Last Fighter unit to see combat

German Luftwaffe 1935-1945.
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PaulP
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Last Fighter unit to see combat

Post by PaulP »

Hi all ,

Got a quick and one hopes and easy question , what was the last fighter unit to surrender ?

Thanks in advance :D
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Kapuziner
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Last fighting unit

Post by Kapuziner »

OK, but it's hard to say, in these day's had been some unnecessary (?) trouble and officeworker haven't had time to clear their logs correctly. But, if my papers are alright and as up to date as possible, it could have been Major Erich "Bubi" Hartmann, who has made his very last combatflight and his very last airvictory on that special day.

Date: May, 8th 1945, 0830-0920 GermanTime, shoot down a JAK-11 near Brünn (Tschechoslowaky).
It was his 352nd airvictory during his 1404th mission and his 825th aircombat at all.
But, it is, of course, possible, that another pilot/crew somewhere on the eastern front have had there very last flight, undocumentared, who knows...

Well, and the unit: JG (Jagdgeschwader) 52, Commodore OTL (Oberstleutnant) Graf.
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Benoit Douville
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Post by Benoit Douville »

Is this official? What is your source?

Regards
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Kapuziner
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Last FU

Post by Kapuziner »

Servus Benoit,

well, my (offical) source is:

"Holt Hartmann vom Himmel" (get Hartmann down from sky - "The Blond Knight of Germany" - official title by Doubleday Company Inc., New York)
Copyright 1970 by Raymond F. Toliver and Trevor J. Constable.

ISBN 3-87943-216-3 (this nbr shows the German translated one)

But it could be possible that anywhere anybody was still flying and fighting and nobody will knew ever.

Cheers, Hpy Xmas and GNY

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Benoit Douville
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Post by Benoit Douville »

Your source is pretty credible, ''The Blond Knight of Germany'' is a really good reference.

Regards
Last edited by Benoit Douville on Fri Dec 14, 2007 9:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Erich
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Post by Erich »

consider the fact that a JG 54 ace also claimed a Soviet kill on the last day of the war as well as ace of I./JG 7 Fritz Stehle driving home his Me 262 to Fassberg to surrender and I believe tore apart a Soviet P-39 enroute as this is confirmed as may well have been the very last LW air kill of the war and not Hartmann's..........

there are many fotos of Stehles 262 after surrender

as to the original question that is a agood question as I am not sure if it has ever been answered

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Andy_F
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Claims 08May45

Post by Andy_F »

Oblt Gerhard Thyben 4./JG 54 claimed a Pe-2 W. Libau at 07:54 (157th claim)

Hptm Erich Hartmann Stab I./JG 52 claimed a Yak-11 (probably a Yak-9) near Brno at 08:30 (352nd claim)

Oblt Fritz Stehle 2./JG 7 claimed a P-39 (flown by Ml-Lt Sergey G. Stepanov 129 GvIAP or Aleksey Ivanyuk 152 GvIAP) over Erzgebirge at 16:00 (26th claim). Stehle's claim is generally recognised as the last Lw "kill" of the war.

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Kapuziner
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Hartmann Rank

Post by Kapuziner »

Servus Andy,

You are right except the rank; Hartmann has got the rank "Major" already in the last weeks of the war.

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Marc Binazzi
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Post by Marc Binazzi »

Well, an interesting thread, and it is pretty amazing that the Luftwaffe could fly so late in 1945 and on top of that get hold of gasoline in a time when many units just could not fly by lack of gas supply, the typical picture of the Luftwaffe at that stage being the jet fighters stuck to the ground by bombings or just lack of gas.
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Jacob81
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Post by Jacob81 »

yes I talked to a american vet and he told me he saw over 200 brand new ME 262 on the ground he said they didnt have any gas for them.
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Post by phylo_roadking »

Marc - the 262 ran on kerosene, or kerosene cut with a little petroleum, so not gasoline as such. This was regarded at the start of the war as a "non-essential fuel"...being in Europe more commonly used as lamp oil!...and one of the reasons nations were moving to jet engines. it can IIRC be distilled at a pinch from coal or oil shale, and was easier to produce in the "ersatz" plants than petrol. However - by THAT late in the day the LW didn't even have much of that...! One of the reasons they experimented with coal dust...

I wonder if those jets sitting racked up were actually waiting for their (non-existent) engines to be fitted...certainly the factories producing and piling up airfames had far outstripped the German ability to produce the engines.
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