Combat Squadron 30

Combat Squadron 30
Squadron badge
active	November 15, 1939 to April 18, 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 Greifswald I. Group Greifswald II. Group Barth III. Group Barth IV. (Supplementary) group
Nickname	Adler squadron
Aircraft type	Junkers Ju 88 , Messerschmitt Bf 109
Second World War	Campaign in Norway Western campaign German-Soviet war Theater of war Mediterranean area Allied invasion of Italy Capricorn company Landing in Normandy
Squadron commodors
First commodore	Lieutenant Colonel Walter Loebel

The Kampfgeschwader 30 was an association of the Luftwaffe in World War II . It was also called the Eagle Squadron because of its coat of arms.

Lineup

The squadron staff was established on November 15, 1939 in Greifswald . The I. Group was formed on September 22, 1939 in Jever ( Lage ), when the I. Group of Kampfgeschwader 25 stationed there was renamed. Three days later, Group I moved to its intended home nest in Greifswald ( Lage ). A second group was formed on December 1, 1939 in Barth ( Lage ). A month later the III. Group set up. In the autumn of 1940 the IV. (Supplementary) group was established in Ludwigslust ( Lage ). The squadron was equipped with Junkers Ju 88s . The squadron recognition was 4D.

history

Group I, formed in Jever on September 22nd, did not take part in the attack on Poland . At this time it was under the control of the 3rd Air Division of Air Fleet 2 in the west. Instead, they attacked Allied ships in the North Sea with their Junkers Ju 88 from Jever . From September 25th to 26th, a British naval formation with the battleships Nelson and Rodney , the battlecruisers Hood and Renown , the aircraft carrier Ark Royal , the cruisers Norfolk , Newcastle and Edinburgh and the destroyers of the 4th and 8th Z-Flotilla came in the middle North Sea. Four Junkers Ju 88s of Group I scored a rebound on the Hood and a close hit at the Ark Royal . On October 16, she attacked the light cruisers Southampton and Edinburgh and the destroyer Mohawk in the Firth of Forth ( Lage ), and although they scored hits, these were duds and only slightly damaged the ships. The British shot down two planes, including that of the group commander. A day later she flew an attack on the British naval base Scapa Flow in which the Iron Duke had to be hit by bombs and put to the ground.

At the beginning of the Weser Exercise Company , the German occupation of Denmark and Norway from April 9, 1940, the squadron with the I. and II. Groups was in Westerland ( Lage ) and the III. Group in Marx ( Lage ) Here it was subordinate to the X. Fliegerkorps , to which all air forces in this campaign were subordinate. On 9 April 1940 47 warplanes attacked the kampfgeschwader 30 and 26 in the North Sea, a British cruiser group with the cruisers Southampton , Manchester , Glasgow , Sheffield and Aurora , along with the destroyers Afridi , Gurkha , Sikh , Mohawk , Somali , Matabele and Mashona to . In doing so, they sank the destroyer Gurkha ( Lage ) , losing four fighter planes, and slightly damaged the Southampton and Glasgow . On April 17th, the II. Group met again on a British warship group, consisting of the heavy cruiser Suffolk and the destroyers Kipling , Janus , Juno and Hereward , who were attacking the Stavanger sea air base with their artillery. Due to several bomb hits on the Suffolk , her quarterdeck sank below the waterline and was flooded. However, like the damaged Kipling, she was able to save herself to Great Britain. The next day, planes of Group II attacked the British battleship Resolution near Narvik . A 1000 kg bomb hit the ship and penetrated three decks before exploding. The resolution was able to save itself with damage.

At the beginning of the western campaign , the I. and II. Group moved to Oldenburg ( Lage ), while the III. stayed in Marx. The squadron was subordinate to the 4th Air Corps of Air Fleet 2 and supported the army's action against the Netherlands. After the surrender of the Dutch troops, the I. Group moved to Amsterdam-Schiphol ( Lage ), where they remained until the French surrender. On June 17, Junkers Ju 88 of Group II from Le Culot ( Lage ) sank the British troop carrier Lancastria ( Lage ) in the Loire estuary . Between 3,500 and 6,500 Allied soldiers were killed.

It then took part in the Battle of Britain as part of the X Air Corps of Air Fleet 5 . It was initially stationed in Aalborg-West ( Lage ) and Grove ( Lage ) in Denmark . From September 1940 the groups moved to Gilze Rijen ( Lage ) and Amsterdam-Schiphol in the Netherlands , where they stayed until spring 1941. By May 1941, the squadron fought industrial targets on the British Isles.

The Empire Lawrence was sunk in the attack on PQ 16

The III. On February 22, 1941, the group moved to Gerbini Airfield in Sicily, Italy. There she was subordinate to the X. Fliegerkorps and intervened from here in the Greco-Italian War and later took part in the German attack on Greece . As a result, they attacked the AS 21 convoy, which was running from Piraeus to Egypt, south-east of Crete on March 23, and sank the Greek Embiricos Nicolaos ( Lage ) and the Norwegian tanker Solheim ( Lage ).

From the attack on the Soviet Union only the II. Group in Norway was initially Banak ( position ) affected, which was subordinated to the air commander North of Luftflotte 5. The staff, the I. and III. Group remained as part of the IX. Air Corps of Air Fleet 3 stationed in Eindhoven ( Lage ), Villaroche ( Lage ) and Évreux ( Lage ). From September 1941 the I. group and from January 1942 the III. Group and the staff to Norway. There, the squadron was assigned airfields in Stavanger ( Lage ), Bardufoss ( Lage ) and Banak. From there it intervened in the fighting on the Arctic Circle for the conquest of Murmansk .

On March 28, 1942, Junkers Ju 88 of the III. Group from the Northern Sea Convoy PQ 13 the freighter Raceland with 4815 GRT ( location ) and Empire Ranger with 7007 GRT ( location ). In April 1942, when convoy QP 10 was moving in the opposite direction , the III. Group of the freighters Empire Cowper with 7164 GRT ( layer ) and Harpalion with 5486 GRT ( layer ). On May 13, 1942, a Junkers Ju 88 of III./KG 30 damaged the British light cruiser HMS Trinidad ( Lage ) so badly in an air raid in the North Sea that it had to be sunk by its own escort ships. When fighting the Allied convoy PQ 16 in May 1942, the III. Group the freighters Mormacsul , Empire Lawrence , Empire Purcell ( location ) and damaged the Alamar so badly that it later had to be sunk itself. At the beginning of July all three groups of the Kampfgeschwader fought convoy PQ 17 . From this it sank the freighters Washington (5564 BRT), Bolton Castle (5203 BRT), Pan Kraft (5644 BRT), Peter Kerr (6476 BRT), Fairfield City (5686 BRT) and the rescue ship Zaafaran (1559 BRT). Other ships were damaged and then sunk by submarines.

In July / August 1942, the I. Group was in Saint-André-de-l'Eure . In October she moved to Kemi ( Lage ), Finland , where she remained stationed until August 1943. From November 1942, the II. And III. Group of the squadron to Comiso ( Lage ) in Sicily to fight Allied supply convoys in the Mediterranean. After the Allied invasion of Italy , slowly retreating, it subsequently intervened in the fighting for Sicily and mainland Italy .

From the beginning of 1944 to May 1944, the I. from Eindhoven ( Lage ) and the II. Group from St. Trond ( Lage ) took part in the Steinbock company with their Junkers Ju 88s . The III. Group was in Germany to freshen up. After the Allied landing in Normandy , the I. Group of Le Culot and the II of Couvron ( Lage ) intervened in the defensive battles from July 1944 . Following the general retreat, the berths changed frequently. Then, from November 1944, the squadron was renamed to Kampfgeschwader (J) 30 (the (J) stood for hunting) and converted to hunting machines in the Czech Republic.

Commanders

Squadron commodors

Rank	Surname	time
Lieutenant colonel	Walter Loebel	November 15, 1939 to August 16, 1940
Colonel	Herbert Rieckhoff	August 17, 1940 to October 20, 1940
Lieutenant colonel	Erich Bloedorn	October 1940 to May 1943
Lieutenant colonel	Wilhelm Kern	May 18, 1943 to September 10, 1943
Lieutenant colonel	Sigmund-Ulrich von Gravenreuth	September 1943 to October 16, 1944
Colonel	Bernhard Jope	October 1944 to February 1945
Colonel	Hanns Horst Heise	February 1945 to April 1945

Group commanders

I. group

• Captain H. Pohle, September 22, 1939 to October 16, 1939
• Captain Fritz Doench, October 16, 1939 to June 1940
• Captain Heinrich Lau, October 1940 to July 1941
• Captain Jakob Schmidt, April 1942 to April 26, 1942
• Captain Konrad Kahl, April 26, 1942 to November 13, 1942
• Colonel Alerich Hofmann, November 13, 1942 to December 28, 1942
• Major Alexander Freiherr von Blomberg, September 9, 1943 to October 28, 1943
• Captain Günter Schulz, November 1943 to February 1944
• Major Carl-Heinz Antonius Greve , March 1, 1945 to May 3, 1945

II group

• Captain Claus Hinkelbein , November 17, 1939 to June 1940
• Hauptmann von Symonski, June 1940 to October 8, 1940
• Captain Erich Hass, October 9, 1940 to October 16, 1940
• Captain Sigmund-Ullrich Freiherr von Gravenreuth, October 1940 to April 11, 1942
• Captain Erich Stoffregen, April 11, 1942 to January 14, 1943
• Major Ernst Pflüger, June 17, 1943 to April 1944
• Captain Carl-Heinz Antonius Greve, July 25, 1944 to March 1, 1945

III. group

• Captain Siegfried Mahrenholtz, January 1, 1940 to April 9, 1940
• Captain Gerhard Kollewe, April 10, 1940 to August 13, 1940
• Major Johannes Hackbarth, September 9, 1940 to September 9, 1940
• Captain Arved Crüger, November 10, 1940 to July 26, 1941
• Major Martin Schumann, July 26, 1941 to August 30, 1941
• Captain Hans-Joachim Herrmann , August 1941 to July 19, 1942
• Major Werner Baumbach , July 1942 to December 1942
• Major Helmut Störchel, December 1942 to 1944

IV. Group

• Captain Heinrich Paepke, October 27, 1940 to February 9, 1941
• Captain Martin Schumann, February 10, 1941 to June 8, 1942
• Major Heinrich Lau, June 9, 1942 to September 11, 1942
• Captain Gerhard Molkentin, October 1, 1942 to January 16, 1943
• Major Konrad Kahl, November 13, 1942 to July 26, 1943
• Major Wilhelm Kuschke, July 27, 1943 to November 23, 1944

Known squadron members

• Arved Crüger (1911–1942), died in 1942 as a squadron commodore of Kampfgeschwader 77 in the Mediterranean area and was the husband of actress Carola Höhn
• Kurt Dahlmann (1918–2017) was editor-in-chief of the Allgemeine Zeitung in Namibia from 1958 to 1978
• Richard Frodl (1921–2002) was from 1977 to 1982 as lieutenant general in the air force of the German armed forces , head of the air force office
• Carl-Heinz Antonius Greve (1920–1998), was from 1974 as Lieutenant General of the Air Force of the Bundeswehr, Commander of the 4th Allied Tactical Air Force (ATAF)
• Hanns Horst Heise (1913–1992), was from October 1968 Brigadier General of the Air Force of the Bundeswehr, commander of the German Air Force Command USA / Canada
• Claus Hinkelbein (1909–1967), was from 1966 to 1967 as major general of the air force of the German armed forces, commander of the 4th air force division
• Wolfgang Kessler (* 1922) was Major General of the Air Force of the Bundeswehr from 1977 to 1983, Commander in Defense Division VI
• Herbert Rieckhoff (1898–1948), was the author of the book Trumpf oder Bluff ?, 12 years with the German Air Force
• Werner Schultze von Langsdorff (1899–1940) was a writer and aeronautical engineer .
• Peter Wilhelm Stahl (1913–2001) was a lieutenant colonel in the German Air Force and an aviation author

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

Commons : Kampfgeschwader 30  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang Dierich, p. 118.
2. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Sea War 1939–1945, September 1939. Retrieved on January 24, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Sea War 1939–1945, October 1939. Accessed on January 24, 2017 . 
4. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronik des Maritime War 1939–1945, October 1939. Retrieved on February 4, 2019 . 
5. ^ Leo Niehorster : Scandinavian Campaign, German Air Force, X Air Corps, April 9, 1940. November 11, 2010, accessed on January 6, 2017 (English). 
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Wolfgang Dierich, p. 119.
7. ^ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945 . London: Greenhill Books, ISBN 1-85367-117-7 , p. 16.
8. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronik des Maritime War 1939–1945, April 1940. Retrieved on February 4, 2017 . 
9. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Sea War 1939–1945, May 1940. Retrieved on July 13, 2017 . 
10. ^ Leo Niehorster: Battle for France, German Order of Battle, 2nd Air Force, IV Air Corps, May 10, 1940. December 12, 2001, accessed on January 6, 2017 (English). 
11. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Sea War 1939–1945, March 1941. Retrieved on February 14, 2019 . 
12. ↑ Leo Niehorster: German Airforce, Order of Battle, 5th Air Fleet, Air Commander North, June 22, 1941. October 28, 1999, accessed on January 6, 2017 (English). 
13. ^ Leo Niehorster: German Airforce, Order of Battle, 3rd Air Fleet, IX Air Corps, June 22, 1941. October 1, 2010, accessed on January 6, 2017 (English). 
14. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Sea War 1939–1945, March 1942. Accessed on January 6, 2017 . 
15. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronik des Maritime War 1939–1945, April 1942. Accessed on January 6, 2017 . 
16. ↑ Percy E. Schramm : War Diary of the High Command of the Wehrmacht 1942. Volume 2, Bernard & Graefe Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Bonn, ISBN 3-7637-5933-6 , p. 1417.
17. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronik des Maritime War 1939–1945, May 1942. Retrieved January 6, 2017 . 
18. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Sea War 1939–1945, July 1942. Retrieved on January 6, 2017 . 
19. ↑ Ulf Balke, p. 390.
20. ↑ Wolfgang Dierich, p. 120.

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