KITS 11/2023

Oblt. Otto Kittel, CO of 3./JG 54, Riga-Skulte, Latvia, August 1944

Otto Kittel was born on February 21, 1917, to

German parents in Korunov (German: Kronsdorf,

since 1945 Krasov) near Jägerndorf (Krnov) in

Austria-Hungary. Kittel was apprenticed as a car

mechanic in Mladá Boleslav, partly learned Czech

and joined the Luftwaffe in 1939. He completed

his first combat deployment during the fighting

in Yugoslavia in the ranks of 2./JG 54, which was

deployed in the advance on Leningrad during

the attack on the USSR. On June 24, 1941, Otto

Kittel scored his first two aerial victories, and

on September 14, 1943, he achieved his 100th

kill. In March 1944 he became CO of 3./JG 54 and

in May he received his personal Fw 190 A-7,

the only machine of this version that was in

the armament of I./JG 54. Kittel achieved over

100 victories with his A-7 and the aircraft was lost

in combat in December 1944 during Kittel's leave.

He was killed on February 16, 1945, in combat

with a formation of four Il-2s from 502 ShAP near

Džūkste, Latvia. He shot down 267 enemy aircraft

during World War II, all on the Eastern Front.

This result places him 4th in the Luftwaffe’s

fighter ace rankings.

6./JG 300, Holzkirchen, Germany, July 1944

JG 300 was initially tasked with nighttime

interception of Allied bombers headed to targets

in occupied Europe as was the case with her sister

unit JG 301 as well. However, at the beginning

of 1944, attention shifted to daylight operations.

A red band around the rear of the fuselage was the

marking of the JG 300s in the rapid identification

system of fighter units. The II. Gruppe of the

44

INFO Eduard

unit was formed in July 1943 and equipped with

heavily armed and armored Fw 190A-8/R2s or

R8s in the summer of 1944. But the unit also

received 30 A-7s between January and July. The

Yellow 18 has the JG 300 emblem painted on the

engine cowling. The commander of the 6./JG 300

from March 1944 was Oblt. Ernst-Erich Hirschfeld,

who originally served in the Flak, after pilot and

fighter training briefly flew with II./JG 54 on the

Eastern Front and in August 1943 signed up for

night deployment with JG 300. Until his death on

July 28, 1944, he achieved 24 victories, 14 of which

were four-engine bombers shot down by day and

eight by night. He was posthumously awarded the

Knight’s Cross in October 1944.

November 2023