Back to Start      Walther Dahl   Kommodore JG 300     Kassel 27 September 1944  

                During the spring and summer of 1944 the USAAF day-light strategic bomber offensive over Germany was at its height. As the massed fleets of B-17 Fortresses and B-24 Liberators pulverised cities and industry throughout the Reich, dare-devil young volunteer Luftwaffe fighter pilots were organised into elite bomber destroyer units, the Sturmgruppen or 'assault wings'. The Sturmgruppen were to carry out stunning offensive actions against overwhelming odds. Flying heavily armed and armoured variants of the latest Focke Wulf 190 fighters, battle was joined in the stratosphere over the homeland. As the official US history put it, the air war in the ETO became 'a slugging match between offence and defence' with the side with ' the most stamina winning by a knockout ' . Although there is little information available regarding the early operations of JG 300 in the Tagjagd role and specifically here, the II (Sturm) Gruppe , this and subsequent pages will attempt a synthesis of what data is available.

              A single-seat night fighter Wilde Sau Geschwader, JG 300 underwent conversion training to the day fighter role during May and June 1944.  II./JG 300 received brand new, fully armoured Focke Wulf 190 A-8/R2 fighters produced by Fieseler the only factory building the MK 108 cannon equipped variant. With elements of IV./JG 3 despatched to France for the invasion, much of the training on this aircraft was carried out by the experienced officers of 2./JG 51 under Horst Haase. Oskar Romm, for example, was briefly seconded to I./JG 300 under Hptm Gerhard Stamp. ( Prien P 152 ) 2./JG 51 had arrived in southern Germany from the Russian Front to supplement IV./JG 3 at the end of May 1944. This was part of the continuing drive to strengthen the units of the Reichsverteidigung. Now at Salzwedel, 2./JG 51 had been flying the Fw 190 A since April 1944 and quickly received new and fully modified Fw 190 Sturmjäger machines before being re-designated 16. Sturm /JG3 .

            There was a cadre of battle hardened experienced pilots in II./JG 300 . Ltn Klaus Bretschneider had claimed fourteen night kills in just twenty Wilde Sau sorties flying a Neptun-gerät equipped Fw 190 from Rheine during the early months of 1944. II./JG 300 was strengthened with an intake from the day fighter units. The most successful of these would be Konrad Bauer, an Eastern Front ace with JG 51 who had subsequently shot down four heavy bombers with I./JG 3  including two B-17 s on 24th May. Although the R2 Sturmböcke were not dog-fighting machines, those pilots that were to have some success against the P-51 escorts like Bauer and Ernst Schröder also of 5./JG 300 were subsequently and exceptionally allowed to remove the outer wing cannon which were replaced with the MG 151  cannon in a so-called six gun 'Jägerausführung' or fighter variant.  Pilots of II./JG 300 also took a dim view of the Scheuklappen which hindered visibility and could ice up at the high altitudes the Sturm attacks took place. They were removed almost immediately from all II./JG 300 machines.

Sturmböcke II./JG 300 Holzkirchen July 1944 courtesy Dr Alfred Price

            Gruppen of JG 300 were probably operational for the first time in the Begleitjäger/Sturm role on or around the 29th May 1944 . The 8th and the 15th USAAF attacked the Politz refinery complex and Messerschmitt at Wiener Neustadt respectively but initial attempts to form a Gefechtsverband with IV./JG 3 for perhaps the first time under operational conditions were scuppered by a lack of radio communications. The Gruppen of JG 300 had no way of communicating with the Verbandsführer and their erratic manouevres contributed to the break up of the battle formation and probably the death of 100 plus victory ace, Kommodore of JG 3 and former Gruppenkommandeur IV./JG 3, Major Friedrich Karl Müller. Müller was forced to leave the formation, his machine damaged as a result of a collision and died in the subsequent crash landing at Salzwedel.

            On the 7 July mission related elsewhere on these pages, Gruppen of JG 300  enjoyed not inconsiderable successes claiming some 28 Ab- und Herausschüsse  and a further six US fighters and with this success fresh impetus was given to the fraught question of home air defence. The carnage wrought on the USAAF bomber formations on 7 July 1944 would be repeated at intervals through the summer as massed Gefechtsverbände could now be formed. The first successful mission for II./JG 300 as a fully fledged Sturmgruppe, flown in a massed Gefechtsverband with IV./JG 3, was on the 15th August. II./JG 300 claimed nine Ab- und Herausschüsse without loss. According to Rodeike one of the first Sturmbock losses from II./JG 300 occurred on the 26th July 1944, Ofhr Martin Köhler  of 4. Staffel being shot down in Fw 190 A-8/R2 WNr 680179 'weisse 12'.