KITS 02/2023

WNr. 681382, Hptm. Wilhelm Moritz, Stab IV./JG 3, Schongau, Germany, August 1944

Wilhelm Moritz was born on June 29, 1913, in Hamburg

and joined the German army in 1933. He was assigned

to the air force and went through fighter pilot training.

The beginning of the war found him flying the twin-engine Bf 110 with II./ZG 1. In the summer of 1940 he

was reassigned to 6./JG 77 and in April 1942, he served

as CO of 11./JG 1. In September 1942, he was transferred to JG 51 on the Eastern Front where he would

go on to shoot down twenty-five aircraft. On October

19, 1943, he was made Staffelkapitän of 6./JG 3. JG 3

was a component of the fighter network tasked with

the defense of the Reich (Reichsverteidigung) and on

April 18, 1944, Wilhelm Moritz became the CO of its IV.

Gruppe. The Gruppe specialized in the use of heavily

armed and armored single-engine fighters against

Allied four-engine bombers. He was relieved of his co-

mmand of IV. Gruppe on December 5, 1944, following

a nervous breakdown. After convalescence he took

over command of the Luftwaffe replacement training

unit IV./EJG 1. He found his way back to a combat unit

before the war ended, becoming CO of II./JG 4 on April

18, 1945, a post he held till the end of the war. He is

credited with the downing of 44 enemy aircraft in total. He was awarded the Knight’s Cross on July 18, 1944.

WNr. 680747, Oblt. Hans Weik, CO of 10.(Sturm)/JG 3, Memmingen, Germany, June 1944

Hans Weik was born on July 6, 1922, in Heilbronn and joined the Luftwaffe in October 1941. After completing training, he was assigned to JG 3 on February 21, 1943, and

sent to the Eastern front where he shot down ten Soviet

aircraft. From May to November he served as an instructor at 4./JGr Ost and there he gained his first kill of a B-17

bomber. He was subsequently transferred to 9./JG 3 and

on February 10, 1944, he was promoted to Commanding

Officer position of 10. Staffel JG 3, where he achieved 23

kills. Twenty of them were four-engine heavy bombers.

He was awarded the Knight’s Cross for his achievements

on July 27, 1944. In April 1945 he was assigned to III./EJG

2, where he was retrained for Me 262. After the war, Hans

Weik studied architecture and was responsible for the

design of many structures. During retirement years he

dedicated his time to ship modelling and died on June 5,

2001, in Heidenheim an der Brenz. The aircraft flown by

Weik carried the markings of IV. Gruppe JG 3, i.e., a black

engine cowl and a stylized Adlerflügel on the sides of the

fuselage. The rear fuselage sports a white fuselage band

that was common to JG 3 aircraft within the structure

of the Defense of the Reich units. On these aircraft, the

wave sign denoted the IV. Gruppe. The rudder carries victory markings up to June 1944.

Hptm. Gerhard Schröder, CO of II.(Sturm)/JG 4, Welzow, Germany, September 1944

The death of Obstlt. Hans-Günther von Kornatzki allowed

8. Staffel CO Hptm. Gerhard Schröder to take command

of II./JG 4 on September 12, 1944. Kornatzki died in a failed emergency landing attempt that ended in high voltage

transmission lines. Schröder was thirty-two years old at

46

INFO Eduard

the time and remained Gruppe commander until the beginning of March 1945, when he was replaced by the cured

Maj. Wilhelm Moritz. He held the post until the end of the

World War II. Historians generally assert that the reason for

the change of the II. Gruppe command was the poor showing

of the unit during Operation Bodenplatte. The aircraft was

camouflaged in the standard colors of RLM 74/75/76 and

carried the JG 4 emblem on the nose and JG 4’s Defense of

the Reich identifier in the form of black-white-black fuselage bands ahead of the tail surfaces.

February 2023