Strana 42
BOXART STORY
The box art for September’s new release
depicts pilots of Stab II./JG 52 attacking a Soviet
Il-2 ground-attack aircraft in the closing weeks
of the war along the Hungarian–Austrian border.
The aircraft in the foreground is flown by Leutnant
Willy van de Kamp. He is serving as wingman,
a role known in Luftwaffe slang as Kaczmarek.
His leader is the commanding officer of
II./JG 52, Major Wilhelm Batz, who would end the
war with 237 aerial victories and was awarded
the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.
The wingman was indispensable to his
leader. In many cases, fighter pilots tasked
with protecting their leaders rarely had the
opportunity to score victories of their own.
At the beginning of his combat career, however,
Wilhelm Batz faced the opposite problem and
came close to leaving the fighter arm altogether.
When he joined II./JG 52 as a Leutnant in early
February 1943, the unit was flying Messerschmitt
Bf 109s on the southern sector of the Eastern
Front. Batz had spent years as a flying instructor
and had logged more than 5,000 flying hours, yet
at twenty-seven he was considered too old to
embark on a successful career as a fighter pilot.
He was appointed Adjutant to the commanding
officer of II./JG 52, then Hauptmann Johannes
Steinhoff, who had 151 victories to his credit.
The two shared a room and got on very well.
Batz rose early each morning, not only to study
the weather forecast and prepare combat
operations, but also because Steinhoff snored
appallingly. Once, as a joke, Batz even fastened
the Knight’s Cross around the sleeping Steinhoff’s
neck - a decoration associated with the slang
expression “throat disease”. Several other pilots
served with the Stab of II. Gruppe, among them
Leutnant Helmut Haberda, with 18 victories, and
Oberfeldwebel Heinrich Sturm, with ten. Batz
recalled this period in interviews with authors
T. J. Constable and R. F. Toliver in the mid-1960s.
He had no personal papers or notes to hand,
however, and some of the events he described
appear to have been misplaced by a year.
His introduction to combat was frustrating:
despite the numerous opportunities his leader
gave him, he was unable to score a victory. His
commanding officer summed up the situation
bluntly: “You are an excellent adjutant, but a bad
fighter.” Batz agreed without making excuses.
He even considered requesting a transfer to
a bomber unit, but his commander dismissed
the idea: “This is a fighter wing. You stay here. If
the victories don´t come today, possibly they will
come tomorrow.” Batz then fell ill and was forced
to watch the air fighting from the ground for
a fortnight. The experience helped him develop
the combat instincts he still lacked as a novice
fighter pilot, despite being an experienced
airman who had joined the Luftwaffe back in 1935.
His first victory came on 11 March 1943, when
he claimed a LaGG-3; two days later, he added
a Boston bomber. At the end of March, command
of the Gruppe changed hands. Steinhoff left to
take command of JG 77, then fighting in Africa,
and Hauptmann Helmut Kühle, who flew very few
combat sorties, took over in an acting capacity.
During April and early May 1943, Wilhelm Batz
added another five victories to his tally, while
a further claim went unconfirmed. By his own
account, it was his seniority rather than his
combat experience that secured his appointment
on 9 May as commander of 5./JG 52, part of
II./JG 52.
Among its pilots the 5. Staffel included
experienced fighters such as the previously
mentioned Haberda, whose tally had by then
reached 58 victories, Fw. Viktor Petermann, with
37, and Fw. Otto Fönnekold, with 18.
However, Batz gradually caught up with
other JG 52 aces, and by the end of 1943 his
score stood at 75 victories. He claimed his
100th on 22 March 1944 and was awarded the
Knight’s Cross four days later. In mid-April 1944,
he was appointed commander of III./JG 52, and
on 17 August he recorded his 200th victory.
He returned to II./JG 52 on 1 February 1945, while
the unit was operating in Hungary, this time as
its commanding officer.
The most successful day of his combat career
was 31 May 1944, during the fighting in Romania.
In seven combat sorties, he claimed fifteen
Soviet aircraft shot down. The question remains,
however, how many aircraft his opponents
actually lost.
Some indication is provided by Ivan
Lavrinenko’s analysis of II./JG 52’s victory
claims during its operations over Crimea in 1943
and 1944, published jointly with Paul Stipdonk.
Wilhelm Batz claimed a total of 63 victories in
this theatre, but only nine Soviet aircraft losses
can be attributed to him with certainty. A further
nine Soviet aircraft may have fallen to Batz,
although other Luftwaffe pilots could also have
been responsible.
Text: Jan Bobek
Illustration: Piotr Forkasiewicz
The Kaczmarek
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INFO Eduard42
September 2026