And now something different:

German BoB aces:



1. Oblt. Helmut Wick, 42 kills
(I./JG 2)

2. Maj. Adolf "Dolfo" Galland,35 kills
( III./JG 26, Stab JG 26 )

3 Hptm. Walter Oesau, 34 kills
(III./JG 51)

4. Maj. Werner "Vati" Mölders, 28 kiils
(Stab JG 51)

5. Oblt. Hermann-Friedrich Joppien, 26 kills
I./JG 51


http://www.luftwaffe.cz/bob.html

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Heh heh...

What´s wrong with this picture....



Luftwaffe on 1 January 1945 sorta?? Every plane up...



http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~pitroad/s19.jpg

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Nothing wrong with the second pic Kai--thats just a squadron from the Finnish Air Force.

But seriously, I have a nice Heinrich Hoffmann press foto of the then: Hauptmann Wick standing side-by-side with Hitler just after Hitler has presented him with his Oak Leaves at The Berghoff. In about 3 months after that pic was taken--Hauptmann Wick was listed as Missing in Action.

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Lost are only those, who abandon themselves) Hans-Ulrich Rudel.

Air intake on wrong side?

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American by birth, TEXAN by the grace of GOD!

This is a trick question right ? Luftwaffe identification for the young at heart ?

Where's the Ju 88G-6 if speaking about 1-1-45 ?

and that must be a rocket assisted Ju 52 correct ?

Those are great and rare pictures! All them seemed pretty nice to me! And I, of course, could not notice all the errors in their insignia... [img]smile.gif[/img]

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Different places of Nachtjagd in Europe:

http://www.ahost4u.com/~pauke/places/

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Women of the Third Reich:

http://www.ndepublishing.com/reviews_hist.html

Women of the Third Reich by Anna Maria Sigmund

It might be hard to imagine it now, but Adolf Hitler was once a woman charmer. As early as 1923, German newspapers wrote about Hitler's many female patrons and admirers and about how women would pawn their jewellery and raid their husbands' bank accounts for him. When the Nazi party was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1926, Hitler exerted his influence over Elsa Bruckmann, the wife of a wealthy Munich publisher, who persuaded her husband to pay Hitler's debts and take on his personal expenses as well.



Although Braun was devoted to Hitler and wanted nothing more than to marry him --- which he finally did the day before they died --- she rebelled against the restrictions he placed on women. "The publicized image of the German woman also left her cold. She spoke up only once, in January, 1943, upset over learning that perms were to be banned and that cosmetics would no longer be manufactured," writes Sigmund. She neglects to say how Hitler reacted.

Emmy Goering, the second wife of Hermann Goering, was much admired by the Nazi party and the German public precisely because she stayed in the background on politicalissues and never made political demands.

She was given the unofficial title of "Grand Lady" and presented herself as the picture of womanly virtue. And yet Emmy Goering had previously been stage actress Emmy Sonnemann.

Viennese opera singer Helene von Weinmann reportedly said, "My God, Emmy is such a show_off. I knew her before she was a 'grand lady' and could be 'had' for a cup of coffee and 2 1/2 schillings." Von Weinmann spent three years in prison for this remark.

In spite of her lack of interest in the politics of the Third Reich, Emmy herself spent a year in a labour camp after the war. "I was completely unpolitical," she wrote in a letter to a minister responsible for her case. "My only fault is that I am Hermann Goering's wife. You cannot possibly punish a woman for loving her husband and being happily married to him."

In 1938, Hitler awarded Magda Goebbels the Honour Cross of the German Mother. She was the first to receive the medal, which Sigmund notes looked rather like a military medal. "Apart from having to give live birth to a certain number of children (four for a bronze medal, six for silver and eight for gold), the mothers also had to meet racial, political and physical criteria," writes Sigmund.


Hitler's mistress of thirteen years, Eva Braun, attempted suicide twice (?) in the years before finally ending her life as a married woman in a bunker below the city of Berlin.

Suicide was also the final act of Geli Raubel, a gregarious, youthful black-haired beauty whom her uncle, Adolf Hitler, referred to as "my most valuable possession."

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Kai, you can't forget about our dear Hanna Reitsch!

Also, there is the poor Gerda Buch who had the bad luck of marrying Martin Bormann... She had eight children from him, a man that was an alcoholic, unfaithful and who beat her, PIG!

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Winston Churchill:Cigars ( Romeo Y Julieta )


” I must point out that my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them.” (Winston Churchill, during a lunch with the Arab leader Ibn Saud, when he heard that the king’s religion forbade smoking and alcohol.)

His trademark was the cigar and his courage. In 1914 an Italian journalist at the frontlines in France noticed him. His account of Churchill became famous around London: "I was in the battle line near Lierre, and in the midst of a group of officers stood a man. He was still young, and was enveloped in a cloak, and on his head wore a yachtsman's cap. He was tranquilly smoking a large cigar and looking at the progress of the battle under a rain of shrapnel, which I can only call fearful. It was Mr. Churchill, who had come to view the situation himself. It must be confessed that it is not easy to find in the whole of Europe a Minister who would be capable of smoking peacefully under that shellfire. He smiled, and looked quite satisfied."

The cigar has always been a part of Churchill. A sign of that was when a London cartoonist depicted him as a gangster and called him “Cigar face”. Even King George had his bit of fun, when he visited a pottery making toby Jugs likeness of Churchill smoking cigar. According to one of Churchill's private secretaries, Phyllis Moir, King George examined the toby jugs with critical interest. “I do not think he smokes his cigars at such a low angle,” the King remarked earnestly, thereby sending the pottery firm's executives into a hurried conference on the slant of Winston Churchill's cigars.

Churchill had a habit of chewing on his 8 to 10 cigars a day. This meant that the cigars became mauled and frayed. So Churchill came up with what he called a “bellybando”, which was a strip of brownish paper with a little glue on the end. He would then wrap it around the end of the cigar, to keep it from fraying and getting to moist.

He also had a habit of dropping the ash everywhere. Phyllis Moir remembers two images clearest of Churchill. One were of Churchill walking around a room while composing a speech and one of Churchill “sunk deep in the depths of a huge armchair, a little mound of silver-gray cigar ash piled on his well rounded midriff”.

Not only did he drop ash on his clothes, he also had a tendency to burn holes in it. So his suits were constantly to repair for burns. His wife Clementine even designed him a sort of a bib, so he wouldn’t burn his silk pyjamas.

Because of his known habit of cigar smoking Churchill received a lot of cigar cutters as gifts. He never used them, but he kept one of them, a piercer, attached to his watch chain. Churchill preferred to moisten the end of the cigar and then poke a hole in it, with an extra long match, which he imported in boxes from Canada. He would then blow from the other end, to make sure that there was a good draw in the cigar, before he finally lit it.

Churchill also had a favourite ashtray. It was shaped as a small pagoda and made of silver. It was always with him and it had its own little suitcase, so he could take it along on his travels.

Another famous story about Churchills cigar smoking, was during the Second World War, were he was to take a flight in an unpressurized cabin. He requested that a special oxygen mask was made so that he could smoke his cigar while airborne. The request was granted, and the next day Churchill was happily puffing away at 15,000 feet through a special hole in his oxygen mask.

Probably just a story. I mean cigars and oxygen mix too well together...

http://smoking.luxbid.com/Auction/sh....asp?art_id=98

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http://www.forces.org/writers/james/files/fox.htm

Another old customer was Winston Churchill, who opened his account with Robert Lewis on 9 August 1900. Unusually, the already well-known war correspondent was introduced to tobacco not by his father, but his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill. The former Jenny Jerome, a famous American beauty, had a taste for Robert Lewis's hand-made, gold-tipped Alexandra Balkan cigarettes.

Some biographers estimate that Churchill smoked between 3,000 and 4,000 cigars a year. His favourite was a seven inch by 47 (?) ring gauge Romeo Y Julieta, immortalised by the Cuban cigar company who named it after the British statesman. Former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill placed his final order with Robert Lewis on 23 December 1964. His account was settled and closed after his death a few weeks later.

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Winston Churchill and whisky:

Looks like he was in the habbit of drinking whiskey all day long but not possibly without diluting it with water.

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/fh111myths.htm

The story of what his daughter calls the "Papa Cocktail" (a smidgen of Johnnie Walker covering the bottom of a tumbler, which was then filled with water and sipped throughout the morning ).

He learned this habit as a young man in India and South Africa (in My Early Life) appears to be literally true: the water being unfit to drink, one had to add whisky and, "by dint of careful application I learned to like it." The concoction he grew to like was, Jock Colville said, more akin to mouthwash than a highball. It barely qualifies as "scotch and water."

Where he did put away copious amounts of alcohol was at meals.

Judging the degree of his "dependence" is obfuscated by his own contradictory remarks. On the one hand he amused himself by allowing people to think he had a bottomless capacity.
At the same time in his writings you catch indications that he knew his limit: the drinking stories with the Russians were exaggerated, he wrote in The Second World War ("I was properly brought up"). Elsewhere he remarked, "my father taught me to have the utmost contempt for people who get drunk." He remarked that a glass of Champagne lifts the spirits, sharpens the wits, but "a bottle produces the opposite effect."

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http://www.winstonchurchill.org/ITJ81.htm

Winston Churchill was undoubtedly a film fan, but unfortunately he did not keep a list of the films he saw. Fortunately, Dr. Gilbert, himself a film fan, is attracted by Churchill’s interest in movies.

He may have watched his last film in a commercial cinema on 6 June 1940, when John Colville noted, "The PM went to a cinema to see the Dunkirk film and returned in rather a bad temper."

The most detailed record of Churchill’s film viewing comes from H.V. Morton’s account of the Atlantic Charter voyage in late summer 1941. He records that Churchill viewed the following films, among others: "Pimpernel Smith" (Leslie Howard), "Lady Hamilton" (Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh), "Ghost Breakers" (Paulette Goddard and Bob Hope), "Caught in the Draft" (Hope and Dorothy Lamour), "Love Crazy" (William Powell and Myrna Loy), "The Fox Hunt" (Donald Duck and Goofy), "Saps at Sea" (Laurel and Hardy), "Comrade X" (Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr), "High Sierra" (Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino), "The Devil and Miss Jones" (Jean Arthur, Robert Cummings, Charles Cobum).

Morton comments on Churchill’s reactions to some of the films. "High Sierra" — at the end, when the gangster had rolled dead from rock to rock down a mountain side, Churchill remarked, "And a good time was had by all!" During the reel changes for "Pimpernel Smith," Churchill said "Jolly good," and settled down with his cigar for the next reel. During "Lady Hamilton," Churchill was completely absorbed in the story and for the first time did not speak to those near him, but seemed to retreat into himself as if he were sitting alone in the dark, his face, his body even, expressing an attention so complete that it seemed one might look and find him no longer there, but taken up, merged and absorbed by the screen. At the end of the film, Churchill wiped the tears from his eyes, turned to the audience and said, "I thought this would interest you gentlemen; many of you have been recently engaged with the enemy in matters of equal historical importance. Good night!"

On the evening of 14 December 1940, at Ditchley, Churchill watched an exciting double bill: "Gone with the Wind" and Chaplin’s "The Great Dictator." He said he was "pulverized" by their emotions.

His favourite film may have been "Lady Hamilton" but that was probably influenced by his admiration and affection for Vivian Leigh. After a birthday party the Churchills gave for Laurence Olivier, Churchill commented on the actor’s wife: "By Jove, she’s a clinker." He especially enjoyed her as Cleopatra against Claude Rains’ Julius Caesar in Shaw’s "Caesar and Cleopatra." He also admired Merle Oberon, but after seeing her in "Wuthering Heights" .his only comment was, "What terrible weather they have in Yorkshire."

Some films Churchill clearly disliked. He walked out of a showing of "Citizen Kane" and his dislike for "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" is well-known.

In his later years, Churchill viewed "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "The Wages of Fear," "The Ten Commandments," and "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." Dr. Sneddon made the following comment after watching Churchill view "Sink the Bismarck" in 1962: "He never took his eyes off it, and they lit up. He sat up and his usually pale face flushed. His cigar went out: he just held it; his mouth opened in rapt attention. Winston was fighting the battle over again."

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Ha! He fortunately didn't watch any of his biographies...

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Keitel!

On 17th April 1945, Heinrici was made responsible for the defence of Berlin, but Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel, the Chief of the Armed forces High Command, personally relieved him of his command on 29th April because he ordered a withdrawal despite Hitler´s wishes to the contrary. Keitel later recalled in his memoirs:

" ...Colonel-General Heinrici telephoned me ..announcing that in view of the continued worsening of the situation..he had ordered his Army Group to resume its retreat. I told him that his attitude-for which there was no valid justification whatsoever-was flagrant disobedience. He countered that in that case he would no longer accept responsibility for the command of his troops, was no longer suitable to command an Army Group, and that he was to consider himself dismissed.He was to relinquish his command to the senior army commander, General Kurt von Tippelskirch."

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Bah! What did he know?!



He never commanded anything in the field!

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"War is less costly than servitude, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau." - Jean Dutourd, French veteran of both world wars

"A mon fils: depuis que tes yeux sont fermes les miens n’ont cessé de pleurir." - Mère française, Verdun

Ok computer is working better, let's see if this types out ok.....

The Me 262 painting reminded me of something.

When British troops captured the DWM plant at Lübeck in May of 45 they found that the R4M missile was being produced at a rate of 25,000 missiles per month !

E

let me go back with some background history...

Intial trials with the R4M folding fin air to air missile had begun in late October 1944 at the Strelna firing range near Brünn. The weapon proved extremely promising, although its realibility at this time was suspect. following trials by E-Stelle Tarnewitz and Abteilung E6 at Rechlin in November, the latter issued the following report.
"Maunufacturing defects were discoverd on delivery; out of true tubes with unequal thicknesses, nozzles installed incorrectly with poor interior finish. the poor ballistics of the rockets test fired from the ten metre rail were traceable to these defects. Several of the rockets wieth folding fins demonstrate inadequate fin strength and some were lost on the rails due to faulty spot welding."
By the end of January 45 most of these technical problems had been overcome by the manufacturer, Deutsche Waffen and Munitions Fabrik (DWM) at Läbeck, but difficulties were still being experienced with uneven ignition and burning of the propellant. Early February a number of rockets were delivered to jagdgruppe 10 for testing. based at Redlin, this unit was charged with evaluating various types of fighter weapons......similar to NJGr 10 with the nf's / One of the major probelms discovered by the unit was the designe of a suitable launcher.
Karl Kiefer, JGr 10's Technical Offizier reported:
"As we had been notified that the first live rockets would be arriving in march 45, there was nothing left to do but to improvise with what we had. Acting largely on the concept that this weapon was supposed to achieve a large caliber shotgun effect, we decided on a wooden rack with 12 rockets mounted side by side. We completed the necessary drawings and had the first example built by a small joinery firm in Schwerin, using simple curtain rods for the guiding mechanism. After wiring up a rack, we mounted it beneath the wing of an Fw 190, took cover as a precaution and ignited the rockets electrically. As we hoped rounds slid smoothly from their rails. Our improvisation worked perfectly, but not the rockets. they smoked in wild curves around the entire area. We thought at first the guide rails had been installed incorrectly, but soon found that igniting all the rockets simultaneously produced strong vortices during the firing phase which changed the flight paths of the rockets. We finally solved this problem by using two relays, launching two groups of 6 rockets at a time."
Following this successful test, major Georg Christl, commanding JGr 10, suggested that the two racks each carrying 12 R4M's be mounted beneath each wing of one of III./JG 7's Me 262's. The modification was carried out on Leutnant Karl Schnörrer's machine, and to flight rest the new combination, Fritz Wendel appeared from Augsburg at the instigation of the Gruppen Kommanduer Major Sinner who reported :
"Without further ado, Wendel tested the converted machine. No adverse changes in flying qualities were discovered, except for perhaps a minor loss of airspeed in the climb. On 8 march, Lt. Schnörrer carried out the first firing test. This did not go quite as planned as several rockets failed to leave their rails or burned out on the rack, fortunately without exploding. A second attempt by Schnörrer went smoothly that his 9th staffel immediately began to convert the other a/c and steps were taken to convert the other Staffel ( 10th and 11th staffels) plus I. gruppe/JG 7."

Classic Pubs, Me 262, volume 3

E

Thanx Erich! Very interesting! Now I know why they didn´t fire all the rockets at the same time!!

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Some Finnish Air Force WW2 interesting facts:

In spring of 1944 the Soviets decided to take Finland before beginning their advance towards Berlin. They amassed a tenfold superiority in troops and aircraft on the Karelian Isthmus and began their strategic offensive on 9th June 1944. Their advance achieved initial success, forcing the withdrawal of Finnish forces along the Isthmus, but in July 1944 the Finns were able to stabilize the front at the Vuoksi River and further attempts by the Soviet forces to advance beyond this line were repelled. The process seen in the Winter War was repeated.

Despite the Soviet superiority in numbers of aircraft, the FAF was able to concentrate its air forces and continue to achieve good results. The Brewsters, along with the Morane, Fiat and Curtiss fighters, although continuing their operations, became obsolete in terms of performance from 1943 on, and new fighters, Messerschmitt 109 G (MT)s, were received, although once again only in small numbers. When the Soviet offensive began, the units had about 40 Messerschmitts. Fortunately, the FAF was able to get 74 more fighters from Germany during the campaign, so that despite the fierce battles, the number of Messerschmitt fighters actually increased during the summer of 1944. The number of bombers in the flying units at the beginning of June 1944 was 66.

One good example of the ability to achieve local and temporal air superiority was the fact that the FAF bombers and a German support unit known as Kuhlmey were able to continue their effective air raids, which were vital contributions to the war effort, as the bombings could be concentrated on Soviet massed troops just before their preplanned attack times. Warnings of impending troop movements were usually captured by radio intelligence. It is also significant that no bombers in the formations escorted by the Messerschmitts were lost to enemy fighters during this period. The Messerschmitt fighters achieved an exchange ratio of 25:1.

Again the Finnish fighter force was stronger in the end of the war than it had been in the beginning of that. Also, during the wars the number of Finnish fighter aces had become a world record in relation to population. And almost all the Finnish top aces were fighting at the end of the war just as they had been at the beginning.

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When the Soviet attack started on 9th June 1944 the enemy concentrated on the Karelian Isthmus about 1500 aircraft. Their mission was to bomb the Finnish front line troops and transportations, to reconnoiter the defence positions and to maintain the air superiority. The main idea was to break the defensive line with a heavy bombardment. The Soviet air task lacked the strategic elements and being more tactical directed the Soviet air resources to a very small operation area. This made the Finnish fighter units` task much easier because now the limited fighter force could be concentrated effectively on that same small area. Only the MT fighters had good enough performance to fight successfully against the manyfold superior numbers of the attacker. Other fighter types were transferred to secure the rear and side sectors.

The intercept sorties were flown with as many fighters as was available at any certain moment, usually 8 - 20 fighters. The basic idea was that the top section or division attacked on the Soviet escort fighters while the lower division or flight attacked on the bombers. However, often, due to the great numbers of the Soviet escort fighters, all of the Finnish fighters had to commit themselves to the fighter combats. Anyhow, the Finnish principle was always to attack even as a section regardless of the numbers of the enemy. The limited fighter force was not able to repulse the bomb raids, but it caused continuous losses which were eating the enemy pilot cadre. The attacks scattered the Soviet formations and spread the combat over a larger area where the enemy could not get the direct benefit from the big numbers. The duels were solved by the combat skill and shooting accuracy of the individual pilots and the Finns proved to be the winners almost always. There were several occasions in which the Soviet formation turned back after seeing the Finnish fighters in the interception position (22).

One very important mission for the Finnish fighters was to escort own bomber formations. These played a decisive role in the defence because the bombings could be concentrated on attacking massed troops just before preplanned attack times. Warnings of impending troop movements were continually being captured by radio intelligence. The bomber formations included usually 30 - 40 aircraft and they were escorted by 12 - 18 fighters divided in three groups. The first group escorted the lower bombers, mainly Blenheims, the second group escorted the higher bombers, mainly Junkers Ju 88s and the third group flew as a top cover. The fighters escorted the bombers also during the return flight to 30 - 60 miles over own side, and then returned over the front line to patrol.

http://www.sci.fi/~fta/fintac-5.htm

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