Combat Squadron 3
|
Combat Squadron 3 |
|
|---|---|
 Squadron badge |
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| active | May 1, 1939 to August 18, 1944 |
| Country |
.svg){kind=small} 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 Heiligenbeil I. Group Burg II. Group Heiligenbeil III. Heiligenbeil IV group. Le Culot (supplementary) group |
| Nickname | Lightning Squadron |
| equipment | Dornier Do 17 , Heinkel He 111 , Junkers Ju 88 , |
| Second World War |
Invasion of Poland Western campaign Air battle for England Balkan campaign German-Soviet war |
| Squadron commodors | |
| First commodore | Colonel Wolfgang von Chamier-Glisczinski |
The Kampfgeschwader 3 was an association of the Luftwaffe in World War II . Because of its coat of arms, it was also called the Blitz Squadron.
Lineup
The Kampfgeschwader 3 was created on May 1st, 1939 from the 153rd Combat Squadron, which was set up in Merseburg on April 1st, 1936. From the squadron staff, the II . And III.//KG 153, the staff emerged on May 1, 1939 in Heiligenbeil , the II . and III./KG 3. On March 1, 1940, the I. Group from I./KG 153 was formed in Burg . In August 1940 the fourth (supplementary) group was established in Le Culot / Belgium. The squadron was initially equipped with the Dornier Do 17 . From March 16, 1941, the I. and II. Groups converted to the Junkers Ju 88 . By December 1941, III./KG 3, the last group in the squadron, was also equipped with this aircraft type. From March 1944 the III./KG 3 received the Heinkel He 111 . The squadron identification was 5K.
history
The staff of Elbing ( location ) and the II. And III. Group from Heiligenbeil ( Lage ) took part in the attack on Poland as part of the Air Force Command East Prussia of Air Fleet 1 in the northern section of the front .
During the western campaign , all three groups were under the command of the 2nd Air Corps of Air Fleet 3 . The staff and the III. Group were in Würzburg-Galgenberg ( Lage ), the I. Group in Aschaffenburg and the II. In Schweinfurt ( Lage ). From there they intervened in the battles for the Meuse crossings in support of the army. Another focus was air strikes on Dunkirk and other cities on the Channel coast. In June 1940, the squadron moved to Belgian positions, so that the staff and the I. Group from Le Culot ( location ), the II. Group from Antwerp-Deurne ( location ) and the III. Group started from St. Trond ( Lage ).
In the ensuing Battle of Britain , the entire squadron remained with the II Air Corps, but now under the command of Air Fleet 2 . The groups remained in the places they occupied in June 1940. From March 16, 1941, the staff and the 1st and 2nd groups of the squadron were relocated to Wunstorf ( Lage ) to convert to the Junkers Ju 88A .
The III. The group took part in the Balkan campaign from April 5, 1941 . For this purpose she was subordinate to Luftflotte 4 and transferred to the air base Münchendorf ( Lage ) in Lower Austria. Also in the subsequent airborne battle for Crete , the III. Group as part of the 8th Air Corps of Air Fleet 4. She was stationed in Athens-Tatoi ( Lage ) for this purpose.
On the attack on the Soviet Union , the squadron participated in all three groups. For this purpose it was subordinate to the II. Fliegerkorps of Air Fleet 2 in the central section of the Eastern Front. When the attack began on June 22, 1941, the staff and the I. and II. Groups were in Deblin-Irena ( Lage ) and the III. Group in Suwalki-Dubowo ( location ). In addition to purely tactical military support tasks, it also took part in some air strikes on Moscow . For this purpose, the staff and the I. Group, equipped with the Junkers Ju 88A, were on the Orscha / Süd airfield ( location ), the II. Group also with the Ju 88A in Bojary ( location ) and the III. Group with the Dornier 17Z in Parafjanowo ( Lage ).
In the winter of 1941/42, the I. group was in Münster ( Lage ) for refreshment and the III. Group converted in Gütersloh ( Lage ), as the last group of the squadron, from the Dornier Do 17Z to the Junkers Ju 88A-4. Meanwhile, the staff remained stationed in Dno ( Lage ) in the north and the II. Group in Orsha in the middle of the eastern front. In February the I. Group returned to the Eastern Front when they moved to the Dno airfield in the north. In the second half of 1942 the entire squadron, mainly equipped with the Junkers Ju 88A-4 and a few C-6s, was in Schatalowka / West ( Lage ) in the area of the Army Group in the middle of the Eastern Front.
In 1943 it 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. Subsequently, the staff and the II. Group took part in the Citadel operation. To do this, they flew from Poltava ( Lage ), as part of the 8th Air Corps of Air Fleet 4, air strikes in support of the 4th Panzer Army and the Army Detachment Kempf.
The squadron remained on the Eastern Front until June 2, 1944, with brief interruptions to refresh on home bases. After that it was moved to the west.
The III. The group flew with their Heinkel He 111 H-22 from the Dutch bases in Venlo ( Lage ) and Gilze-Rijen ( Lage ) from July 9, 1944, deployments with Fieseler Fi 103 flying bombs , also known as Vergeltungswaffe 1 or V1. These were suspended from the wing, between the fuselage and the engine, and faded out at a height of 500 m above the North Sea. By early September around 300 V1 rockets had been fired towards the British island. Subsequently, the group moved as I. Group to Kampfgeschwader 53 . The other groups in the squadron were disbanded.
Commanders
Squadron commodors
| Rank | Surname | time |
|---|---|---|
| Colonel | Wolfgang von Chamier-Glisczinski | May 1, 1939 to September 1, 1941 |
| Colonel | Heinrich Conrady | September 1, 1941 to October 31, 1942 |
| Colonel | Erich Rathmann | October 1942 |
| major | Jobst-Hinrich von Heydebreck | November 1, 1942 to January 3, 1943 |
| Lieutenant colonel | Walter Lehweß-Litzmann | January 1943 to September 7, 1943 |
| major | Fritz Aufhhammer | September 24, 1943 to August 18, 1944 |
Group commanders
- I. group
- Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Gabelmann, March 1, 1940 to July 23, 1940
- Major Wilhelm-Georg von Kunowski, July 23, 1940 to August 5, 1940
- Lieutenant Colonel Carl Freiherr von Wechmar, August 5, 1940 to April 2, 1941
- Major Günther Heinze, April 2, 1941 to July 12, 1941
- Captain Hans Bader, July 12, 1941 to October 1941
- Captain Ernst Nitsche October 1941
- Lieutenant Colonel Fridtjof Pasquay, October 1941 to November 25, 1941
- Captain Heinz Laube, December 1941 to November 1942
- Major Joachim Jödicke, November 14, 1942 to April 15, 1944
- Lieutenant Colonel Bernhard von Dobschütz, April 15, 1944 to July 1944
- II group
- Colonel Viktor Seebauer, May 1, 1939 to July 1, 1939
- Lieutenant Colonel Erich Munske, July 1, 1939 to April 1, 1940
- Lieutenant Colonel Albrecht Jahn, April 1, 1940 to May 16, 1940
- Captain Otto Pilger, May 16, 1940 to January 7, 1941
- Captain Johannes Huebner, 7 January 1941 to 1941
- Captain Kurt Peters, 1941 to December 21, 1941
- Major Waldemar Krüger, December 1941 to May 22, 1942
- Major Günther Dörffel, May 1942 to October 29, 1942
- Major Jürgen de Lalande, October 29, 1943 to October 20, 1943
- Captain Willi Müller, October 20, 1943 to July 1944
- III. group
- Lieutenant Colonel Hans Grund , May 1, 1939 to July 1, 1939
- Lieutenant Colonel Karl Neuhüttler, July 1, 1939 to March 2, 1940
- Colonel Albrecht Jahn, March 2, 1940 to April 1, 1940
- Major Wilhelm-Georg von Kunowski, April 1, 1940 to May 21, 1940
- Captain Erich Rathmann, May 21, 1940 to September 1941
- Major Vladimir Graowaes, September 1941 to December 7, 1941
- Captain Ernst-Wilhelm Ihrig, 7 December 1941 to 30 November 1942
- Captain Siegfried Jungklaus, December 1942 to April 22, 1943
- Major Horst Bengsch, May 18, 1943 to February 1944
- Captain Martin Vetter, February 1944 to September 1944
- IV. Group
- Major Wilhelm von Kunowski, August 1940 to September 1940
- First Lieutenant Hans Claussen, September 1940 to April 1941
- Captain Waldemar Krüger, April 1941 to September 30, 1941
- Major Erich Rathmann, October 1, 1941 to September 14, 1942
- Major Jürgen de Lalande, September 15, 1942 to October 24, 1942
- Major Paul Breu, October 25, 1942 to May 31, 1944
- Major Joachim Jödicke, June 1, 1944 to August 18, 1944
Known squadron members
- Peter Berns (1907–1941) was a member of the National Socialist Reichstag for the NSDAP from 1936
- Paul Buntrock (1915-1985), Major General of the Air Force of the Armed Forces
- Walter Lehweß-Litzmann (1907-1986) was, from 1952 to 1959 head of the pilot training of the KVP and NVA - air forces and 1959-1970 director of flight operations of the Inter flight in the GDR
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).
- Ulf Balke: The Air War in Europe 1939–1941 . Bechtermünz Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-86047-591-6 (1057 pages).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Wolfgang Dierich, p. 103.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ a b Ulf Balke, pp. 408-413.
- ↑ Ulf Balke, pp. 414-415.
- ↑ Leo Niehorster : The Battle for Crete, Order of Battle German 4th Air Fleet VIIIth Air Corps 20 May 1941. November 24, 2010, accessed on January 4, 2017 (English).
- ↑ Ulf Balke, pp. 416-419.
- ↑ Horst Boog : The German Reich and the Second World War, Volume 4 , dva, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-421-06098-3 , p. 692.
- ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45, Russia (incl. Ukraine, Belarus and Bessarabia) pp 498-501 , accessed on 14 March 2020.
- ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45, Russia (incl. Ukraine, Belarus and Bessarabia) pp 91-92 , accessed on 19 March 2020.
- ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45, Russia (incl. Ukraine, Belarus and Bessarabia) S. 511 , accessed on 19 March 2020.
- ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45 Germany (1937 Borders) , pp 456-458 , accessed on 20 March 2020th
- ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45 Germany (1937 Borders) , pp 253-255 , accessed on 20 March 2020th
- ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45, Russia (incl. Ukraine, Belarus and Bessarabia) pp 154-156 , accessed on 21 March 2020.
- ↑ Henry L. deZeng IV: Air Force Airfields 1935-45, Russia (incl. Ukraine, Belarus and Bessarabia) pp 608-610 , accessed on 22 March 2020.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ AV Fedorčuk: Jaroslavl'. Istorija tvoego goroda , Akademija Razvitij, ISBN 5-7797-0630-1 , p. 79
- ^ 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
- ↑ Horst Boog, Gerhard Krebs , Detlef Vogel: Das Deutsche Reich and the Second World War, Volume 7 , dva, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-421-05507-6 , p. 392.
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