When the men and machines of JG 3 departed the Pas-de-Calais for a second time in June 1941 and started to stage eastwards for German-occupied Poland, the Geschwader was embarking upon an entirely new chapter in its career – the invasion of the Soviet Union. Nor was the change purely geographical. The scale and tempo of the operations to come would be unlike anything its members, air-and groundcrew alike, had ever experienced before.
To date, after more than a year of near continual campaigning against the Western Allies, the pilots of JG 3’s three Gruppen had slowly and laboriously amassed a combined total of almost 400 enemy aircraft destroyed. In the next four months alone, they would be credited with more than three times that number of Soviet machines shot down. Personal scores would begin to soar rapidly to heights that would have been unimaginable only weeks earlier. Between June and October 1941 more than 50 pilots would reach the five-victory mark. Multiple daily kills would become almost commonplace as many individuals climbed steadily into double figures. Two would exceed 80 and one – Geschwaderkommodore Major Günther Lützow – would top the century mark.
Reflecting the more relaxed atmosphere of an operational station ‘in the field’, Hauptmann Walter Oesau, the Kommandeur of III./JG 3, reports in shirt-sleeve order to his GOC, General der Flieger Robert Ritter von Greim, during the latter’s visit to Moderovka on the second day of Barbarossa. Note Oesau’s ‘White Double Chevron’ in the background
With such a multitude of claims made during engagements fought over often featureless and unfamiliar terrain, and against what was then still a largely amorphous and unknown enemy (many pilots initially had great difficulty in identifying the types of enemy aircraft they were shooting down), it is clearly impossible to itemise every victory and chart the emergence of each newly fledgedfive-victory ace. Yet even against this background of more than 1200 claims in just four months (sometimes as many as 20 or 30 in a single day), certain names began to stand out above the others – those referred to in Luftwaffe circles as the true Experten. It was to be the Geschwader’s most successful period of the entire war, both in terms of the number of enemy aircraft destroyed and in the number of decorations conferred upon its pilots. Between 9 July and 4 November 1941 no fewer than 19 Knight’s Crosses and higher would be awarded to JG 3.
Oberleutnant Robert Olejnik, the Staffelkapitän of 1./JG 3, is widely recognised as having brought down the very first Soviet aircraft (an I-16) of the war in the east. It was his sixth victory to date, but this shot of him being congratulated by his chief mechanic, Feldwebel Mackert, was not taken on that occasion, as other photos in the same series show Olejnik’s rudder bearing 21 kill bars. Another minor oddity is that on the original photograph a Knight’s Cross is visible around Olejnik’s neck. Records indicate, however, that he did not receive this decoration until victory No 32
By the third week of June 1941 JG 3’s three Gruppen were deployed on fields some 100 kilometres to the southeast of Lublin, close to the demarcation line between German- and Soviet-occupied Poland. The Geschwader now comprised the fighter component of General der Flieger von Greim’s V. Fliegerkorps, itself a part of Luftflotte 4 – the air fleet that was responsible for covering the southern sector of the invasion front. V. Fliegerkorps’ specific role was to provide air support for Panzergruppe 1’s advance on the Ukrainian capital Kiev.
The events of 22 June 1941, the opening day of Operation Barbarossa, are too well known to warrant detailed repetition here. Suffice it simply to say that by its end the Luftwaffe’s pre-emptive strikes on the Red Air Force’s frontier airfields had cost the Soviets a staggering 336 aircraft shot down and close on 1500 destroyed on the ground!
JG 3’s part in the day’s proceedings netted its pilots a total of 25 confirmed aerial victories. The Bf 109s of I. Gruppe were the first in action. They had taken off from Zamosc-Dub at around 0340 hrs to carry out a series of low-level attacks on six enemy fields in the Lemberg (Lvov) region, but they claimed their first victim well before reaching the target area. In fact, the single Soviet I-16 fighter that Oberleutnant Robert Olejnik, the Kapitän of 1. Staffel, brought down almost immediately after crossing the border was not just JG 3’s first success of the day, it is now widely accepted that Olejnik’s kill – his sixth to date – was the very first casualty of the air war in the east. Seven other pilots from I./JG 3 were also credited with kills as the day progressed.
III. Gruppe, however, was not so lucky. It too had started out by attacking Soviet airfields shortly after 0400 hrs, but had then been employed on bomber escort duties. The unit’s sole success on this historic day had been credited to an NCO pilot of 7. Staffel, the I-15 biplane being the first victory for Unteroffizier Helmut Rüffler. By war’s end Oberfeldwebel Rüffler would be wearing the Knight’s Cross, having raised his final score to 98.
Rüffler’s single success hardly compensated for the loss of 12-victory Oberleutnant Willy Stange, however, the Staffelkapitän of 8./JG 3 being forced to land behind enemy lines after his ‘Black 10’ was damaged by flak. Although other members of the Staffel saw him climb apparently uninjured out of his machine, Stange was quickly captured and killed by a group of Soviet soldiers.
The Geschwaderstab also claimed a single victory on 22 June. Not surprisingly, it fell to the guns of Kommodore Major Günther Lützow. Identified as an ‘I-18’ (in all probability a MiG-3), it was Lützow’s 19th kill of the war. A brace of SB-2 twin-engined bombers 24 hours later took him to 21. After a single I-153 fighter the following day, Lützow added three more medium bombers on 26 June. This marked the start of a steady succession of multiple kills – on some days as many as four, and on 8 October five – that ‘Franzl’ Lützow would continue to amass throughout the Geschwader’s first stint on the eastern front. During that time the Stab was credited with exactly 100 enemy aircraft destroyed, and the Kommodore was responsible for 83 of them, taking his overall total to 101 and earning him the Oak Leaves and the Swords in the process.
Geschwaderkommodore Major Günther Lützow pictured in the opening weeks of the war against the Soviet Union (prior to his being awarded the Oak Leaves on 20 July 1941). Note the distinctive ‘White Triple Chevron’ adorning his Bf 109F-2
Major Günther Lützow was without question the Geschwader’s most successful pilot during this stage of its operational history, but others were running him close. And none closer than II. Gruppe’s Hauptmann Gordon Gollob.
II./JG 3 had been the highest scoring of the three Gruppen on the opening day of Barbarossa. Among its 15 victories were firsts for future Knight’s Cross recipients Oberleutnant Walther Dahl of the Gruppenstab and Leutnant Hans Fuss of 4. Staffel. An I-153 took Oberleutnant Franz Beyer, also of the Gruppenstab, to five and an I-16 provided Gordon Gollob, the Staffelkapitän of 4./JG 3, with his seventh. But Hauptmann Lothar Keller outdid them all, the Gruppenkommandeur’s four victories (a pair each of I-16s and I-153s) raising his total to 20.
A year earlier, during the Blitzkrieg against France, 20 victories would have meant an almost automatic Knight’s Cross, but times, and the criteria for the awarding of decorations, were already changing. Lothar Keller did not get a Knight’s Cross. Nor did he get any more victories. He was killed four days later. There is, however, some uncertainty regarding the exact circumstances that led to his death. All sources agree that he lost his life in a mid-air collision with another (unidentified) Luftwaffe aircraft. However, some references state that he was flying a freie Jagd sweep in his fighter at the time, whilst others maintain that he was piloting a Fieseler Storch on a local reconnaissance flight. The latter may well have been the case, for the Gruppe had been ordered to transfer forward to a new field on this date, and the Kommandeur was perhaps checking out the lie of the land in preparation for the move.
Whatever the true facts, Keller’s loss appears to have led to a change of heart on the part of the authorities, for on 9 July he would become the first member of JG 3 to be honoured with a posthumous Knight’s Cross.
23 June saw a repeat performance by II. and III. Gruppen, who again shot down exactly the same number of enemy aircraft as the day before – 15 and 1, respectively. In contrast, I./JG 3 more than doubled its opening day’s score by claiming 19 Soviet bombers. Although this haul produced no new aces for the Gruppe, a quartet of Tupolev SB-2s did take Oberleutnant Robert Olejnik’s tally up into double figures.
Robert Olejnik not only scored the first aerial victory of Barbarossa, he also became JG 3’s first Russian Front ‘five-in-one-day’ ace on 26 June 1941 (beating Oberleutnant Viktor Bauer of 9./JG 3 by a matter of mere hours). He is seen here (right) – still on the Channel front – explaining his tactics to a Luftwaffe war correspondent while, in the background, fellow-Staffelkapitän Oberleutnant Helmut Meckel of 2./JG 3 (in flying overalls) looks on with some amusement
The next two days resulted in a further 37 Soviet aircraft being added to the Geschwader’s collective scoreboard and the emergence of six more aces, including future Oak Leaves winner Oberleutnant Viktor Bauer, currently the Staffelkapitän of 9./JG 3.
On 26 June the action flared up again with a vengeance. It was on this date that I./JG 3 enjoyed – if ‘enjoyed’ be the right word – its most successful day of the entire war by claiming a staggering 31 enemy machines shot down! The majority of the Gruppe’s victims were hacked from the waves of medium bombers that the Soviets were sending over in their desperate attempts to halt the German advance. Somewhat surprisingly, this slaughter produced only one new ace – an Ilyushin DB-3 gave 1. Staffel’s Feldwebel Detlev Lüth his fifth. Nevertheless, both Oberleutnant Robert Olejnik and Hauptmann Hans von Hahn were able to claim multiple victories, five DB-3s for Olejnik (thereby making him another ‘ace-in-one-day’) and a brace of DB-3s, plus a single SB-2, for Gruppenkommandeur von Hahn.
Although III./JG 3’s total tally for the day was nine fewer than I. Gruppe’s spectacular haul, it too achieved some impressive individual results. Hauptmann Walter Oesau’s four (a trio of SB-2s and an I-15 fighter) raised his personal score to 48 – by far the highest in the Geschwader at that time – while Oberleutnant Viktor Bauer ran Robert Olejnik a close second by also claiming ‘five-in-one-day’. Olejnik’s five are believed all to have gone down before noon, whereas the last of Bauer’s five bombers – a DB-3, which he chased and caught some 80 kilometres inside Soviet territory – was not logged until 1625 hrs.
In comparison to the performances of I. and III. Gruppen, the day’s bag for II./JG 3 was positively sparse. And the dozen DB-3s with which its pilots were credited did little to make up for the loss of their Gruppenkommandeur, Hauptmann Lothar Keller, as previously described.
With the war in the east still only five days old, unit and individual scores were already beginning to escalate at a rate never before imagined, let alone experienced. Against such a background the accumulation of five victories – which in British and American eyes constituted the definition of an ace (and which will continue to be used here) – became almost meaningless. Before the Geschwader’s first spell of duty in Russia came to an end early in November, over 40 more of its pilots would have claimed their fifth kills. Many of them then climbed rapidly into double figures, soon surpassing the once seemingly unattainable 20-victory mark. A select few went even further. On the last day of June, for example, Hauptmann Walter Oesau’s 11th kill since being brought in to take command of III. Gruppe made him the first half-centurion to serve in the ranks of JG 3 (his first 39 having been gained with I./JG 20 and III./JG 51).
Luzk, 6 July 1941, and I./JG 3’s Gruppenkommandeur Hauptmann Hans von Hahn (right) surveys his record of successes to date . . .
The Geschwader continued to support the ground forces’ drive eastwards throughout July. During that month JG 3 was credited with just over 500 enemy aircraft destroyed, almost exactly half that total falling to ‘Gulle’ Oesau’s III. Gruppe alone. The bulk of their successes were made up of twin-engined bombers, which the Soviets were still sacrificing in prodigious numbers. In addition to their defensive duties, JG 3’s pilots also carried out numerous freie Jagd sweeps as well.
July 1941 brought the Geschwader its first clutch of eastern front awards. These included three Knight’s Crosses, the first of which was conferred upon Hauptmann Hans von Hahn, the Gruppenkommandeur of I./JG 3, on 9 July for his 21 victories. Eighteen days later the next went to Oberleutnant Robert Olejnik, the Kapitän of von Hahn’s 1. Staffel, for 32 victories. And on 30 July Oberleutnant Viktor Bauer, the Staffelkapitän of 9./JG 3, received his for 34 victories.
The month had also seen two other even more prestigious awards. Having claimed his 50th on 30 June, Hauptmann Walter Oesau reached his 60th on 8 July, his 70th three days later and his 80th just four days after that. This amazing run culminated in another ‘first’ on 15 July – the immediate award of the first Swords to be won by a member of the Geschwader. And on 20 July – the day that he claimed a pair of ‘single-engined bombers’ (possibly early model Il-2 Shturmoviks) to take his score to 42 – Kommodore Major Günther Lützow was awarded the Oak Leaves.
. . . which was also applied with equal care to the starboard side of his machine’s rudder. The three balloon symbols are self-explanatory, as are the three half-length bars denoting aircraft destroyed on the ground (one western, two Russian). The upper row of ten aerial victories (commencing top right with a Hurricane brought down during the ‘Phoney war’) were all claimed while von Hahn was a member of JG 53. The remaining 14 (five RAF and nine Soviet) are his current ‘bag’ as Kommandeur of I./JG 3 – the last two a pair of DB-3s accounted for on 6 July 1941
‘Gulle’ Oesau, incidentally, was to claim six more victories as Kommandeur of III./JG 3 before being posted away to become a Geschwaderkommodore himself – of the famous JG 2 ‘Richthofen’ on the Channel front.
Groundcrew of 9./JG 3 stop work on Leutnant Helmut Mertens’ ‘Yellow 6’ to wave up at another F-2 as it circles Polonnoye prior to landing. Word must already have got around . . .
Inevitably, there were casualties too. Among the dozen pilots of JG 3 reported killed or missing during July 1941 were four more of the unit’s newly fledged aces. II. Gruppe lost two such pilots within the space of 48 hours. 6. Staffel’s Unteroffizier Horst Beyer, whose fifth victory had been a Petlyakov Pe-2 claimed on 28 June, was himself brought down and killed south of Kiev on 11 July. The fate of Oberleutnant Karl Faust, the Staffelkapitän of 4./JG 3 (whose fifth had also been a Pe-2, downed on 29 June), was even more tragic. Fired at in error by a Luftwaffe Ju 88, he was forced to land his damaged ‘White 5’ behind enemy lines on 12 July, only to be captured and shot by Soviet troops.
I./JG 3 also lost two of its new aces, both from 2. Staffel and both of whom had happened to claim their fifth kills (an I-16 apiece) on the same day (12 July) at exactly the same time (0740 hrs). Oberfeldwebel Hermann Kniewasser, having added a sixth to his total in the interim, was killed while attacking a group of enemy bombers on 17 July. And on the last day of the month Unteroffizier Günther Schulz, with his score still standing at five, was brought down by flak some 70 kilometres to the south of Kiev.
. . . that one of the three I-153s just shot down by Oberfeldwebel Hans Stechmann on this 15 July 1941 is the Geschwader’s 1000th victory of the war! Little wonder that Stechmann’s ‘Yellow 4’ is mobbed as it taxies to a halt
With the ground forces now closing in on the Ukrainian capital, August witnessed a marked reduction in the Geschwader’s activities. They were credited with fewer than 250 enemy aircraft destroyed – less than half the previous month’s total. A dozen more new aces had, however, emerged before August was out. All but two of them came from the ranks of II./JG 3, including future Oak Leaves recipients Unteroffizier Leopold ‘Poldi’ Münster and Oberleutnant Walther Dahl of later Sturmgruppe fame.
The month also saw four new Knight’s Cross winners. All were Staffelkapitäne, three of whom were decorated on the same day. Oberleutnant Helmut Meckel, the Kapitän of 2. Staffel, had claimed his 25th, and last, victory north of Kiev back on 11 July. Shortly afterwards he had been taken off ops due to a severe illness. His place was taken by 27-victory Oberleutnant Max Bucholz. Both men received the Knight’s Cross on 12 August.
Oberleutnant Max Bucholz, who had replaced the ailing Helmut Meckel as Staffelkapitän of 2./JG 3 on 15 July, received the Knight’s Cross less than a month later for a score then standing at 27 (the last five all claimed on 13 July)
The third Staffelkapitän to be presented with the award on that date, 7./JG 3’s Oberleutnant Kurt Sochatzy, was already a prisoner of the Soviets. The right wing of Sochatzy’s ‘White 9’ had been torn off when he was rammed by an I-16 during a dogfight over Kiev on 3 August. Sochatzy was credited with the I-16 (or one of its fellows) as his 38th, and last, victory. He himself was forced to take to his parachute and survived both the descent and his subsequent eight years of Russian captivity. He was the only JG 3 ace to be lost in August 1941. The month’s fourth, and final, Knight’s Cross went to Oberleutnant Franz Beyer, the Kapitän of 8. Staffel, although references differ as to whether his exact score at the time was standing at 31 or 32.
In September the Geschwader’s successes were halved yet again, falling to a total of just 123. This may have been due in some measure to Hauptmann Hans von Hahn’s I./JG 3 being withdrawn from the eastern front in the middle of the month and returned to Magdeburg, in Germany, to rest and refit. A small detachment did remain behind in Russia until the end of October, however. This allowed Oberfeldwebeln Detlev Lüth, Ernst Heesen and Hans Ehlers to take their final scores with the Geschwader to 26, 19 and 14, respectively. In mid-December I./JG 3 would be transferred from Magdeburg to the Dutch coast to help strengthen that region’s air defences against attack by the RAF. But Hauptmann von Hahn’s Gruppe would claim no victories in its new area of operations before being redesignated II./JG 1 on 15 January 1942.
Meanwhile, for the two Gruppen remaining in Russia, it was very much business as usual. On 4 September the first two of the month’s four Knight’s Crosses were awarded. Both went to oberfeldwebeln of 9. Staffel, Georg Schentke and Hans Stechmann, and both were for a total of 30 victories. Another oberfeldwebel, Heinrich Brenner of 4./JG 3, was less fortunate three days later when he became the only ace lost to the Geschwader in September. Brenner’s fifth had been one of the three SB-3s he had brought down in the space of just eight minutes on 17 August. His total had risen to 12 by the time he lost his life in a dogfight with I-16s south of Kremenchug on 7 September.
Pictured in happier times together with the pilots of his 7./JG 3, Staffelkapitän Oberleutnant Kurt Sochatzy (third from right) was also awarded the Knight’s Cross on 12 August 1941 – but in absentia, as he had already been a prisoner of the Soviets for nine days by then
Pictured at Byelaya-Zerkov in the latter half of August 1941, Leutnant Detlev Rohwer of the Gruppenstab I./JG 3 poses proudly alongside the rudder of his Friedrich, which shows a total of 27 kills (plus six machines destroyed on the ground). No 28 – identified as an R-10 light attack and reconnaissance aircraft – was to go down southeast of Kremenchug on 7 September, but it would be 5 October before Leutnant Rohwer received the coveted Knight’s Cross
Despite the loss of Heinrich Brenner, II./JG 3 was by far the more successful Gruppe in September with 80 confirmed victories (against III./JG 3’s 15). Three of the Gruppe’s NCO pilots, Oberfeldwebeln Erwin Kortlepel and Alfred Heckmann and Unteroffizier Werner Lucas – the latter pair future Knight’s Cross winners – all reached the 20 mark during the course of the month. And on 12 September Gruppenkommandeur Hauptmann Gordon Gollob claimed his 40th. Gollob, who had taken over at the head of II./JG 3 after the loss of Lothar Keller just four days into Barbarossa, was awarded the Knight’s Cross on 18 September (for a score then standing at 42).
The other Knight’s Cross presented on that date went to an oberleutnant of III. Gruppe whose total was less than half that of Gollob’s. It seems clear from these two instances that not only were the criteria for the conferral of decorations steadily being raised, but that inconsistencies were beginning to creep in too. For fighter pilots the number of victories gained was an important, perhaps the overriding factor in the winning of awards, but it was no longer the only one. Qualities of leadership, for example, were also being taken into account by this stage of the war. And just as some posthumous Knight’s Crosses were awarded to honour those killed in action, others – or so at least one historian has suggested – may well have been handed out as a form of ‘consolation prize’ to pilots whose promising operational careers had been brought to a premature end.
Pictured sometime during the late summer of 1941, Hauptmann Hans von Hahn, the Kommandeur of I./JG 3, is still apparently using the unusual Stab insignia inherited from Günther Lützow some 12 months earlier. Note the completely different ‘Cockerel’s head’ personal insignia now carried by his F-2, however
Oberleutnant Winfried Schmidt was perhaps a case in point. Upon the outbreak of war he had been a member of II./JG 77. His first victory had been one of the luckless RAF Wellingtons brought down on 18 December 1939 during the now famous ‘Battle of the German Bight’. Since joining III./JG 3 his varying fortunes had seen him wounded at least twice, add a further 18 enemy aircraft to his score and rise to become the Kapitän of 8. Staffel. But his final victory, over a DB-3 on 11 July 1941, had resulted in his again being wounded – this time so seriously that he was no longer fit for flying duties. He would spend the remainder of the war in various staff appointments.
Another tail with a tale to tell. Despite the indifferent quality of the original print, this photograph of Hauptmann Gordon M Gollob’s rudder scoreboard clearly shows the Polish marking (top left) indicating his first victory. This, and the four RAF roundels next to it, are for aircraft all downed while Gollob was a member of ZG 76. The fifth, and final, RAF roundel – for a Hurricane shot down into the Channel on 7 May 1941 – was his first victory with JG 3. It is followed by 27 Soviet stars, the last five of them for machines all claimed on 21 August
On 19 September, 24 hours after the announcement of Gollob’s and Schmidt’s Knight’s Crosses, the German 6. Armee took Kiev. For the next seven days one of the largest and bloodiest ‘cauldron’ battles of the war raged to the east of the Ukrainian capital. By the time it was over some two-thirds of a million Red Army troops had been taken prisoner and the Soviet southwest front had been torn wide open. In the immediate aftermath of the cauldron battle of Kiev JG 3 was detached from V. Fliegerkorps in the Ukraine and transferred up to II. Fliegerkorps on the central sector of the front. Here it was to support Operation Taifun (Typhoon), Army Group Centre’s offensive against Moscow, which was launched on 2 October 1941.
It was thus over unknown territory that the Geschwader’s last three aces of 1941 were to claim their fifth victories. The territory may have been new to them, but their opponents were all too familiar. Number five for Unteroffizier Karl-Heinz Wallrath of 8./JG 3 was a DB-3 brought down on 3 October. Two days later Leutnant Emil Bitsch, also of 8. Staffel, claimed a SB-3. And 24 hours after that, 6./JG 3’s Leutnant Gustav Frielinghaus – like Bitsch a future Knight’s Cross recipient – was credited with a Pe-2.
As in the previous month, II./JG 3 was again by far the highest scoring Gruppe in October, claiming 84 victories compared to III. Gruppe’s 33. There was a good reason for this. While III./JG 3 remained on the Moscow front in the face of increasing Soviet resistance and ever-worsening weather (the first snows had fallen within days of the launch of Taifun), Hauptmann Gollob’s II. Gruppe had been withdrawn from the central sector on 16 October and sent to the far south for temporary attachment to JG 77 – the Geschwader that was supporting 11. Armee’s drive down through the Perekop Isthmus on to the Crimea.
Whether at the gates of Moscow or over the more clement Crimea, the final weeks of JG 3’s initial spell of operations in the east were dominated by just two names. On 7 October Geschwaderkommodore Major Günther Lützow had taken his score to 80 with a DB-3 downed west of the Soviet capital. Three days later a pair of Pe-2s were numbers 90 and 91. And on 24 October a MiG-3 gave ‘Franzl’ Lützow his century. He was only the second pilot in the history of aerial warfare (after the legendary Werner Mölders) to achieve 100 victories!
Hauptmann Gordon M Gollob, Gruppenkommandeur of II./JG 3, wearing the Oak Leaves awarded on 26 October 1941 for his then overall total of 85 enemy aircraft destroyed (80 of them while serving with JG 3)
To the south Hauptmann Gordon Gollob, Kommandeur of II. Gruppe, therefore had some ground to make up – but he was doing so, fast. His 50th had gone down over the central sector on 5 October. His 60th, the second of three MiG-3s claimed on 17 October, was scored during the Gruppe’s first day in action over the Crimea. Incredibly, his 70th followed just 24 hours later – the last of nine(!) MiGs claimed in a single day. It then took all of four more days for him to get his 80th.
These achievements earned both men high awards. Major Günther Lützow received his Swords on 11 October (for his then 92 victories) and Hauptmann Gollob’s Oak Leaves followed on 26 October (for 85 victories). It was a fitting finale to the Geschwader’s time in Russia – although ‘Franzl’ Lützow had managed to sneak in his 101st (another MiG-3) on 24 October before being officially taken off operations upon specific ‘orders from above’. Werner Mölders had been similarly banned from further combat flying after reaching his century. At this (relatively early) stage of the war, the risk of handing a propaganda coup to the enemy by having a 100-victory ace lost in action still outweighed any operational considerations. It was a policy that would not survive for much longer.
It may be unfair, but after such stellar performances the last two Knight’s Crosses won in this chapter of the unit’s history come as something of an anti-climax. Both were awarded on 4 November. They went to Oberleutnant Georg Michalek, the Staffelkapitän of 4./JG 3, for a score of 36 and to 5./JG 3’s Feldwebel Walter Ohlrogge for his 39. Very nearly 33 years of age, Ohlrogge was one of the oldest fighter pilots in the Luftwaffe, and certainly the oldest in his Staffel, where he was affectionately referred to as the ‘Altmeister’, or ‘Old Master’.
II./JG 3 flew its last operations over the Crimea on 31 October. One of the two enemy machines downed during these final missions provided victory number 20 for Oberleutnant Heinrich Sannemann, a long-serving Staffelkapitän. Then, early in November, the Gruppe was ordered to hand its remaining dozen or so serviceable Bf 109s over to III./JG 77 and prepare for transfer back to the Reich. On the central sector III./JG 3 at Orel was likewise instructed to pass its aircraft over to JG 51 and make ready to return to Germany.
The last members of JG 3 to bid farewell to the eastern front in 1941 were Oberstleutnant Günther Lützow’s Geschwaderstab (the Kommodore’s promotion from major had come through on 29 October). By 8 November the Stab was based on a field just 120 kilometres to the southeast of Moscow. It was on this date that it was credited with the last of the 106 victories it had claimed since the start of Barbarossa. The twin-engined DB-3 that Leutnant Eckhardt Hübner downed close to the Soviet capital was his 19th kill while serving with the Stab in Russia, and it took his overall total to 31 – his opening 12 had been scored with III. Gruppe.
This marked the end of the first round in JG 3’s war against the Soviet Union. It would not be long before the Jagdgeschwader returned, but when it did the unit would find conditions very different.