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See page 109 of Jagdgeschwader 2 'Richthogen' by John Weal
Osprey publishing ISBN 1-84176-046-3
by John Weal
Summary: German fighter pilot, Leutnant Wolfgang Fischer's experience of D-Day.
Despite their distance from the landing beaches, I. and III./JG 2 were quick to respond to news of the invasion. Leutnant Wolfgang Fischer, who had flown Gustavs with 4. Staffel in Italy (it was he who had been forced to land after being attacked by RAF Mustangs on 6 April), but had since converted to the Fw 190, remembers D-Day vividly. His experiences may not have been typical, but they are certainly enlightening; ‘At about 0500 hrs on the morning of 6 June a motorcyclist pulled up outside my quarters, yelled my name and the one word – “Invasion!” He drove me out to the strip and we quickly took off back to Creil.
‘There we waited around for two hours while our aircraft were fitted with underwing rockets. We had been briefed to attack the landing fleet, and I spent the time trying to work out how to hit a ship with these things. Their aiming instructions were brief and to the point. “At 1000 metres (3300 ft) range aim off 80 metres (260 ft) to the left”. I decided a beam attack would offer the best chance of success.
‘At 0930 hrs 12 of us took off for Vers-sur-mer (a village along the British ‘Gold' landing beach). Hohagen was not flying this mission – we were being led instead by Hauptmann Wurmheller. The sky was seven-tenths covered in thick cumulus. We kept spotting swarms of Allied fighters in the clear patches but successfully avoided them all, wanting first to fire our rockets at the shipping.'
‘At about 1000 hrs we flew over Bayeux. Parts of the town were already burning. We continued on out over the Bay of the Seine for a short distance, hoping to achieve surprise by attacking from the seaward side. From our altitude of some 3000 metres (9850 ft) I could see the entire coastline from the mouth of the Orne in the east to St Maire-Eglise in the west. Offshore lay a huge armada – battleships on the outermost edges, transports nearer to land, and tiny landing craft heading in to the beaches.‘Dodging between the fat, dark shapes of the barrage balloons, I was the only one lucky enough to find a fair-sized vessel – it could have been a Liberty ship – almost directly in my path. It was turning slightly to port, so I aimed off a full ship's length ahead and pressed the red button normally used to jettison the ventral fuel tank.'
‘For a split-second I seemed to be enveloped in flames. Relieved of the weight of the rockets the machine leaped upwards. Recovering from the shock, I watched the twin points of light head down towards the target. One exploded on the stern of the ship. The other disappeared in a fountain of water just behind her. ‘I released the two launch tubes and quickly built up speed in a shallow dive towards the shore and home. I fired at the beaches as I passed overhead, but it wasn't safe to linger because of the numerous enemy fighter patrols.'
Wolfgang Fischer landed safely at 1045 hrs – not at Creil, but on a racecourse in the grounds of a small chateau at nearby Senlis. It was part of the Luftwaffe's contingency plans in the event of invasion to disperse its fighters on small, hard-to-find landing strips such as this.
At Senlis Fischer experienced what he later described as a ‘grotesque' situation. While Major Hohagen and his Stabsschwarm flew a single mission, which netted the Gruppenkommandeur a Typhoon, the rest of the unit was given the afternoon off! Fischer and his fellow pilots took the opportunity to enjoy the amenities of the local swimming pool – basking in the summer sun with the local populace while a solitary P-51 circled aimlessly some 2000 metres (6500 ft) overhead. But all good things must come to an end.
‘It wasn't until the evening that things started to happen again. At about 1930 hrs Hauptmann Huppertz, the Kommandeur of III. Gruppe, landed on our strip with five of his Focke-Wulfs. When they took off again some thirty minutes later, I and two of my comrades accompanied them. We were flying almost due west at about 400 metres (1300 ft), heading for the scene of the airborne landings around Caen, when we sighted a dozen P-51s circling and strafing one of our road convoys.'
‘All thoughts of the Caen mission were abandoned. We had to help our troops on the ground below. The Mustangs were so engrossed in their work that they failed to notice us. Jettisoning our long-range tanks, we eight Fw 190s climbed to 1200 metres (3900 ft) to reach the ideal height and position from which to launch our attack. ‘Before diving on them from behind, each of us had had ample opportunity to select, quite literally, “his” Mustang. “Mine” had just completed a pass on some vehicles crossing a bridge, and was on the point of pulling up, when I got on his tail – still undetected – and caught him fair and square. The Mustang slid into a gentle dive and smashed into the river bank at the foot of a large tree, which immediately burst into flames from ground to tip like a huge candle.'
‘We landed back at Senlis at around 2130 hrs – it was already getting quite dark – to great excitement. A recording truck was waiting and we were interviewed live on the radio. At that time eight victories without loss was regarded as something quite exceptional.'
In fact, D-Day itself was the Geschwader's most successful day of the entire Normandy campaign. Between them, I. and III./JG 2 had accounted for no fewer than 18 Allied fighters. The first, just before midday, had been a P-47 claimed by Major Kurt Bühligen. It was the Geschwaderkommodore's 99th victory. The highest scorer was Herbert Huppertz, who had already downed three Typhoons before being credited with two of the eight P-51s despatched near Evreux.
On the debit side, each Gruppe had lost just one Focke-Wulf. A 3. Staffel machine had crashed en route from Nancy back to Creil, and one unfortunate pilot of 11./JG 2, newly flown in from the Atlantic seaboard, was promptly shot down by ‘friendly' flak south of Rouen. Two further losses were recorded on D+1. The first was another III./JG 2 pilot, this time of 10. Staffel, who also ventured too close to Rouen's trigger-happy flak defences. The second was Wolfgang Fischer.
Again armed with underwing rockets, Leutnant Fischer was this time flying wingman to Major Hohagen at the head of 20 Fw 190s briefed to attack both the shipping off ‘Gold' and the Würzburg radar station atop the Pointe du Hoc, which had been captured by the enemy. Having missed with his rockets, Fischer dived to rake a large LST with cannon fire. Caught by the ship's anti-aircraft gunners – ‘it was like flying through a glowing spider's web', he recalls – Fischer was wounded and forced to bail out of his badly damaged fighter. The wind carried him back to shore, where he was extricated from a minefield by a pair of British soldiers.
(© Osprey Publishing. Extract taken from: Jagdgeschwader 2 ‘Richthofen' (Aviation Elite Units 1) chapter 4: Retreat and Defeat )
Regards
Graham
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