Photo 1 61 la

At

least six photos are known to

exist as a record of the incident
involving white 6 of 4./JG 54, or
more accurately 1./JG 76, which
accounts for the lack of II. Gruppe
bar on the rear fuselage at this date.
On 30 May 1910 Uffz. Hager took

off from an airstrip in

the

Charleville area to conduct an air

test on white 6. w.Nr. 3247. He lost
his bearings over the unfamiliar flat
French countryside and wa: obliged
to land, short of fuel, on a French

Air Folce landing ground at Orconte

in the Marne valley, a few miles
west of St Dizier. Hager became a

r.t

,,::,i ,.,i.r:,:l!;,:t::!:!j::il :i:r;iir:l

i;i.:l::l!;1';i

"r!:i

1098
belonged to 7./JG 2. With its capped

black

Colnru, V
14/"il/;4"*

N"fu,FJ

POW. The markings and camouflage

on the machine were

completely
upper
surface:. a bllrck green spinner lnd
all the remainder in Hellblau 65.

standard,

wlth 71102 on

The French fighter pilots

Orconte losr no time

in

Photo 2 & 2a
This bomb carrying Bl

1,,/l4kleLPry

at

painting

green spinner

and

comparatively pale mottled fuselage

finish it is more likely to be an E-7
than an E-4B. The cowling was all
yellow with the Staffel badge (thumb
on button) in black and white. Below
the windshield was the Richthofen
'R' emblem and on the rear fuselage
can be seen the wavy line symbol lor
the III. Gruppe; since it was white, the
aircraft belonged to 7. Staffel. (In
Luftwaffe unit numeration a point or
full stop after the numeral signifies
the English "th"). The rudder, which
was very probably yellow, carried at
Ieast two full rows of victory claims.
This suggests to me that this was the
aircraft marked white 15 and flown
by the StafTelkapitiin, Hauptmann
Werner Machold during the first half
of 1941. The finish was a standard
74/75 grey on the upper surfaces with
pale grey 76 on undersides and the

fuselage sides very lightly spray

mottled with grey 02, which had a
greenish tone. The white numerals
would have been in standard form (ie.
the figure 5 rounded) and outlined in
black. Werner Machold rose
meteorically from the ranks in 1940
to take command of his Staffel fiom
Oblt. Ettling. He was flamboyant and
aggressive and one of those veteran
pilots who pref'erred the two MG plus
two cannon armament of the Emil to
the lighter armament of the new Bf
109F.

On the 9th of June 1941. while

attacking shipping south of Swanage,
whitb I 5 suffered engine trouble and
Machold had to force land among the
Swanworth quarry workings east of
Worth Matravers on Purbeck. He was

taken prisoner, unwounded. His

machine was found to be fitted with
nitrous oxide gear in order to boost
performance. Perhaps this could have
contributed to the blow out of all the
plugs on one side. On his earlier

aircralt the victorl claims

on

Machold's rudder (26) were in the

lbrm of white panels outlined in
black. Date. type and location were
recorded

in

these boxes, each being

surmounted

by a small

national

marking.

According

to the RAF's AIR

22/267 crash report W.Nr. 5983 and

its DB 60lN engine, laughing gas
equipment and all, ended its days at
RAE Farnbolough lor examinarion.

huge roundels/cockards over the

crosses, stripes

on the rudder

and

obliterating the swastikas, before

taking the machine on local fLights.

One photo shows le

Capitaine

Rozannoff in the cockpit (a noted

test pilot), and the earlier versions ol
these much copied prints show a1l
180

Photo
the details of the French markingsviz: the fuselage roundel had a large
centre spot in the peculiar pale blue
of l'Ann6e de L'air.
After the French armistice UfT2.
Hager, together with all the other
captured airmen, was allowed to
return lo hi\ unil to operate against

the RAF in the Battle of Britain. but

his subsequent career is unknown to
me. For many of these details I am
indebted to the researches of Dr. l.

Kitchens, Dr. J. Prien and General

Hrabak who was the Staffelkapitain
of 4./IG 54 in May 192t0.

I do not think this was a posed

photograph: it is far too realistic. Nor
can I identify the pilot of this Emil.

But this is how the German fighter

units operated in May 1940 as the

Wehrmacht swarmed across the

Ardennes. From Sedan to the
frontiers of Belgium, scenes like this
SCALE AVIATION M ODELLER

points are apparent; the W.Nr. 1146

was recorded near the top of the
rudder and what can be seen of the
fuselage Balkenkreuz indicates that it
was much smaller than normal JG 2.
It was the custom in Ill./JG 26 to
display sma11 fuselage markings - but
not in JG 2.
StafTelkapitiin Rdders usually fl ew
yellow 3. (Via Dr. J. H. Kitchens)

Photo 4
This is an outstanding photograph ol
fbrmation flying by pilots of 4./JG 53
during the early ueeks ol the war in

1939. This was the period when

markings and camouflage schemes
were in a state of flux and uncertainty.
White 5 was the machine usuallY
flown by Uffz. Litjens. At this time
JG 53 was experimenting with the
new upper surface colours
but the swastika remained

7l

and02,

in its pre-

war position and the

fuselage

markings were sti11 in the old style.

White 9, just visible in

the
background has had its fuselage cross
re-painted with wide white borders.
The Pik-As badge appears on the

cowling on an area of the Pale greY

02. The aircraft's under surfaces, here
in deep shadow, would be Pale blue
65.

This photograph was taken bY Fw.

Erwin Weisz, a keen

amateur

flew white 4. Fw.

Weisz was shot down and killed in
combat with a Morane Saulnier MS
406 on the 7th of April 1940 near

photographer who

Thionville. He had an eYe for a well

posed picture. (Ma J. Prien)

were played out durlng

the
unseasonably hot spells of cloudless
weather. Yellow 5 of 9./JG 2 appears
to be ready for the next sortie. The

is not known, it is not

wooded enough to be Signy-le-Petit,
where III./JG 2 operated for some
time, but it is close enough to the

location

front for the aircraft to be adorned

with foliage and fbr markings to be
covered over in case of Allied ground
attack. The machines have also been
widely dispersed and there seems to
be no shortage of motor transport, the
trucks probably carrying large drums
of 87 octane petrol lrom which the
aircraft were reflelled with hand
pumps.

Yellow 5 was in the then standard

official camouflage scheme, with

upper surfaces in 11102 and al1 the
remainder in hellblau 65 (light blue).

The Richthofen shield can be seen

below the windscreen. OnlY JG 2 and
JG52 used the III. Gruppe wavy line
symbol in 1940; in this case of course
it was yellow outlined in black and

the spinner would have been very

dark green (70) with probably a
yellow tip ring. Two non-standard
SCALE AVIATION M ODELLER

18r