The Kaczmarek
Text: Jan Bobek
Illustration: Piotr Forkasiewicz
Cat. No. 70166
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.