Kampfgeschwader 27 "Boelcke"

Combat Squadron 27
active	May 1, 1939 to April 8, 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Wehrmacht
Armed forces	air force
Branch of service	Air force
Type	Combat Squadron
structure	Squadron staff and 4 groups
Location	Staff Hannover-Langenhagen I. Group Hannover-Langenhagen II. Group Wunstorf III. Group Delmenhorst IV. (Supplementary) Group Bourges
equipment	Heinkel He 111 , Messerschmitt Bf 109 , Focke-Wulf Fw 190
Second World War	Invasion of Poland Western campaign Air battle for England German-Soviet war
Squadron commodors
First commodore	Colonel Hans Behrendt

The Kampfgeschwader 27 "Boelcke" was an association of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War . It was named after Oswald Boelcke , a fighter pilot of the First World War .

Lineup

The Kampfgeschwader 27 was created on May 1, 1939 from the combat squadron 157 "Boelcke", which was set up on April 1, 1937 in Hanover-Langenhagen ( Lage ). From the Geschwaderstab and the I./KG 157 the staff and the I./KG 27 emerged on May 1, 1939. From the II. Group of the KG 157 the II./KG 27 was formed in Wunstorf ( Lage ). The III ./KG 27 was created in Delmenhorst - Horstedt ( Lage ) from III./KG 157. In June 1940, the IV. (Supplementary) group was created in Bourges / France ( Lage ). The squadron was equipped with the Heinkel He 111 from 1939 to the end of 1944 . It was not until the last months of the war that it was converted to Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters . The squadron identification was 1G.

history

The staff, the I., II. And III./Kampfgeschwader 27 took part in the attack on Poland as part of the 1st Air Division of Air Fleet 1 in the northern section of the front . The staff and the I. group were in Werneuchen ( location ), the II. Group in Neuhardenberg ( location ) and the III. Group attacked from Königsberg-Neumark ( Lage ). In October the entire squadron relocated back to its home bases.

During the western campaign , all three groups were under the command of the 4th Air Corps of Air Fleet 2 . They intervened from their home positions in what was happening at the front. Air strikes on airfields to gain air supremacy in Lille, Antwerp, Brussels and Namur were followed by many tactical missions for army support. This was followed by further air raids on Dunkirk and in the greater Paris area and, in the second phase of the war, further operations for army support on the Somme , Seine and Loire as far as Normandy and Brittany.

Heinkel He 111 of Kampfgeschwader 27

In the ensuing Battle of Britain , the entire squadron remained with the IV Air Corps, but now under the command of Air Fleet 3 . The staff and the I. group started from Tours ( location ), the II. From Bourges ( location ) and the III. Group of Rennes ( Lage ) from across the English Channel. At first they flew air raids against southern English port facilities and fought convoy trains in the English Channel. After that, the main focus was on the British Air Force with its airfields and ground organizations in the greater London area. From August 30th to October 17th it flew so-called retaliatory attacks on London, Liverpool , Birkenhead, Birmingham, Coventry and Manchester. After that, until June 1941, only attacks on large ports in the south and west of England. On March 1, 1941, in the St. Georgs Canal, the convoy SC 22 became the motor tanker Rotula ( Lage ), on March 3rd the Port Townsville ( Lage ), on March 8th the Dutch Prins Frederik Henrik ( Lage ) and the day before damaged on March 13 Empire frost ( location ) sunk by bombs. Further sinkings took place in the Bristol Channel (March 2nd, Castlehill ), in the English Channel (March 8th Nurgis ), in Cardigan Bay (March 11th trawler Aberdeen ), in the Irish Sea (March 13th Perseus , March 14th Stanleigh , March 20 trawler Bianca , March 29 trawler Exeter ) and north of Ireland (March 16 marine trawler Lady Lillian ). Other ships were damaged in these sea areas. In March the II. Group moved to Dinard ( Lage ) and in April the III. Group after Orleans Bricy ( location ). The staff and the first group were still in Tours. In June 1941 the entire squadron moved to Romania.

On the attack on the Soviet Union , from June 22, 1941, the squadron took with the staff and the I. to III. Group. For this purpose, it was subordinate to the IV Air Corps of Air Fleet 4 in the southern section of the Eastern Front. The staff, the I. and II. Group were on the Romanian airfield Focşani / Süd ( location ) while the III. Group started from Ziliştea ( Lage ) in Romania . In many tactical operations for army support it was often used at the focal points in the south of the eastern front. It took part in the 1941 battle of Uman and the Battle of Kiev .

In 1942 it was involved in the recapture of the Kerch peninsula , the Battle of Kharkov . At the beginning of the German summer offensive in the south of the Eastern Front, the squadron, equipped with the Heinkel He 111H-6, was on the Kursk Ost air base ( Lage ). From there it participated in the German advance to the Don and to Stalingrad until August. The entire squadron then moved to Millerowo ( Lage ) and took part in the Battle of Stalingrad.

In 1943 it braced itself against the Soviet winter offensive in the south of the Eastern Front and took part in the air raids on Gorky and Yaroslavl from June 5th to 22nd . In night raids, together with other combat squadrons, the "Molotov" armored car plant and the Yaroslavl synthetic rubber plant were to be attacked. 282 people were killed in Gorki, 527 injured and 52 buildings of the plant were destroyed. In Yaroslavl, over 120 people were killed, around 150 others injured and over 200 buildings (including some of the rubber works) completely destroyed. It then took part in the Citadel Company. For this purpose it was assigned to the 8th Air Corps of Air Fleet 4 and took off with its Heinkel He 111H-6 and H-16 from the places in Charkow-Rogan / North III ( location ) and Charkow-Woitschenko ( location )

The squadron was also deployed on the Eastern Front in 1944 and participated in many military support missions. On the night of June 22nd to 23rd, it attacked the airfield used by US aircraft as part of Operation Frantic with Heinkel He 111H-20 bombers from Krosno ( Lage ) and Mielec-Smoczka ( Lage ) Poltava ( location ). 43 American B-17 bombers were destroyed and another 26 damaged. In addition, an ammunition depot and 900,000 liters of aviation fuel were destroyed.

In autumn 1944 the entire squadron moved to Raffelding ( Lage ), Hörsching ( Lage ) and Wels ( Lage ) in Austria. There it was converted to Messerschmitt Bf 109K-4 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190A-9 fighters. As Kampfgeschwader (J) 27 (the J stood for hunt) it took up combat against incoming US bombers in March 1945. On April 8, 1945, the squadron disbanded.

Commanders

Squadron commodors

Rank	Surname	time
Colonel	Hans Behrendt	May 1, 1939 to November 1939
Major general	Richard Putzier	November 1939 to December 1939
Colonel	Hans Behrendt	January 1940 to June 22, 1940
Lieutenant colonel	Bernhard Georgi	June 22, 1940 to July 25, 1940
Colonel	Gerhard Conrad	July 26, 1940 to October 6, 1940
major	Gerhard Ulbricht	November 1940 to 1941
Colonel	Hans-Henning Freiherr von Beust	January 1942 to November 1943
major	Rudi Kiel	December 1943 to April 8, 1945

Group commanders

I. group

• Lieutenant Colonel Fritz Graumnitz, May 1, 1939 to October 1, 1939
• Major Sigismund von Falkenstein , October 1, 1939 to May 31, 1940
• Major Gerhard Ulbricht, June 3, 1940 to October 21, 1940
• Captain Fritz Reinhard, October 22, 1940 to July 8, 1941
• Major Hubertus Lessmann, July 11, 1941 to December 29, 1941
• Captain Joachim Petzold, December 1, 1942 to May 1944

II group

• Major Arno de Salengre Drabbe, May 1, 1939 to March 28, 1940
• Major Reinhold Tamm, March 29, 1940 to May 18, 1940
• Major Friedrich-Kurt Schlichting, June 7, 1940 to August 10, 1940
• Captain Reinhard Günzel, November 16, 1940 to January 4, 1943
• Major Karl-August Petersen, January 5, 1943 to December 14, 1943

III. group

• Colonel Dr. Otto Sommer , May 1, 1939 to June 26, 1939
• Major Andreas Nielsen , June 26, 1939 to February 24, 1940
• Captain Ulrich Schirmer, February 24, 1940 to May 22, 1940
• Major Manfred Speck von Sternberg, May 27, 1940 to October 22, 1940
• Captain Hans-Henning Frhr. von Beust, October 23, 1940 to January 28, 1942
• Major Erich Thiel, March 1, 1942 to April 22, 1943
• Captain Karl Mayer, April 23, 1943 to August 7, 1943
• Major Karl Mayer, July 29, 1944 to November 12, 1944

IV. Group

• Lieutenant Bernhard Schlafke, November 24, 1940 to March 1941
• Captain Johannes Lorenz, March 13, 1941 to September 24, 1941
• Captain Hellmann, September 25, 1941 to October 1941
• Captain Gerhard Braunschweig, October 30, 1941 to November 30, 1942
• Major Walter Engel, December 1, 1942 to November 23, 1944

Known squadron members

• Sigismund von Falkenstein (1903–1972), was a Brigadier General of the Air Force of the German Armed Forces , head of the Air Force Academy department at the Command Academy of the German Armed Forces
• Walter Grasemann (1917–2007), was from 1959 to 1962 as a lieutenant colonel in the air force of the German armed forces, first commodore of reconnaissance squadron 51
• Rudolf Jenett (1914–1998), was from 1970 to 1974 as major general in command of the command academy of the Bundeswehr
• Ernst Kühl (1888–1972), was a member of the expert committee for the restructuring of the federal territory and personnel expert committee in 1955
• Günther Pawelke (1900–1976) was the German ambassador to Egypt from October 1952 to November 1954
• Herbert Schneider (1915–1995), was from 1947 to 1962 for the DP and CDU a member of the Bremen citizenship and from 1953 to 1961 and 1969 to 1972 a member of the German Bundestag
• Otto Sommer (1891–1940) was a member of the Reichstag for the NSDAP from November 1933 to March 1936

literature

• Wolfgang Dierich: The air force associations 1935-1945 . Outlines and short chronicles one document. Ed .: Wolfgang Dierich. Verlag Heinz Nickel , Zweibrücken 1993, ISBN 3-925480-15-3 (703 pages).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang Dierich, p. 113.
2. ↑ Bernhard R. Kroener : The German Reich and the Second World War , Volume 5/1, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-421-06232-3 , pp. 718-719.
3. ^ Leo Niehorster : German Order of Battle, 2nd Air Force, IV Air Corps 10 May 1940. December 12, 2001, accessed on January 6, 2017 (English). 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Wolfgang Dierich, p. 114.
5. ↑ Ulf Balke: The aerial warfare in Europe 1939-1941 . Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-86047-591-6 , p. 408 (1057 pp.).
6. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Sea War 1939–1945, March 1941. Retrieved on February 14, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Leo Niehorster: German Air Force, Order of Battle, 4th Air Fleet, IV Air Corps 22 June 1941. October 28, 1999, accessed on January 6, 2017 (English). 
8. ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45, Romania pp 26-27 , accessed on 28 March 2020th
9. ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45, Romania pp. 53-54 , accessed on March 28, 2020.
10. ↑ Wolfgang Dierich, p. 115.
11. ↑ Wolfgang Dierich, p. 116.
12. ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45, Russia (incl. Ukraine, Belarus & Bessarabia) pp. 345-347 , accessed on March 17, 2020.
13. ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45, Russia (incl. Ukraine, Belarus and Bessarabia) pp 404-405 , accessed on 17 March 2020.
14. ↑ Horst Boog : The German Reich and the Second World War , The German Reich on the Defensive , Volume 7, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt , Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-421-05507-6 , p. 347.
15. ↑ AV Fedorčuk: Jaroslavl'. Istorija tvoego goroda , Akademija Razvitij, ISBN 5-7797-0630-1 , p. 79
16. ↑ Wolfgang Dierich, p. 117.
17. ^ Karl-Heinz Frieser , Klaus Schmider , Klaus Schönherr : The German Empire and the Second World War . Volume 8: The Eastern Front 1943/44 - The War in the East and on the Side Fronts. Ed .: Military History Research Office . DVA, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-421-06235-2 , pp. 90-92
18. ↑ ^{a b} Wolfgang Dierich, p. 118.
19. ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Luftwaffe Airfields 1935-45, Poland pp. 23-24 , accessed on March 18, 2020.
20. ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45, Poland page 33 , accessed on 18 March 2020th
21. ↑ Horst Boog: The German Empire and the Second World War. Volume 7. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 2001, p. 364.

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