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
29