Combat Group 88

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Combat group 88
(K / 88)

Lineup November 1936 to June 1939
Country German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire Franco-Spain
Spain 1938Spain 
Type Group (air force)
insignia
Relay badge
K / 88, VB / 88
Stuka / 88
Eagle swooping with bomb
pig Jolanthe

The Kampfgruppe 88 (K / 88) was a German bomber formation . Together with Jagdgruppe 88 (J / 88), the group was the largest unit of the Condor Legion , which took part in the Spanish Civil War on Franco's side and, despite its comparatively modest size, made a significant contribution to the victory over the Spanish Republic . The nominal squadron strength was initially ten bombers.

The units of the Luftwaffe of the Wehrmacht, equipped with multi-engine bombers, were usually referred to as combat squadrons or groups. An exception is the test bomber squadron 88 (VB / 88) of the Condor Legion , which has existed for a few months . This unit was formally independent of the K / 88. However, it operated closely with the seasons of the latter and went on later as the 4th season in this, which is why it is included here.

The single-engine dive bombers ("Stuka"), which were used in small quantities, were a specialty. At times these also belonged to the J / 88 ( see there ), but ultimately they formed an independent part of the K / 88 as Stuka 88.

history

The origins of the battle group 88 extend into the period before the formation of the actual Legion Condor up to the August 1936 back when first six in Tablada located Ju-52 / 3m were converted into auxiliary bombers. The first bombing attack took place on the battleship Jaime I , which was moored in Málaga , and in the weeks that followed, the Ju-52 / 3m flew attacks across the country on government forces.

According to the official list of the Condor Legion on November 7, 31 additional Ju-52 / 3m to Spain were transferred, with whom three seasons (excl. Of a rod machine) were set up, in addition to the supply base Tablada on the airport Salamanca San Fernando were . The first bombing raid flew the 2nd (2nd K / 88) and 3rd Squadron (3rd K / 88) on the port of Cartagena , a replenishment base of the republic for supplies from the supporting Soviet Union and in December 1936 the group was already operating on all fronts.

During the winter, the focus of operations was on central Spain, in addition to the siege of Madrid also, for example, in the battle of Guadalajara , it shifted north in the spring of 1937 . The main place of operation there was Burgos Airport . During this time, on April 26th, the notorious air raid on Gernika took place together with bombers from the Italian Aviazione Legionaria , which became a beacon of war in the world public. At the end of April, the 3.K / 88 also received the first modern Heinkel He 111 , but the Ju-52 / 3m formed the backbone of the group for a few months.

In July 1937, the Condor Legion left their deployment sites in the north for a few weeks and moved to central Spain to intervene in the Battle of Brunete . The K / 88 flew its attacks from Salamanca-Matacán and from Ávila . Also in July the crews of the VB / 88 set up the 4th Squadron (4th K / 88), which was equipped with brand-new He-111s. During the same period, the 1.K / 88 also upgraded to the new type.

After returning to the north, in addition to Burgos, the bombers were temporarily also on the Herrera de Pisuerga field airfields and the neighboring Calohorra de Boedo, the Spanish national offensive on Santander began in August . At the end of the month, the 4.J / 88 took over the remaining crews of the disbanded VB / 88 and the following offensive was Gijón , the last major city on the north coast, which was still held by the Republicans. The three He-111 squadrons flew their attacks from the recently captured Santander-La Albericia airport , while the last Ju-52 / 3m of the 2.J / 88 were only used as auxiliary bombers on secondary war theaters in other parts of the country.

After Franco's conquest of Gijón, southern Aragon was to become the next operational area, for which the K / 88 first moved to La Rasa and later to Saragossa-Sanjurjo . In the course of the Battle of Teruel , the 2.J / 88 converted to the He-111 as the last squadron of the group in January 1938, which was in Alfaro during the last weeks of the battle .

For the subsequent advance of the Spanish nationalists on the Mediterranean coast , the K / 88 initially returned to La Rasa, but subsequently operated from Sanjurjo, which became the main base of the group in the second half of the war, with Alfaro repeatedly being used as a second station. The usual tactical missions against targets close to the front were briefly interrupted in April 1938: Another bomb attack on the republican supply port of Cartagena was flown from Tablada on April 16. The further missions until early summer served to support Franco's further advance along the coast towards Valencia.

Due to the last major offensive of the republican troops on the lower reaches of the Ebros, started at the end of July 1938 and the resulting Ebro battle , the focus of operations shifted to southern Catalonia. The usual tactical targets particularly included the river crossings, some of which were repeatedly destroyed and repaired. The Móra Bridge was bombed in 34 and interrupted five times, the Ginestar was interrupted eight times after 32 attacks. The staff machines also regularly took part in the combat missions, they were sometimes referred to as "5th Squadron". After the end of the Battle of the Ebro, most of the enemy flights continued until the complete conquest of Catalonia in the east of the country and in preparation for the offensive on Madrid, which was ultimately no longer necessary, the last combat missions took place in the center of the country in spring 1939.

Stuka 88

The Stuka chain was special in that only a small number of aircraft were field tested in Spain. The first field trials of new types took place in the autumn of 1936 from Jerez ( Heinkel He 50 , Henschel Hs 123 ) and Tablada Junkers Ju 87 .

At the beginning of April 1937, the 2.K / 88 took over the Hs-123 of the disbanded Versuchsjagdgruppe 88 (VJ / 88), in which the single-seater Henschels continued to be tested as a separate Stuka 88 chain for a few months. In the early summer of 1937, the remaining machines were handed over to the Aviación Nacional (Spanish national air force), the future belonged to the two-seater Ju-87.

The first three emergency aircraft, the Ju-87A, did not arrive until January 1938 and initially formed the 5th squadron of the J / 88 set up for this purpose . In July 1937 the Ju-87 chain was subordinated directly to the K / 88 as the (second) Stuka 88. During the Battle of the Ebro, the Stuka chain, now reinforced by two more Ju-87A, was often used together with the He-111 horizontal bombers, especially against the Ebro bridges.

In October 1938 the unit was converted to five new Ju-87Bs, which, like the He-111, mostly operated from Sanjurjo. In January 1939, freighters were attacked in the port of Tarragona and the last missions took place in the spring of 1939 against targets in the center of the country.

Experimental bomber squadron 88

The appearance of faster Soviet-style fighters on the Republican side at the end of 1936 forced the much slower Ju-52 / 3m to operate at night. It was therefore decided to immediately test the latest developments in the German aviation industry in Spain in combat. The command of the test bomber squadron 88 (VB / 88), which was independent of the K / 88 , was entrusted to Oberleutnant von Moreau , the most experienced pilot of multi-engine aircraft in Spain.

After he and some of the most experienced crews of the 1.K / 88 had been retrained in Germany in early 1937, four He-111B, Do-17E and Ju-86D each arrived in Spain in mid-February. The VB / 88 flew its first missions from Salamanca, the last 10 days of March from the new airfield in Matacán. At the end of the month the VB / 88 followed the K / 88 to Burgos in the north, where from then on it was used in parallel with the latter. During the Battle of Brunete, the squadron was again in Salamanca for the last three weeks of July and returned to Burgos at the end of the month to prepare the ground offensive against Santander together with the rest of the Condor Legion.

In July 1937, under Lieutenant von Moreau, a first part of the VB / 88 had already been transferred to the newly established 4th K / 88 and at the end of August 1937 the final dissolution of this test unit took place. The “heavy” He-111 bombers were assigned to Kampfgruppe 88, while the “light” Do-17s were assigned to Reconnaissance Squadron 88 . The Ju-86 had not proven itself, the remaining copies received the Aviación Nacional .

Balance sheet

The Condor Legion used a total of 105 Ju-52 / 3m (nickname "Pablo") and 82 He-111 ("Pedro") of different series (B, E). Many aircraft were lost, around a quarter of the Ju-52s and 49 He-111s. The losses from enemy influence exceeded those from accidents. The majority of the operations took place against tactical targets, such as troop assemblies, material supplies and infrastructure facilities close to the front or in the rear area of ​​the front.

However, civilian targets were also destroyed, the deadliest of these operations being on Gernika. Occasionally, strategic targets, such as the ports further inland, through which the military supplies of the Spanish Republic, mainly from the Soviet Union, were landed, were bombed.

River crossings proved to be difficult to destroy targets: The Ebro Battle of 1938, in which the modern He-111 were already used, showed that only a small percentage of the attacks reached the target. Even in the attack on the bridge in Gernika in 1937, which on the German side was mainly flown with the Ju-52 / 3m converted into auxiliary bombers, the bridge was not destroyed.

As in many subsequent wars, air strikes were the basis for the subsequent success of the ground forces . The first targets were the opposing military airfields after (in the best case) elimination of the opposing air force to weaken their land forces for the following ground attack. The last example of this strategy was the civil war in Libya (2011) , in which the intervention of foreign air forces created the basis for the victory over Gaddafi.

On Franco's side, in addition to the Condor Legion, the Italian Aviazione Legionaria and the Spanish National Air Force also flew . In the course of the war, the latter received many used aircraft from the Condor Legion with a high number of flight hours. As the war progressed, more and more Spaniards served in the K / 88; the first arrived in early August 1938.

Known relatives

Group commanders

  • Major Robert Fuchs , November 1, 1936 to August 15, 1937
  • Major Carl von Wechmar,? to ?
  • Major Karl Mehnert,? until September 1938
  • Major Friedrich Härle, September 1938 to March 1939, was killed in the explosion of his He-111 in the Madrid / Vicalvano area
  • Major Andreas Nielsen , March 21 to June 30, 1939

Squadron captains of the 1st season

  • First Lieutenant Heinz Liegnitz, November to December 1936, was killed when his machine was shot down
  • First lieutenant, December 1936 to October 1937
  • Captain Heinz Trettner , October to December 1937
  • Captain Hans Schulz , December 1937 to July 1938
  • Captain Karl-Heinrich Heyse, July to November 1938
  • First Lieutenant Ernst Püttmann, November 1938 to June 1939

Squadron captains of the 2nd season

  • First Lieutenant Michael (?) Brasser, November 1936 to March 1937
  • First Lieutenant Hans-Henning Freiherr von Beust , March to December 1937
  • First Lieutenant Rolf Schröter, December 1937 to September 1938
  • Captain Kurt-Eckhard Allolio, September 1938 to spring 1939
  • Captain Horst Freiherr Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels , spring to June 1939

Squadron captains of the 3rd season

  • Captain Ehrhardt, November 1936 to June 1937
  • First Lieutenant Adolf Koch, June to August 1937
  • First Lieutenant Wolfgang Schlenkhoff, August 1937 to January 1938
  • Captain Heinz Fisher, January to September 1938
  • Lieutenant Thilo von Janson, September-October 1938 came in the explosion of his He-111 in the area of La Fatarella killed
  • Captain Friedrich Winkler, November 1938 to June 1939

Squadron captains of the 4th season

  • Oberleutnant Rudolf Freiherr von Moreau , July to November 1937 (was the first commander of the Ju-52 / 3m contingent in Spain from July 1936 before the Condor Legion was set up in November 1936, from which the K / 88 also emerged, see also VB / 88 below)
  • Captain Wolfgang Neudörffer, November 1937 to May 1938 (see also VB / 88 below)
  • Captain Karl-Heinrich Heyse, May 1938 to July 1938

Others

Stuka 88

  • First Lieutenant Fritz Glanser, July 1938 to January 1939
  • Lieutenant Hein Bohne, January to June 1939

Experimental bomber squadron 88

literature

  • Raúl Arias Ramos, Lucas Molina Franco: Alemanes en la Guerra Civil. la Legión Cóndor. Tikala, Madrid 2011, ISBN 978-84-9928-075-2 .
  • Patrick Laureau: Legion Condor. The Luftwaffe in Spain 1936–1939. Hikoki, Ottringham 2000, ISBN 1-902109-10-4 .