Night Fighter Squadron 5

Night Fighter Squadron 5
The uniform squadron coat of arms of all night fighter squadrons. It shows an eagle plunging down from the night sky on England with a red lightning bolt.
active	September 1942 to May 8, 1945
Country	German Empire
Armed forces	Wehrmacht
Armed forces	air force
Branch of service	Air force
Type	Jagdgeschwader
structure	Squadron staff and 4 groups
Insinuation	4th hunting division 3rd hunting division
equipment	Bf 110 , Do 217 , Ju 88
Second World War	Invasion front Ardennes offensive Battle of Berlin
Squadron commodors
First commodore	Major Fritz Schaffer

The Nachtjagdgeschwader 5 was a squadron of the Luftwaffe in World War II , which was primarily set up and used for night hunting in 1942 . Initially deployed in East German airspace, the squadron flew missions on the invasion front in 1944 and then in the Ardennes offensive . Then it was deployed again on the Eastern Front , where the squadron was used in the Battle of Berlin . At the end of April 1945 the squadron in Schleswig-Holstein was disbanded.

Squadron history

Lineup

At the end of September 1942, the squadron staff of the future NJG 5 was set up in Döberitz . Also in September 1942, the I. Group was set up in Stendal , whose personnel came from the II. Group of Destroyer Squadron 2 . Group II was set up in Parchim in December 1942 . A fourth group of the NJG 5, which was also set up in Lechfeld and Leipheim in December 1942 , was immediately renamed the I group of the Nachtjagdgeschwader 100 . In April 1943 the III. Group set up in Neuruppin . In August 1943, a fourth group was reorganized in Brandis and Erfurt . Also in the summer of 1943 a fifth group was established, stationed in Insterburg and Powunden near Königsberg . In the autumn of 1943, Luftbeobachterstaffel 1 from Neuruppin also joined the squadron. In terms of use, the squadron was subordinated to the 4th Fighter Division , later the 3rd Fighter Division. The wing recognition was C 9.

Calls

Spring 1944

After being set up, the individual groups flew into the space assigned to them at their air bases in the Reich Air Defense. In January 1944, the Luftwaffe command decreed that all groups of NJG 5 only had to consist of two squadrons, a total of eight squadrons divided into four groups. In the spring of 1944, the squadron staff was transferred to Deelen . Group I came to Gütersloh , but was relocated to St. Dizier in May . The second group moved to Hagenau and then to Parndorf . However, the II. Group soon left the squadron and became the new III. Night Fighter Squadron Group 6 . The III. The squadron's group came to Mainz and was in Laon-Athies in May of the same year . The fifth group of the squadron was also transferred to Mainz , but contingents of this group from Stubendorf were also used to fight gangs . The fifth group was in Parchim in May 1944 , where it was soon renamed the new II. Group of NJG 5 after the old one had changed to NJG 6. The new II. Group then flew missions in the Gütersloh - Twente - Châteaudun- Haguenau area.

After the Allied landing in Normandy , the squadron flew missions on the invasion front there. After the collapse of the German fronts there, the squadron was detached from these missions and relocated to East Germany as a whole.

August 1944

In August 1944, the squadron staff was back in Parchim, the I. and III. Group in Wormditt , the 2nd group in Tailfingen , later Stendal and also Parchim. The fourth group was stationed in Powunden . All groups were used again in the defense of the Reich.

December 1944 until the end of the war

In December the squadron took part in the Ardennes offensive and in January 1945 in day slaughter missions in Poland , Silesia and East Prussia . The first group was in Parchim and the second group in Ohlau and Sagan. In February 1945, the I. and II. Groups were closed in Altenburg . The III. and IV. Group were responsible for the defense of Central Germany . There they were subordinate to the fighter pilot in Central Germany . Their air bases were in Langensalza , Erfurt , Kölleda and in Dresden on the local airfield in Klotzsche . It is interesting to note that the units stationed in Dresden did not intervene in the air raids on Dresden in February 1945. At the end of February 1945, the 1st and 2nd groups were relocated to Altenburg .

On March 6, 1945, night hunting group 10 was incorporated into NJG 5. Night Hunting Group 10, which was set up in Werneuchen on January 1, 1944 , initially flew Wilde-Sau operations with Bf 109 and Fw 190 with permanent personnel from Jagdgeschwader 300 . They were later converted to night hunting with Bf 110 and Ju 88 . The first squadron was formed by the Bonn Night Hunting Command. With the end of the war approaching, the squadron groups were pushed towards northern Germany. In April 1945 the I. group was in Redlin and the rest in Lübeck-Blankensee . Their last major missions took place during the Battle of Berlin , in which parts of the squadron were involved in night battle operations. The squadron was disbanded in the Schleswig-Holstein area at the end of April.

Last outline

The last structure of NJG 5 dates from the beginning of May 1945. However, Girbig's publication only gives the surnames of the group commanders. This results in the following structure:

group	Rank	Surname
I. group	Captain	Long
II group	Captain	Tham
III. group	Captain	pink
IV. Group	Captain	Bussmann

Squadron commodors

Lieutenant Colonel Walter Borchers , squadron commodore from March 1944 to March 1945

Between 1942 and 1945 the squadron was led by five Commodores:

Rank	Surname	date
major	Fritz Schaffer	September 30, 1942 to. August 1, 1943
Colonel	Günther Radusch	August 2, 1943 to February 3, 1944
major	Egmont Prince zu Lippe-Weissenfels	February 20, 1944 to March 12, 1944
Lieutenant colonel	Walter Borchers	March 15, 1944 to March 5, 1945
major	Rudolf Schönert	March 6, 1945 until dissolution

literature

• Wolfgang Dierich: The air force associations 1935-1945. Structure and short chronicles - a documentation. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1976.
• Kai Biermann , Erhard Cielewitz: Döberitz airfield. Birthplace of military aviation in Germany. Links-Verlag, 2005, ISBN 978-3-86153-371-9 .
• Ernst Obermaier: The Luftwaffe Knight's Cross bearers 1939–1945. Volume I, fighter pilot, Verlag Dieter Hoffmann, Mainz 1966.
• Werner Girbig: Start at dawn. A chronicle of the sinking of the German Jagdwaffe in the West in 1944/1945. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-613-01292-8 .
• Werner Girbig: On the approach to the Reich capital. Documentation of the bombing raids on Berlin. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 978-3-87943-172-4 .
• Alexander Steenbeck: The dark years. Lübeck-Blankensee Airport in the 1930s and 40s. Self-published, Lübeck 2009, 5th edition, ISBN 978-3-00-025748-3 .

Remarks

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Dierich, p. 70.
2. ↑ Biermann / Cielewitz, p. 144.
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Dierich, p. 71.
4. ↑ Dierich, p. 73.
5. ↑ Dierich, p. 74.
6. ^ Girbig: On the approach to the imperial capital. P. 62.
7. ↑ ^{a b c d} Girbig, Start at Dawn , p. 279.
8. ↑ Obermaier, p. 69.
9. ↑ Obermaier, p. 63.
10. ↑ Obermaier, p. 100.
11. ↑ Obermaier, p. 70.