BUILT

Fw 190A-4, Maj. H. von Bonin, CO of JG 54, Pskov,

Soviet Union, Spring 1943

Future ace with 77 kills to his credit, Hubertus von Bonin was born on August 3rd, 1911

in Potsdam. As a fighter pilot, he already saw

combat with the Legion Condor in the Spanish

Civil War. His combat career would continue,

first as a member of 5./JG 26, and later as

CO of I./JG 54. From October 1st, 1944 he

commanded III./JG 52. On November 17th,

1942 he was awarded the Knight‘s Cross after having claimed his 51st kill. He would only

enjoy the honour for a little over a year, as

on December 15th, 1943, by then as the CO

of JG 54 Grunherz, he was shot down flying an

Fw 190A-5 near the town of Gorodok. He was

the victim of Soviet pilots flying the P-39.

JG 54 aircraft were camouflaged in a somewhat atypical scheme, still not fully understood today. In all likelihood, the schemes consisted of RLM 70 in combination with RLM 71

or RLM 02, and possibly even with the use

of captured Soviet paint stocks. The bottom

wingtips, the lower part of the rudder and the

fuselage band, in the case of JG 54 coinciding

with the location of the fuselage Balkenkreuz,

were in yellow, the identifying colour of aircraft serving on the Eastern Front.

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INFO Eduard - December 2017

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