BOXART STORY

#84116

Text: Jan Bobek

Illustration: Antonis Karydis

Landing on the island

In one of the Boxart Stories in the last

issue of Eduard INFO magazine, I mentioned the formation of I./JG 1, which became

one of the key fighter groups in the Defence

of the Reich during the second half of the

War. With the cover of Fw 190 A-8 October

release, we are getting back to this unit.

Also, the pilot whose aircraft is depicted on

the boxart is not mentioned in our kits for

the first time. It is Lt. Heinz-Günther Lück.

He was born on February 13, 1921, in Duisburg. After pilot and fighter training, he was

assigned as a Feldwebel to JG 1 in August

1942. At the end of the year, he was promoted to the rank of Leutnant and served

briefly with 2./JG 1. But in July 1943, he was

assigned to 1./JG 1. He scored a total of six

aerial victories over B-17 bombers; one

them was recorded as shared. He scored

his first kill on July 26, 1943, near Emden.

Lück’s combat career ended on April 9,

1944, while fighting an American air raid

that was heading for Pomerania and occupied Poland. The Americans sent 542 bombers with fighter escorts over the continent. Their route took them over the North

Sea and Denmark, and the crews faced

very bad weather. Only 402 B-24s and B-17s made it over the target, accompanied

by 719 Thunderbolt, Mustang and Lightning

fighters. Bombardment groups lost 32

machines and 177 were damaged. Bomber gunners claimed 45 certain victories,

eight probable and reported also further

14 German machines as damaged. Escort

October 2022

fighters claimed 20 certain kills and lost

ten aircraft.

Germans sent 356 single-engine fighters

and 56 twin-engine fighters against the

raid. But only 232 made it to contact enemy.

After the fight, they wrote off 27 fighters

and lost 14 airmen killed or missing.

Fw 190 pilots of I. and II./JG 1 formed a battle group that managed to make a concentrated attack on a formation of sixty

Liberators. The Americans were initially without fighter cover, but soon Thunderbolts

intervened. They were engaged not only

by Focke-Wulf pilots, but also by their colleagues in the lighter Bf 109 Gs of III./JG 1,

which provided fighter escort. JG 1 fighters

reported ten victories over bombers and

three in combat with American fighters. In

the process they themselves lost four Fw

190s, two of their pilots were killed and two

were wounded. One of them was Lt. Lück.

During the fight, the engine of his White

14 was hit by defensive fire from the bombers. He had to look for a place to make

an emergency landing, and the opportunity presented itself on the Danish Island

of Ærø. Flying with him was another colleague in White 3 aircraft which suffered

a technical problem. They circled the island for a while to find a suitable landing

site and finally landed near Stokkeby. Lück

crashed into a small dike and injured his

head on the dashboard. He was taken to

hospital in Ærøskøbing with a concussion.

However, this was not his first injury. He

first had to be treated after a motorcycle

accident on November 30, 1943, near

Deelen in the Netherlands.

His Fw 190 A-8 W. Nr. 170050 was dismantled after a few days and transported

to the mainland. It was manufactured by

Focke-Wulf in Cottbus in February 1944 and

originally bore the factory marking DU+KX.

This machine was flown to I./JG 1 on April

3 by Uffz. Helmut Riehl, a pilot from 2./JG 1.

The machine was assigned to 1./JG 1 and,

in addition to the fuselage number, was given a red stripe on the rear fuselage, which

was an element of JG 1’s rapid identification system for Luftwaffe fighter units. When

Lück made his emergency landing, the aircraft still did not have the JG 1 emblem with

the winged red 1 on the engine cowling.

It was one of the first A-8s that I./JG 1 received. Until March 1944, it used mainly

A-4, A-6 and A-7 versions. During April

1944, I./JG 1 received a total of 34 Fw 190

A-8 fighters but lost eight during the same

month. April was the month that brought

the heaviest losses yet for I./JG 1, losing 24

aircraft in combat. Worse times were yet

to come in July 1944 during the fighting in

Normandy this unit had 30 fighters destroyed by the enemy and even 37 during the

fighting in December.

Lt. Heinz-Günther Lück, wounded in an

emergency landing, did not return to combat duty and served in various staff positions. His unfortunate landing apparently

saved his life.

INFO Eduard

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