Many accounts suggest that the regrouping of the Luftwaffe’s forces along the Channel coast after the defeat of France was an unhurried, almost leisurely affair. This may well have been true of some units, but little time seems to have been lost in transferring JG 3 to its new area of operations. Even before the armistice with the French had been signed, Oberstleutnant Carl Vieck’s three Gruppen had been pulled out of Le Mans and sent back northeastwards to take up residence on fields in the Pas-de-Calais region.
Yet despite its proximity to the Straits of Dover, JG 3 played little part in the opening rounds of what was to become the Battle of Britain. Rather than escorting the Luftwaffe’s bombers and Stukas on their first exploratory raids out over the Channel, the Geschwader was once again put on a defensive footing, this time guarding the French coast against British bombing raids.
Thus, in the six weeks from late June until mid-August 1940, while the historic battle steadily escalated around them, the pilots of JG 3 were involved in only one action of note. This occurred on the afternoon of 10 July, when six Blenheim IVs of No 107 Sqn took off from Wattisham to attack an airfield near Amiens. After their formation had been broken up by German flak, the British bombers were set upon west of Arras by the Bf 109s of 9./JG 3, who claimed all six shot down – although, as in the earlier Gembloux raid, one of the Blenheim IVs did, in fact, manage to make it back to base.
In passing, it should perhaps be mentioned here that the thorny subject of overclaiming runs like a thread throughout much of the literature dealing with the air war of 1939-45. The overwhelming majority of fighter pilots of all nations undoubtedly made their claims in all good faith. But, despite the authorities setting stringent corroborative criteria before allowing a kill – material or photographic evidence, eyewitness reports and the like – overclaiming remained a problem. Given the chaos and confusion of an air battle and the split-second, life-or-death decisions that had to be made, errors were inevitable. And as the war progressed, and those air battles grew both in complexity and in the numbers of aircraft involved, so the mistakes increased.
Even in fairly simple and straightforward actions such as the Blenheim IV raid on Amiens of 10 July 1940, where all six of the attackers were acknowledged at the time as confirmed victories, but where Allied records have since revealed that ‘only’ five were actually lost, it is now almost impossible to determine which of the six pilots’ claims should be disallowed. This is why all listings of Luftwaffe fighter pilots’ scores (including, it is freely admitted, the appendices at the end of this work) must be treated with a certain amount of caution. Very few such tables can boast 100 per cent accuracy, but the errors they contain are relatively minor. So, although not always numerically exact, they do provide the best possible measure of a pilot’s individual performance and standing.
The first JG 3 ace to be lost in action, seven-victory Oberleutnant Helmut Tiedmann of 2. Staffel pulled off a neat belly-landing in a Kentish cornfield shortly after midday on 18 August 1940 and remained on the run for more than 12 hours before finally being captured in the early hours of the following morning. The hay used as a temporary camouflage until his ‘Black 13’ can be recovered has failed to hide the red Tatzelwurm on the engine cowling and the yellow (?) segment at the top of the rudder that was used to denote the machine of a Staffelkapitän
After III./JG 3 had claimed the six Blenheim IVs west of Arras on 10 July, it was another of the same Gruppe’s pilots who was credited with a solitary (and unidentified) Hurricane northeast of Folkestone four days later. A whole month would then pass – a month that culminated in the fiasco of ‘Adlertag’ – without JG 3 scoring a single success.
Indeed, it was not until 14 August that the Geschwader claimed its next kill. The Hurricane that went down off Dover on that date was the first for future Knight’s Cross winner Leutnant Franz Beyer of 8./JG 3. Twenty-four hours later it was the turn of I. Gruppe to open its Battle of Britain scoreboard. This was another Hurricane, which was to provide the Kapitän of 2. Staffel, Oberleutnant Helmut Tiedmann, with his seventh, and last, victory of the war. Tiedmann was himself forced to land his damaged ‘Black 13’ near Maidstone, in Kent, after an encounter with RAF fighters just three days later – the first Jagdgeschwader 3 ace to be lost in action.
By this time JG 3 had at last been relieved of most of its defence duties along the French Channel coast and was finally beginning to venture over into southern England. This operational change was clearly reflected in the multiple daily scores that the Geschwader now started to amass. On 16 August Hauptmann Günther Lützow, the Kommandeur of I. Gruppe, took his personal tally into double figures with the downing of a Spitfire over Kent. And it was on this same date that II./JG 3 entered the Battle of Britain fray by claiming no fewer than five Spitfires (almost certainly from No 266 Sqn) over the Ashford-Canterbury area. Among the successful pilots were two more future Knight’s Cross recipients, Unteroffiziere Alfred Heckmann and Walter Ohlrogge.
On 18 August another two pilots reached their ‘fifths’ when 2. Staffel’s Leutnant Hans-Herbert Landry and Oberleutnant Willy Stange, the Kapitän of 8. Staffel, were each credited with a Hurricane. Forty-eight hours later Leutnant Franz Achleitner of 9./JG 3 also took his score to five by bringing down a Spitfire. Although claimed over the Straits of Dover, Achleitner’s victim was, in all probability, the No 65 Sqn machine that was written-off in a forced-landing after being damaged by a Bf 109 over the Thames Estuary (this being the only Spitfire lost on 20 August).
Despite such individual successes as these, however, the recently elevated Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring was far from happy with the performance of his fighters in the battle to date. In an effort to remedy what he saw as their ‘lack of aggression’, he ordered what was tantamount to a purge among the older Kommodores of his Jagdgeschwader. Most of these World War 1 veterans were shunted upstairs into staff positions. They were replaced by some of the so-called ‘Young Turks’ – fighter pilots who had demonstrated their combat skills in the recent Blitzkrieg against France. Although their bravery in the air was indisputable, some of these younger officers lacked the necessary maturity to command a large body of men on the ground. But JG 3 was more than fortunate in this respect. Upon the departure of Oberstleutnant Carl Vieck on 21 August, the man who took his place at the head of the Geschwader was Hauptmann (later Major) Günther Lützow, the long-serving Kommandeur of I. Gruppe.
Günther Lützow has been described by an eminent German aviation historian as ‘one of the outstanding personalities of the Luftwaffe’s fighter arm – the model of a dedicated officer, admired and respected by all’. After serving for very nearly two years in command of JG 3, he would rise to high rank and position within the Jagdwaffe, only to fall foul of Hermann Göring for having the temerity to question the Reichsmarschall’s mishandling of Germany’s fighter forces. An irate Goring responded by accusing Lützow of mutiny and banishing him to what was then the backwater of the Italian theatre. This care and concern for the well-being of his subordinates was typical of Lützow. It had been in evidence from the moment he assumed command of I./JG 3. But ‘Franzl’ Lützow was no mere armchair warrior – he also led his men from the front.
Beginning with a brace of Defiants (from the hapless No 264 Sqn) shot down off the north Kent coast on 26 August, Günther Lützow was to claim all but one of the nine victories credited to the Stab JG 3 during the course of the Battle of Britain. This took his overall score to 18 and, in the process, earned him the Geschwader’s first Knight’s Cross, awarded on 18 September when his tally stood at 15.
Posted in from JG 53 to replace Günther Lützow at the head of I. Gruppe, Hauptmann Hans von Hahn has clearly retained his predecessor’s unusual Kommandeur’s markings. Note too the striking personal insignia (‘Hahn’ means ‘cockerel’ in German, a fact also seized upon by the better known Hans ‘Assi’ Hahn of JG 2 ‘Richthofen’)
The man brought in to succeed Hauptmann Lützow at the head of I./JG 3 was Hauptmann Hans von Hahn. The first of many existing aces who would join the ranks of the Geschwader as the war progressed, von Hahn had been the Staffelkapitän of 8./JG 53 since that unit’s formation in September 1939. With seven kills already under his belt, Hauptmann von Hahn took over the Gruppe just as the battle was entering a new round of bombing raids on the southeast of England.
The object of these raids was to sap Fighter Command’s strength by forcing it into the air and into action. As part of the large force of Bf 109s concentrated in the Pas-de-Calais to provide escorts for Göring’s bomber formations, JG 3 soon found itself in the thick of the fighting. In the last eight days of August 1940 six of the Geschwader’s pilots took their personal scores to five and above. But those same eight days also saw two more promising operational careers brought to premature ends when another pair of newly fledged five-victory aces followed 2. Staffel’s Helmut Tiedmann into British captivity.
The ‘one who was to get away’! With four victories, Leutnant Franz von Werra – seen here keeping a wary eye on ‘Simba’, II./JG 3’s lion cub mascot – had been the Gruppe’s highest scorer of the French campaign. The three kill bars just visible on the tailfin of his machine date this photograph to between 22 May (when he claimed Nos 2 and 3 – a brace of twin-engined Bréguet 690s) and 3 June (his fourth – a Morane-Saulnier MS.406)
III./JG 3 suffered mixed fortunes on 24 August. Two of the four Spitfires claimed by the Gruppe over Kent and Essex on that date made aces out of Leutnant Leonhard Göttmann and Unteroffizier Josef Keil, but the action had cost 9. Staffel two pilots shot down and captured. One of them was Leutnant Franz Achleitner, who was fished from the waters of the Thames Estuary after parachuting from his damaged ‘Yellow 8’ off the Kent coast.
On 28 August 7. Staffel’s Feldwebel Josef Bauer claimed a brace of Spitfires (probably up from Hornchurch) on the Essex side of the estuary to take his score to six. That same day I. Gruppe’s Leutnant Heinz Schnabel was credited with his fifth kill (a Spitfire over northern Essex), although for I./JG 3 this success was marred by the loss of the Gruppenstab’s Leutnant Hans-Herbert Landry, who was badly wounded in a clash with RAF fighters over Dover. References differ as to whether Landry bailed out or forced-landed, but records indicate that he died of his wounds a month later.
The day’s honours undoubtedly went to II./JG 3, whose Gruppen-Adjutant, a certain Oberleutnant Franz von Werra, claimed his fifth victory (a Spitfire, almost certainly from No 603 Sqn) over north Kent, before then bagging a trio of Hurricanes to take his overall score to eight. Just over a week later, on 5 September, Franz von Werra failed to return from another bomber escort mission over Kent, having been brought down west of Staplehurst by No 603 Sqn’s Plt Off ‘Stapme’ Stapleton. Having pulled off a perfect belly-landing and been taken prisoner, von Werra was later transported to Canada. There, he would gain fame as ‘the one who got away’ by escaping across the border into the then still neutral USA.
By the time he forced-landed in Kent, von Werra had upped that total to eight (the last four being a quartet of RAF fighters all claimed on 28 August 1940). An RAF sergeant inspects the record carefully kept by von Werra on the tailfin of his E-4, which also includes five aircraft destroyed on the ground (downward-pointing arrows)
This well-known photograph of Knight’s Cross winners Major Günther Lützow (left) and Hauptmann Wilhelm Balthasar (centre) shows an even more impressive scoreboard which, in close-up . . .
On 31 August Hauptmann Kienitz relinquished command of III./JG 3. Arriving via a brief stint as chief instructor at the Werneuchen-based Jagdfliegerschule (fighter pilot school) 1, the officer who replaced him on 1 September was already wearing the Knight’s Cross. As the Staffelkapitän of 1./JG 1 (the later 7./JG 27), Hauptmann Wilhelm Balthasar had been the Luftwaffe’s most successful pilot during the Blitzkrieg in the west – he emerged from that campaign with 23 aerial victories to his credit, plus 13 enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground. Balthasar’s first victory as Gruppenkommandeur of III./JG 3 was a Spitfire (probably from No 66 Sqn) shot down during a fierce dogfight over the Thames Estuary on the morning of 4 September – Balthasar was himself wounded in the engagement.
It was clear that the battle was now approaching its climax. In the first two weeks of September 1940 three more pilots of JG 3 achieved their fifth kills – Leutnants Eberhard Bock and Helmut Meckel, both of I. Gruppe, on 2 and 7 September respectively, and II. Gruppe’s Oberleutnant Erich Woitke on 9 September. Oddly, while Meckel and Woitke were each credited with a Spitfire, Leutnant Bock (the newly appointed Staffelkapitän of 3./JG 3) identified the victim he had brought down southeast of London as a French Morane!
On the other side of the coin, the first half of September also witnessed an increased number of casualties. Among them, in addition to the wounding of Wilhelm Balthasar and the forced-landing of Franz von Werra already mentioned, were several more of the Geschwader’s newly minted aces. On 5 September three pilots from I./JG 3 failed to return from a mission to the London area. One of them was Leutnant Heinz Schnabel of 1. Staffel. At almost the same instant as Oberleutnant von Werra was belly-landing at Marden (British records give the time of both incidents as 1010 hrs), but some 30 kilometres to the east at Aldington on the edge of Romney Marsh, ‘Hannibal’ Schnabel came screaming in for a high speed, wheels-up landing of his own. The impact tore the engine of Schnabel’s ‘White 6’ from its mounts. He himself sustained severe spinal injuries, which meant that he ended up not simply behind British wire, but encased in a plaster cast as well.
. . . is revealed to be that of Wilhelm Balthasar. It meticulously records every one of the 36 victories that Balthasar achieved during the recent Blitzkrieg campaign in the west, both in the air and on the ground (upward- and downward-pointing arrows, respectively). They are in strict chronological order starting at bottom left immediately above the aircraft’s Werk-Nummer. Note also the top row indicating the five Spitfires claimed by Balthasar since assuming command of III./JG 3 (and already two more than shown in the photograph above). Also apparent in this shot (but not in the previous one) is the fact that, apart from the immediate area of the scoreboard, the machine’s rudder is painted yellow
Taking the parallel with Franz von Werra one step further, after recovering from his injuries Heinz Schnabel also succeeded in escaping from captivity. Unlike his famous compatriot, however, he just failed to make it home. In prison camp he had teamed up with Oberleutnant Harry Wappler, the only surviving crew member of a Heinkel bomber that had been brought down by hitting a balloon cable while returning from a night raid on Ellesmere Port. After breaking out of camp, the pair had audaciously stolen a Miles Magister trainer, only to have to abandon their plan to fly to the continent when they discovered that they were running dangerously low on fuel while still over East Anglia. Leutnant Schnabel was thus destined to sit out the rest of the war as a prisoner. Given the fact that Franz von Werra was killed after returning to operations with JG 53, it was perhaps ‘Hannibal’ Schnabel who had had the lucky escape after all!
Leutnant Heinz Schnabel’s highspeed belly-landing on 5 September tore the engine of his ‘White 6’ from its mounts. Although ‘Hannibal’ Schnabel had been credited with six kills by the time of his enforced arrival in Kent, there are only two victory bars visible here at the top of the rudder. The sheep, meanwhile, remain totally oblivious to the history being made all around them
On 7 September, two days after von Werra’s and Schnabel’s forced-landings, the Geschwader experienced the loss of its first ace to be killed in combat when Oberleutnant Leonhard Göttmann of the Gruppenstab III./JG 3 was shot down over the Thames Estuary. 7. Staffel’s Feldwebel Josef Bauer was to suffer a similar fate on 9 September, being declared missing after being seen going down into the Channel during a clash with British fighters. Another pilot of 7./JG 3, Unteroffizier Matthias Massmann, also failed to return to Desvres on this date. He had forced-landed near Hawkhurst, in East Sussex, with a damaged engine. Massmann was not an ace (a Spitfire credited to him on 29 August had had taken his score to just two), but he had been responsible for the Geschwader’s very first kill of the war – that Dutch Fokker D.XXI claimed on the opening day of the Blitzkrieg in the west.
Now commemorated annually as Battle of Britain Day, 15 September 1940 saw the emergence of two more JG 3 aces. Both were Feldwebeln serving with III. Gruppe. Rudolf Saborowski’s fifth was a Hurricane, possibly one of the two machines reported lost by No 229 Sqn over Sevenoaks shortly before midday. But the identity of Hans Stechmann’s Spitfire, claimed 20 minutes later in the same area, is harder to establish.
The battle had undoubtedly reached a peak on 15 September, as is illustrated by the fact that JG 3 managed to produce only one more ace during the remainder of the year. Oberleutnant Egon Troha, the Kapitän of 9. Staffel, was credited with his fifth on 26 October. And in this instance his victim was almos certainly a Hurricane of No 229 Sqn, one of two shot down by Bf 109s while busily attacking a Luftwaffe He 59 air-sea rescue floatplane off the French coast west of Boulogne. Egon Troha was not to enjoy his acedom status for long. Just three days later he was himself bested in a dogfight with another formation of Hurricanes (of No 253 Sqn?) and forced to make an emergency landing northwest of Dover.
9. Staffel’s Feldwebel Hans Stechmann claimed his fifth kill (a Spitfire) on 15 September 1940. Since that date his score has apparently doubled, for an obliging groundcrewman is seen here adding a tenth victory bar to the rudder of his ‘Yellow 3’. There is, however, a slight mystery. This photograph was reportedly taken at Desvres, France, in February 1941, whereas Stechmann was not officially credited with his tenth until 48 hours into Barbarossa!
Having got Oberleutnant Egon Troha’s ‘Yellow 5’ back onto its clearly damaged undercarriage, a British army recovery crew prepare to remove the Daimler Benz DB 601A engine. Note III./JG 3’s new ‘Battleaxe’ Gruppe badge and the name Erika on the starboard side of the cowling lying in the foreground bottom right
The marked reduction in daylight fighter activity during the final quarter of 1940 allowed many of the Channel-based Jagdgeschwader to make command changes. On 30 September Hauptmann Erich von Selle, the Gruppenkommandeur of II./JG 3, had taken up a staff appointment with the newly forming nightfighter arm. For the best part of the next two months the Gruppe was led in an acting capacity by Oberleutnant Erich Woitke, the Staffelkapitän of 6./JG 3. It was not until the end of November, when Erich Woitke departed to assume command of II./JG 52, that a permanent replacement for Erich von Selle took office at the head of II./JG 3. This was Oberleutnant (later Hauptmann) Lothar Keller, hitherto the Staffelkapitän of 1./JG 3. The elevation of Keller and Woitke to Gruppenkommandeure positions led in turn to Oberleutnants Gerhard Sprenger and Heinrich Sannemann being appointed the Kapitäne of 1. and 6. Staffeln, respectively.
In the meantime, Hauptmann Wilhelm Balthasar, the Gruppenkommandeur of III./JG 3, had recovered from his wounds of 4 September and returned to operations. He had claimed a brace of Spitfires on each of three separate days between 23 September and 29 October. These had taken his personal total to 29. He had then relinquished command of III. Gruppe, reportedly for a further period of rest and recuperation, before being appointed Kommodore of JG 2 ‘Richthofen’ in early 1941. The man who had been brought in on 11 November 1940 to lead III./JG 3 in Balthasar’s stead was another veteran of the Condor Legion. Hauptmann Walter Oesau had scored eight victories in Spain against Balthasar’s seven. Since the start of the war he had amassed a further 39 kills with III./JG 51 – latterly as that unit’s Gruppenkommandeur – and, like Balthasar, he too arrived at III./JG 3 already sporting the Knight’s Cross.
The new Kommandeur of III. Gruppe, Hauptmann Walter Oesau (right), is pictured here leaning on the mount of his predecessor, whose scoreboard is still displaying that top row of five victories (although, oddly, Hauptmann Balthasar was credited with six Spitfires during his time in command of III./JG 3)
As the second winter of the war closed in, daylight operations came almost to a standstill. For more than six weeks JG 3 did not file a single claim for an enemy aircraft destroyed, but the locations given for the Geschwader’s final successes of 1940 and its first of 1941 are most illuminating. The former, a almost certainly Hurricanes), were claimed by two Feldwebeln of 9. Staffel – one of them Hans Stechmann – over Kent on 1 December 1940. The latter, identified as a Blenheim and credited to Hauptmann Hans von Hahn, the Gruppenkommandeur of I./JG 3, was brought down off the French coast on 10 January 1941 – proof, if proof were needed, that the tide of battle in the west had finally turned. The mass of the Luftwaffe could no longer operate over southern England by day, and now the Channel Jagdgeschwader found themselves being forced into a more defensive posture as the RAF started its ‘lean into France’.
Portrayed here wearing the Knight’s Cross won in July 1944 when a hauptmann and Gruppenkommandeur of I./JG 1, Feldwebel Hans Ehlers scored the fifth of his 14 victories with JG 3 northwest of St Omer on 5 February 1941
This ‘lean’ had begun with a series of raids, codenamed ‘Circuses’, each comprising a small number of Blenheim IV bombers heavily escorted by fighters. It was the first such ‘Circus’ – consisting of six Blenheim IVs protected by no fewer than 72 fighters flown on 10 January 1941 against an ammunition dump to the south of Calais – that had purportedly given Hauptmann von Hahn his 12th victory northeast of Nieuport on that date. British sources state that all six bombers got back safely, however, the only loss being a single Hurricane.
Less than a month later, however, ‘Circus’ No 3 did not fare so well. Although none of the 12 Blenheim IVs sent to bomb St Omer airfield on 5 February was lost, nine of their escorting fighters failed to return. St Omer happened to be the home of Hans von Hahn’s I./JG 3, and it seems reasonable to assume that it was this unit which inflicted most of the losses suffered by the RAF. In all, I. and III. Gruppen were credited with a total of 14 British fighters destroyed – eight Spitfires and six Hurricanes – for just one of their own machines damaged.
In a series of vicious dogfights, which lasted a good 30 minutes and extended across the Pas-de-Calais and beyond, three pilots (all of them future Knight’s Cross winners) managed to notch up their fifth victories. Two NCOs of 2. Staffel, Oberfeldwebel Robert Olejnik and Feldwebel Hans Ehlers, downed a Spitfire apiece northwest of St Omer, while 9. Staffel’s Feldwebel Otto Wessling caught a Hurricane to the west of Calais. In addition to a number of first time claimants, two other pilots were able to boost their existing scores. Leutnant Helmut Meckel, the Staffelkapitän of 2./JG 3, took his into double figures with a pair of Spitfires (his tenth and eleventh victories) shot down in the St Omer area.
Meanwhile, some 30 kilometres to the west, close to III./JG 3’s airfield at Desvres, Hauptmann Walter Oesau claimed his first kill since assuming command of the Gruppe nearly three months earlier. The Hurricane he brought down as the raiders retired towards the coast raised his personal total to 40, and resulted in the award of the Oak Leaves the following day.
Another future Knight’s Cross winner in action against the RAF’s ‘Circus’ No 3 of 5 February 1941 was the then Leutnant Helmut Meckel, the Staffelkapitän of 2./JG 3, who claimed a brace of Spitfires to take his score to 11. Neither Meckel nor Ehlers (opposite) was to survive the war
The successful action of 5 February 1941 was a fitting swansong to JG 3’s first stint on the Channel coast. Less than a fortnight later the Geschwader began withdrawing to bases in the Reich, where it was to exchange its now decidedly war-weary Emils for brand new Bf 109Fs. The unit returned to its old stamping grounds around the St Omer region of northeastern France early in May 1941. JG 3 was not destined to remain here for long, however. During the course of the next four weeks of intermittent cross-Channel sparring the honours were just about even. Despite being mounted on their new, improved, Friedrichs, the Geschwader’s pilots were only able to claim 14 enemy aircraft destroyed for the loss of 13 of their own number (killed, missing or captured). I./JG 3 fared the worst of all. Its two successes cost the unit six pilots and eight aircraft. Among those who failed to return during this period was six-victory ace Oberleutnant Gerd Sprenger, the Kapitän of 1. Staffel, who was declared missing after tangling with British fighters over the Channel on 16 May.
In some recompense for its single loss, II. Gruppe’s sole claim – for a Spitfire downed off Dunkirk on 7 May – had been made by Oberleutnant Gordon Gollob, the Staffelkapitän of 4./JG 3. This was Gollob’s first victory with the Geschwader, albeit his sixth overall. At the beginning of the war he had been a Zerstörer pilot with I./ZG 76 in Poland. After achieving 80 victories with JG 3, Gollob would subsequently be appointed Kommodore of JG 77. By August 1942 his score had climbed to 150, for which he received the Diamonds. Thereafter he served in a number of increasingly important staff positions, finally reaching the very top when he replaced the disgraced Adolf Galland as General der Jagdflieger in January 1945.
But to return to the Channel front in the late spring of 1941, Hauptmann Walter Oesau’s III./JG 3 was the most successful of the three Gruppen at this time. The unit countered its six losses by claiming nine RAF fighters and two Blenheim IV bombers destroyed. Among the former were the Spitfire and Hurricane shot down over the Straits of Dover by the Kommandeur, which had taken ‘Gulle’ Oesau’s personal tally to 42. These proved to be the last victories that JG 3 would claim over northwest Europe for more than two years. It would be the summer of 1943 before the Geschwader returned to the area to take its place as part of the Defence of the Reich organisation. In the interim it was to experience two very different operational environments – the snowy wastes of the USSR, including the frozen hell that was Stalingrad, and the desert sands of North Africa.