BOXART STORY

#8188

By order of the Reichsbahn

Text: Jan Bobek

Illustration: Antonis Karydis

The legendary JV 44 under the command

of Adolf Galland flew most of its operations

in the south of Germany from the base at

Munich-Riem. Through April 1945, the unit’s

pilots racked up some sixty kills. The role of

the unit in terms of results is negligible but

is significant in terms of illustrating the incredible conditions that existed in the Third

Reich at the end of the war.

The jet powered Me 262 were most vulnerable during take-off and landing. Aircraft

of JV 44 were no different, because during

low speeds, the Me 262 was more difficult

to control, and the throttle had to be treated with a gentle respect, or the result could

be a stalled engine or a fire. During the final

phases of the war, it was standard practice

for jet aircraft to be covered by piston engined planes during these critical flight phases. As a result, JV 44 organized a protective

flight using Fw 190 Ds under the leadership

of Heino Sachsenberg, an ace with 104 kills.

Sachsenberg was a logical choice. He certainly didn’t lack bold nerve, and he had

several year-long experience fighting fast

flying enemy fighters at low altitudes. His pilots also had to contend with another danger

- friendly ground fire. According to the memoirs of Johannes Steinhoff, a good chunk

of crews of the anti-aircraft artillery at Riem

were women. There was no real effort to

distinguish between friendly and enemy aircraft. The Me 262 did enjoy relative security

in this respect due to its distinctive silhouette and engine noise. Perhaps this was why

December 2022

the bottom surfaces of the Doras of JV 44

were painted red on the bottom, with white

stripes.

The duties of Sachsenberg’s protective flight

were largely improvised. His pilots couldn’t communicate directly with the Me 262

pilots. They simply took off and circled the

field at low altitudes until the jets were safely on their way. Usually, there were two

Fw 190 Ds in the air, but, as an exception,

Riem was circled by four.

Problems began when the jets returned. For

them to set down as quickly as possible, there must not have been anything in their way.

The Focke-Wulfs always had to land before

the Me 262s. This left their jet colleagues to

land without the protective cover and dependant on their skill, luck and field AAA.

Sachsenberg’s -190s were covered in their

shelters at the northern edge of the airfield, and his pilots weren’t too close to the

remaining JV 44 pilots. Up to now, there

are five known Fw 190 Ds that served with

JV 44. This is the case with Red ‘3’, which

was assigned to Hptm. Waldemar Wübke.

Apparently, this notorious prankster and

Sachsenberg understood each other quite

well, and on his aircraft, he reiterated the

inscription from his previous aircraft as far

back as 1940. The motto was "Im Auftrage der Reichsbahn", which translates as

"on behalf…" or "by order of the Reichsbahn".

This inscription, sometimes with a winged

wheel, appeared on several Wübke´s aircraft. After an emergency landing in 1940,

Wübke had to return to his unit by train, which

caused his colleagues considerable amusement. So, he made fun of himself with the inscription. The design of the text on his Fw 190

D-9 was not known for a long time. The first

to publish conclusive photographs of Wübke's Dora with the motto was the recently

deceased American author, Jerry Crandall.

In his last publication, Fighters of the Iron

Cross, this author published a unique JV44

document with a list of aircrew and their

functions, identifying the fifth member of the

Platzschutz flight. He was Major Wilhelm

Steinmann, an ace with 44 victories and holder of the Knight's Cross. The inscription on

his Fw 190 D-11 “Red 2” is not yet known. But

I believe it will turn up in some collection or

archive in years to come. Additional airmen

who served in this protection flight were

Lt. Karl-Heinz Hoffmann and Oblt. Klaus Faber. Interestingly airman Bodo Dirschauer,

who was speculated to have also served

with the Sachsenberg flight, isn’t mentioned at all in this document. The first time

I wrote about JV 44 in Eduard INFO was in

issue 06/2010 and the second time in issue

11/2010. There is hardly anything to correct

in the texts, but it is interesting to see how

Eduard INFO magazine has changed in these

12 years.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank

Jerry Crandall once again for his life's work,

and I wish his wife Judy all the best in her

continued editorship of Eagle Editions.

INFO Eduard

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