At the 1st november 1941 was created II/NJG2, commander famous Luftwaffe ace oberleutnant Helmut Lent.
It had squadron commanders oberleutnant Shenert, major Egmont zur Lippe Weissenfeld and oberleutnant Ludvig Bekker (the one who was in a crew first to test famous Lihtenshtein radar).
09 august 1941. Leeuwarden airfield, Holland. Me-110 with strange antennas on the nose took off.
It was the first flight of the fighter with radar onboard. Me-110 was equipped with “Lichtenstein” radar. Two members of crew were oberleutnant Ludvig Bekker and sergeant Josef Staub.
During that test flight Me-110 has spotted British bomber with radar and has shot it down. It was the beginning of all the radars era.
8 August of 1941 bombers group of Order of the Red Banner Baltic Navy Air Forces performed first in the WWII Soviet bomb strike on Berlin.
This event was widely presented in media and had great influence on the moral of all Soviet people, which was extremeley necessary that time.
It happened immediately after StG77 under command of major count Shenborn has landed after their first flight that day (22.06.1941) - Soviet bombers has appeared from nowhere. Nobody knew where they came from - from some distant airfields, from the ones that just were attacked or from some undetected ones.
But still, they were coming - waves of 10, 20, 30 twin-engine bombers in close formation. They even were able to drop some bombs - but not many, very soon appeared Luftwaffe fighters and all of the bombers were destroyed. It were strange, hopeless attacks, bombers were holding straight on course, without any manoeuvres to avoid AA or fighters. They had awfull losses, nobody came back home. But when German fighters were destroying 10 bombers, it were coming 15 more.
Squadron commander capt. Herbert Pabst from 6/StG77 has reported: “They were coming till the end of the day. Only near our airfield we saw 21 bombers crash sites. Not a single bomber survived.”
Source: Cajus Bekker “The Luftwaffe War Diaries”
About 20-30 crews from KG2, KG3 and KG53 had a special order. All of them had experince of blind flights. By the 3:00, when bombers were crossing border, they had 5700 meters altitude - maximum available. Their task was to strike three Soviet airfields far away behind lines exactly at 3:15, till that moment to stay undetected.
Unlike a year ago, when Western operation has started, this time “Zero” hour was set by the ground forces, not by the Luftwaffe. Ground forces wanted to attack with sunrise, but they wanted to be protected against enemy air forces. Luftwaffe was able to operate only when sun is up, so ground troops would have to wait.
So was found decision “in the middle” - several bombers crew in the dark has crossed the border, all other units has joined them later. The task was fullfilled completely - bomb strike was absolutely unexpected.
Totally it was 4 air fleets, alltogether they counted 1945 planes, 1280 of them were ready to fly. It were: 510 bombers, 290 dive bombers, 440 single-engine fighters and 40 twin-engines fighters, plus 120 longe-range recon planes.
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Actually, first successful usage of Luftwaffe against allied NAVY. From 21st till 23rd of May 1941 near the north shore of the Crete Luftwaffe has sank 2 cruisers, 4 destroyers and has damaged 2 battleships and 3 other cruisers.
16.10.1940 Josef Kammhuber was promoted to Generaloberst with the charge of “General of the Night Fighters” and established his HQ in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
He has planned and successfully implemented two roles for his units: Read more »
1. Defensive line in limited part of German border (”Kammhuber line”).
2. Long range raids against homebases of British bombers.
Maj. Hannes Trautloft was born in Thuringia, which always was called “Germany Green Heart”, so during the combat duty in Spain Trautloft has painted bug green heart on his Bf-109.
When 25 of August 1940 Maj. Hannes Trautloft became a commander of JG54, “Green Heart” or “Grunherz” became an official title of the group.
Later, in 1944 JG54 was the most resultative group of the western front.
See else: Robert Weiss, III/JG54 commander death
Early morning, 26 of September. Maritime group “West” has sent several “Do-18″ for the reconnaissance mission before next day’s planned destroyers operation.
At 10:45 one of the Do-18 appeared to the north of the Great-Fisher bank. He spotted the whole fleet of military ships. He reports: 4 battleships, 1 carrier and there are cruisers and destroyers.
It was unique chance to harm Britain fleet in good amount - keeping in mind Hitler’s order not to touch ships in ports.
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Early morning, 15 minutes before the X hour (5:30) Bruno Dilly, commander of III / StG 1 has dropped his bombs on the bridge across the Vistula near Dirshau. His task was to destroy the charges and to prevent the bridge destruction. It was the first bomb strike in WW2.