Kampfgeschwader 50
|
Kampfgeschwader 50 |
|
|---|---|
| active | July 1942 to October 25, 1943 |
| Country |
.svg){kind=small} German Empire
|
| Armed forces | Wehrmacht |
| Armed forces | air force |
| Branch of service | Air force |
| Type | Combat Squadron |
| structure | 1 group |
| Location | I. Brandenburg-Briest group |
| equipment | Heinkel He 177 , Junkers Ju 88 |
| Second World War | Battle of Stalingrad |
The Kampfgeschwader 50 was an association of the Luftwaffe in World War II .
Lineup
The I. Group with the 1st to 3rd squadron was formed in July 1942 on the Brandenburg-Briest airfield ( Lage ) from the 10th squadron of Kampfgeschwader 40 . At the same time, a fourth (supplementary) season was set up. These four squadrons were the first to be equipped with the new Heinkel He 177 and were supposed to test and further develop this four-engine combat aircraft. Some of the He 177 came from the Arado Flugzeugwerke's assembly plant near the airfield . Other groups and a KG 50 squadron staff did not exist. The squadron identification was E8.
history
The 1st group and the 4th (supplementary) squadron operated from their formation until December 1942 from Brandenburg-Briest and Værløse in Denmark. The aim of these first months of its existence was to test the four-engine Heinkel He 177, which still had many technical problems. Due to the precipitous events in the south of the Eastern Front , the I. Group moved with 27 He 177A-1s and 2 Junkers Ju 88A-4s in December 1942 to Zaporizhia , in the south of the Soviet Union. From there she participated in the air supply of the Stalingrad pocket. The group commander, Major Kurt Scheede , fell on the first emergency deployment . Since it quickly became apparent that the He 177 was unsuitable as a supply aircraft, the crews carried out pure bombing missions in support of the army. At the end of January 1943 they returned to Brandenburg-Briest. In total, she had to complain about 3 total losses due to enemy action and 5 total losses without enemy influence.
In the first half of 1943, the group trained with the new Henschel Hs 293 , a radio-controlled glide bomb , which was intended primarily for use against ships.
On October 25, 1943, the I. Group of Kampfgeschwader 50 changed with their 14 He 177A-1 and 2 He 177A-3 as II. Group to Kampfgeschwader 40. The 4th (supplementary) squadron with its 6 He 177A-1 changed their designation in 17th (additional) squadron of Kampfgeschwader 40.
Under the new squadron and group designation, a He 177 sank the British troop transport Rohna ( Lage ) off the Algerian coast on November 26, 1943 with a glide bomb HS 293 . The ship sank within an hour and with it about 1138 people, including 1015 US soldiers. Eight of the attacking Heinkel He 177s were shot down.
Group commanders
| Rank | Surname | time |
|---|---|---|
| major | Kurt Scheede | July 1943 to December 1943 |
| major | Heinrich Schlosser | January 1943 to October 1943 |
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
- ↑ Manfred Griehl, Joachim Dressel: Heinkel He 177-277-274. A documentation of aviation history. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1989, p. 81.
- ↑ Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Sea War 1939–45, November 1943. Retrieved on May 11, 2019 .
Map with all coordinates: