Heading photo: Alleged to have been

Werner Machold's aircraft, with twentythree abschussbalken'on its rudder, this

rare colour photo must date from 28 or 29

August, when lll./JG 2 returned from

Calais to Ouerqueville. On the 30th,
Machold claimed another victim near
Portland.
(Photo credit A J Cranston)

An interesting entry in Rothenfelders

Hugbuch reads:
2 5-9-40. C h e rbo u rg-T h 6v i I I e.
Start 77.4Oh. Poftland. Escort
for He 777s "nach Bristol"
Land 72.50h
Above: 'Yellow 8', almost certainty being
flown by Rudi Rothenfelder, date
uncertain, but before the yellow cowling

qppeared

at the end of August.

(Rud-i

Rothenfelder)

Those readers who have a copy of

Profile No 40, 'Bt 1O9E' (1965) by
lvlartin Windrow, can find a photo, on
the third page, of a pilot climbing into
an aircraft o'f 2./JG 2, 'Red 7'. This
was Ltn Rudolph Rothenfelder who
later joined 9./JG 2 and who designed
lhe Staffel emblem, lhe Stechmicke
insect in the yellow disc. This photo,

he said, was taken at BrandenburgBriest on their return from Poland. He

also sent me the photo of Kurt

Goltzsche's aircraft (7 .Staftel) with the

small dog (below). Goltzsche usually

flew 'White 8'; Rothenfelder himself

flew 'Yellow 8' of 9. Staffel and the
air-to-air photo (above) shows the
badge on the cowling. This was
before the appearance of yellow
cowlings and rudders at the end of
August.
OfwKurt Goltzsche's 'White 8' oI i.Staffel.

Tare groundcrewman

'Tommy',

the

is

playing
'Noiewith

Staffelhund,

the

yellow cowling and T.Staffel 'thumb on

hat'badge.

i
I
I

674

Start

13.05h. Poftland.

To

meet returni ng Hei nkels

Land 73. SOh

Th6ville is now called Maupertus. lt

lies SE of Cherbourg. Two days later he
flew from Querqueville L2.25 - 13.35h
and met Spitfires over Portland (152 Sqn
from Warmwell).

with lll.Gruppe,
spent almost four weeks from the end of
August, east of Calais, at Oye-Plage and
Marck, before returning to Cherbourg.
Above: The 9.Sfaffel,

a ship near Swanage. This aircraft, W.Nr.

5983, marked 'White 15', was equipped

with nitrous oxide'Ha-Ha'gear

for

emergency power-boosting. lt was

examined at Farnborough. Machold was
sent to Canada. He died in l-969.

It is always interesting to see how

service aircraft received their markings.

Note the photo showing an array of

cowlings and spinners from aircraft of

7./JG 2 having their i/d paint applied,

and on the trolley compressor can be
seen the blackened stencil through which

lhe Staffel emblem was to be sprayed.

The cowling of the Adjutants machine
lies nearby. this pilot was, perhaps, Oblt
Erich Wolf who was shot down off

Hermann Goering meeting Werner

Machold. To his right are Griesebach,
Reifferscheidt and Adrian.

On 29 Augusl 1-t1-./)G

2 had flown

east to operate from Calais-Marck and

Oye-Plage, but they returned to Normandy
within a month, to relieve JG 53.
One of my photos shows Goering with
Werner Machold on (l think) 5 September.

Machold's meteoric rise to fame began in

L. Staffel. He had claimed about ten

victims across France and he

the lsle

of Wight on 29 October.

is

added

predecessor, Adolf Steidle, had gone into

more over Portland and the lsle of wight.

the sea off Cherbourg on 11 August.

Hauptmann 'Assi' Hahn succeeded

He was promoted from Ofu to Lfn and

joined 9.Sfaffel where he flew 'Yellow 5'
with up to twenty-three tabs on its rudder.
Early in October he joined 7 .Staffel, which
he was promoted Olbt lo lead early in
t947. On 9 June 1941, still flying an
Emil, he had to force-land amongst the
quarry workings near Worth Matravers
when his Bf LO9E-7L was hit by flak from

Otto Bertram as leader of lll.Gruppe.

Bertram was recalled from operations
after the loss of both his brothers in the
air war over England. Hahn introduced
the cock badge on aircraft cowlings. This
was a sort of pun on his name. When the
Cowlings and spinners being painted, and
T.Staffel badges stencilled on their sides.

675

A newly-delivered Fw
1904-3,'Blue 6'of 10.(Jabo)/JG 2
at Caen, spring 1942. lt had not yet
been fitted with its bomb rack
under the fuselage.
Above:

Below:'Assi' Hahn's Gruppenkommandeur

Fw 190A-4, probably at Cherbourg, in 1942.

Note how the lll.Gruppe bar encircled the
rear fuselage, as it also did on Adjutant Oblf.
Armin Faber's captured Fw 1904-3.

Above: 1940, at the height of the Battle of

Britain, with 'Assi' Hahn in the cockpit of
his 'White 14' oI 4.lJG 2

big black buzzard design was applied to

the Fw 190 cowlings, the cock badge was
sometimes moved, very aptly, to below
the cockpit.

During 1.942 and 1943,

lll./Jc

operated from Th6ville or the coastal

airfields in Brittany (Morlaix, St Brieuc,
etc), and were in constant conflict with
the Bostons and Venturas that used to
bomb the docks and airfields from Le
Havre westwards, and the Whirlwinds and

Typhoons that attacked anything that

moved or floated in their area.

ln early June 1943 I was on an ATC

'working visit' to RAF Exeter and saw the

of No 464 Sqn (based at

Methwold) return from a dawn raid on
Normandy with their Czech Spitfire Wing
escorts, plus No 129 Sqn from lbsley.

Venturas

They had met Hahns Fw 190s and

several Venturas had damage and
casualties. AE973, SB-Q was lost and
SB-S had undercarriage problems. Also
one of the clipped-wing Spitfire Vbs had
been shot down. The Dark Green/Dark

Above: From left to right

- Egon Mayer, Erich Leie,
Walter Oesau and Rudi
Pflanz, summer of 1941.

The Bf 109F with the

armoured windscreen
was Walter Oesau's.

Right: Bf 109Fs of the

Geschwadersfab by the
perimeter road. The
aircraft on the right

carries

markings,

Kommodore

whilst

the

nearer one has an

unusual, and unknown
symbol. There was a
Duty Crew hut behind

the hedge on the left of

this photo.

676

Above: A scene from the Battle of France,

with 9./JG 2 dispersed on a rudimentary
landing ground with their ground support

vehicles.

lt was usual to

cover the

balkenkreuz and break up the aircraft's

outline with foliage.
Left: A 7.Staffel 'Emil' at Beaumont with
the open airfield in the background. The
rudder is perhaps white, although yellow
was far more usual. The spinner nose-ring
was white. (via Prien)
Below left: A Bf 109E-7, of 7.Staffel. The
array of rudder tabs point to it being
'White 15' (WNr 5983), in which Werner
Machold was shot down over Swanage
on 9 June 1941. Note the pointed spinner
cap and 250k9 bomb.

Earth/Sky Venturas, with red codes

carried Disney caftoon characters below
their portside pilot's cockpits. I can recall

helping to refuel the lbsley Spitfires

(coded DV) which had dropped their
slipper tanks.

The earlier 094L) photo of Walter

Oesau's Bf 1O9F (< - + -) marked a day in

that summer when the PK photographers
visited the Geschwaderstab of JG 2 in St
Pol. The posed photo shows Egon Mayer,
Rudi Pflanz, Walter Oesau (Kommodore)

and Erich Leie. Other pictures

were

taken in close-up.

This short series began with two

photos from the album of Franz
Jaenisch, so it may be fitting to
conclude with two others from an earlier

period when he was in Spain. He had

arrived at La Cenia in 1938 in civilian

clothes with Hein, Resch, Boer and

Bauer to join 3./J88 Legion Condor. He
was allocated Bf 1O9B 616 which had
previously been flown by Herbert lhlefeld

(later of LG 2). The 'Top Hat' emblem

was replaced by the 3. Staffel Mickey
Mouse; hence the Mouse on his JG 2
'Yellow 8'.

Michael Payne
Below: Franz Jaenisch in Spain with the
Legion Condor.

Below left: When they first arrived in

Spain, both these Bf 109Bs were marked

with both numerals to the rear of the

black falangrst disc, separated by a
hyphen. 6.6 was later fitted with a
variablepitch propeller. Note that neither
of these early Bf 109s carried radios.

677