10, 1942
Lieutenant Colonel Eduard Neumann	June 10, 1942	-	April 22, 1943
Lieutenant Colonel Gustav Rödel	April 22, 1943	-	December 29, 1944
Major Ludwig Franzisket	December 30, 1944	-	May 8, 1945

Group commanders

I. group

The badge of the I. Group JG 27 happened to be an image of the African continent even before the mission in North Africa. The picture can be traced back to Hauptmann Riegel, who came from German Southwest Africa

Badge of Group II JG 27

Badge of the III. Group JG 27

Badge of the IV group JG 27

Captain Helmut Riegel	October 1, 1939
Major Eduard Neumann	July 21, 1940
Captain Gerhard Homuth	June 8, 1942
Captain Heinrich Setz	November 12, 1942
Captain Hans-Joachim Heinecke (acting)	March 17, 1943
Captain Erich Hohagen	April 7, 1943
Captain Hans Remmer (acting)	June 1, 1943
Captain Ludwig Franzisket	July 15, 1943
Captain Hans Remmer (acting)	March 1944
Captain Walter Blume (acting)	April 3, 1944
Captain Ernst Börngen	May 13, 1944
Major Karl-Wolfgang Redlich	May 20, 1944
Captain Walter Blume	May 30, 1944
Captain Rudolf Sinner	June 12, 1944
Captain Siegfried Luckenbach (acting)	July 30, 1944
Captain Diethelm von Eichel-Streiber	August 25, 1944
Captain Johannes Neumayer	December 1, 1944
Captain Schüller (acting)	December 11, 1944
Captain Eberhard Schade	December 12, 1944
Lieutenant Heinrich Buchholz (acting)	March 1, 1945
Captain Emil Clade	April 3, 1945

II group

Captain Erich von Selle	January 1, 1940
Captain Walter Andres	February 1, 1940
Captain Ernst Düllberg (acting)	August 8, 1940
Captain Wolfgang Lippert (acting)	4th September 1940
Captain Wolfgang Lippert	October 1, 1940
First Lieutenant Gustav Rödel (acting)	December 25, 1941
Captain Erich Gerlitz	December 25, 1941
Captain Gustav Rödel	May 20, 1942
Captain Werner Schröer	April 20, 1943
Captain Fritz Keller	the 14th of March. 1944
Major Walter Spies (acting)	December 12, 1944
Captain Herbert Kutscha	December 25, 1944
Captain Gerhard Hoyer	January 21, 1945
Captain Fritz Keller	January 22, 1945	-	May 7, 1945

III. group

Captain Joachim Schlichting	July 9, 1940
Captain Max Dobislav	September 7, 1940
Captain Erhard Braune	October 1, 1941
Captain Ernst Düllberg	October 16, 1942
Captain Peter Werfft	October 1944
First Lieutenant Emil Clade (acting)	February 1945

IV. Group

Captain Rudolf Sinner	June 1943
First Lieutenant Dietrich Boesler (acting)	September 1943
First Lieutenant Alfred Burk (acting)	October 1943
Captain Joachim Kirschner	October 19, 1943
Captain Otto Meyer	February 1, 1943
Captain Hanns-Heinz Dudeck	July 1944
Captain Ernst-Wilhelm Reinert	January 2, 1945

Web links

Commons : Jagdgeschwader 27  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

swell

1. ↑ John Weal: Jagdgeschwader 27 "Africa" (= Aviation Elite Units. Vol. 12). Osprey, Oxford et al. 2003, ISBN 1-84176-538-4 .