An interview with Jean-Yves Lorant, historian of JG 300



This page last updated on 23 August 2007

Now that both volumes of Jean-Yves Lorant's history of JG 300 are published in English, a number of enthusiasts have asked about M. Lorant's relationship with the webmaster of the JG300.de web site. This article is an attempt to reply to that question. With regard to the new book, the following comment was published on a forum ;
"..Hi Neil, Looking forward to vol.2 of the JG 300 history!! The only thing I bemoan about these books is that they were not published 10 or 15 years earlier .. many of the veterans died before they could see it and some were unhappy that Jean-Yves had their material for years without result ... this is no critique on the work!! ... research takes time .. I just wished they could have seen what a nice book became of their contribution. Besides this some were driven to a certain person (Burkhard Otto of JG300.de) who maybe has good intentions but is a "special" character .... (even stranger than me .. I would say) ... furthermore some material was wasted in two expensive heaps of paper produced by Henning & Bethke.."

..and my reply;

"..I've known the two authors for a number of years now ..so thats not quite the way I see it... yes, the research effort by M. Lorant was on-going for a very long time - in fact it never really stopped. Only a matter of weeks before everything went to the publisher in 2005 the authors finally hunted down the family of a previously unknown veteran - the pictures from this family's album are one of the highlights of the book ....yes the authors could have published sooner perhaps - always provided the publisher had been ready - but then the books would be missing large parts of the story. By the way, the authors sent many of the key contributors copies of the very nice French edition which appeared two years ago..
As you know the two books published a few years ago by Henning and Bethke are worthless. The problem with Burkhard Otto (JG300.de) is not quite as it seems ..when M.Lorant searched out the veterans and finally located them he would borrow their albums, make copies, return the albums and then as a thank you to them he would make them copies of the other veterans pictures for them and was thus able to put former comrades back in touch with each other, as he explains in the interview Jagdgeschwader JG 300 - the book chronicle He also explains how difficult of course it was to find individual pilots to tell the story ..BO would then come along, months, years later, literally in his footsteps and take these pictures that had been located & copied by M.Lorant and given back to the veterans as a thank you. Fortunately perhaps there are some BO hasn't found or will never have the opportunity of meeting. These pictures would then appear on BO's web site JG300.de - with a copyright mark on them. Nothing wrong with that perhaps - unless you happen to have done all the detective work yourself. So you can see why, when M.Lorant realised what was going on, he stopped circulating material and kept all his contacts and pictures back for his own work, apart from those that have appeared elsewhere, eg Prien, Barbas etc - this is one reason why BO has little material on his site relating to III./JG 300 and none at all on IV./JG 300. We consequently see in his regular updates numerous errors and misrepresentations - he is simply unable to correctly identify many pictures & personalities on his site as he didn't discover those pictures or meet the veterans or the families who they belonged too in many cases.Take for example the picture of 'Timo' Schenk's 'Red 5' (taken in March 1945) with the personal emblem 'Timoschenko' under the cockpit that appeared on a recent JG300.de update - fantastic, rare photo from JG300's time on the Eastern Front in 1945. Herr Otto couldn't identify the aircraft, didn't know anything about the pilots - although the name must have been a big clue! Having acquired volume II of the Lorant/Goyat history from Eagle Editions, this omission on JG300.de is now rectified of course - no credit forthcoming of course ..
It was this in mind that that we decided to assemble this critique of JG300.de on behalf of a number of former members of the Geschwader to correct certain long-standing errors that appear on the website JG300.de - errors that appear to have assumed a life of their own. The following is not intended in any way as a character assassination of the webmaster of JG300.de - we leave you to draw you own conclusions as to his competence as an historian.

".. Our friends in Germany - particularly those former members of JG 300 - have not enjoyed much luck in their choice of 'historians' of Jagdgeschwader 300. In 2001 Herren Herbert Bethke (Vidocq on Bert Hartmann's forum) and his fellow aviation 'archaeologist' Friedhelm Henning published a mediocre two volume 'photographic history' of the Geschwader. Aside from the poor quality scans these books contained a total of over four hundred factual errors – with many pilot names and ranks confused and incorrect, to say nothing of the plaigiarism of US historian Frank Olynyk’s US fighter pilots victory lists. To say that former members of JG 300 were disappointed with these expensive works (note - still available from Struve Druck if you have money to burn..) is an understatement! Not only had their albums been raided, but the contents also ended up on Ebay.de in many instances – the last Staffelkapitän of 3./JG 300 was one former Geschwader member who was particularly aggrieved when he discovered this very sharp practise....

Those of us interested in the history of JG 300 have probably visited the popular web site JG300.de more than once. The site’s webmaster Burkhard Otto - 'Bobo' as he is otherwise known on various forums – collaborated with authors Bethke and Henning on their ‘works’ until the erstwhile ‘historians’ had a falling-out over this same question - the unauthorised use of veterans’ photos. Needless to say – as a former friend of Henning and Bethke - the webmaster of JG300.de has published much inaccurate information on his site - some of which has assumed a life of its own in the minds of enthusiasts. Fortunately Burkhard Otto announced a while back that he was closing his site and re-opening JG300.de with new and up-to-date information. I have to admit to breathing a sigh of relief. Perhaps naively I imagined that he might have been about to tackle some of the glaring errors with the help of our recently published two volume JG 300 history. However, now that the new site is open, it is apparent that ‘Bobo’s’ knowledge of English and French appears to be as flawed as that of his knowledge of JG 300 – not that I can criticise him for that. More to the point, the new site is being up-dated only very occasionally and the same errors have re-appeared - what follows are the more serious examples of the webmaster's apparent incompetence ...

Readers may recall that JG300.de throughout its first incarnation was selling profile artwork of the FW 190 A-8 "Yellow 9" piloted by Feldwebel Hannes Theis of 6./JG 300. The aircraft wore the inscription ‘roter Hahn’ and Bobo’s artwork was complete with a cock’s head just under the cockpit. From close examination of the same reference image (plus close up reproduced here) it is evident that there was no cockerel’s head on this aircraft – what webmaster Bobo imagined on his artwork was merely the inscription over the pilot’s cockpit access foot-hold...Click on the thumbnail for a larger hi-res image of Yellow 9' and a close up of the cockpit area. Did you buy the print or the decal sheet from Bobo ?






One of the most blatant errors on his site – which I have urged Bobo to rectify in vain – is the mis-identification of Leutnant Otto Schwamb, seen here in front of a BF 109 G-6 ‘Black 3’ at Jüterbog in June 1944. The aircraft itself is interesting on a number of counts – it is evidently fitted with the FuBL2 for blind landings – note the under fuselage antenna - and has the Eberspacher whistles mounted on the exhaust stack. This aircraft was taken on charge from III./JG 54 and briefly served with II./JG 302 at Oldenburg before being assigned to III./JG 300. Photographed here with III.JG 300, the 109 retained the blue fuselage band and the black vertical bar of III./JG 54 ‘Grün Herz’. This is indeed a rarity on a III./JG300 aircraft - since the Gruppe never applied them ! The webmaster JG300.de describes this aircraft thus ;

"This Me 109 is very interesting. The picture was taken before the end of 1943 because it still wears a overpainted red RV band. (underground color yellow?!) But... a vertical bar for the III Gruppe is also carried. This is the first photo in which a III Gruppe bar is seen. The back of the photo has the name KRUMMBACH. Is this the aircraft of Lt. Reinhard Krumbach (+24.01.1944)?

Lt. Krumbach ? ...on the basis of an inscription on the reverse of the picture - I have yet to meet a III./JG 300 veteran who has failed to identify this pilot as Schwamb. Another photo of Schwamb appears on P179 of volume 1 of our Eagle Editions JG 300 book and I have two further pictures of Schwamb while serving with III./JG 302 at Oldenburg. There is no doubt about his identity at all. Incidentally Schwamb fell in combat on 20 June 1944...Click on the thumbnail for a larger hi-res image..

Staying with III./JG 300. The following profile artwork is reproduced directly from Bobo's site and is captioned as being the 109 G-6 'black 8 ' of Leutnant Rudi Winter (12./JG300!) as seen in the fall of 1944.

These profiles are apparently based on a series of photos reproduced in our JG 300 book P141-143 - images of Oberleutnant Kurt Gabler's 'Red 8' of 8./JG 300 taken in March 1944 at Wiesbaden Erbenheim. The fact that Winter is seen posing in front of the aircraft in two of the pictures is evidence enough for Bobo to attribute it to this latter pilot. Winter however was shot down and killed on 25 August 1944 having achieved just three victories, while Gabler - although badly injured -survived the war. I was fortunate to correspond for years with Gabler who lived in the former East Germany and signed his letters 'Uncle Kurt' to give the impression to the East German censors that our correspondence was between family members. I was his 'nephew' Jean-Yves..over the years he related accounts of every one of his twenty three combat sorties with III./JG 300 - and his seventeen victories, clearly marked on the rudder in the photo below of Gabler's second 'Red 8' - an overall natural metal and polished G-6 'Mosquito hunter'.. Needless to say Gabler was one of III./JG 300's leading aces and his logbook confirms this is 'rote 8'..this information is irrefutable - although Bobo for his own reasons would have us believe otherwise - and no Bobo, IV.Gruppe was not set up to combat Mosquito incursions !....

Note too the lack of a III. Gruppe bar - once again it is worth stressing that neither III. nor IV. Gruppe ever applied a rear fuselage bar to their aircraft... this is particularly worth bearing in mind when considering the following well known picture lifted directly from JG 300.de...a JG 300 G-10 photographed in Prague at the end of the war..

The caption on JG300.de reads as follows ..
"It is clear, the plane is from I. Gruppe of JG300. If the unit is JG 300 and the number 7 has yellow colour, the 3./JG 300 is right unit. If you go through photographs of Bf 109Gs from I/JG 300, you can see, marking with and without outline was used".

Sorry Bobo, wrong again - the absence of a rear fuselage bar does not automatically imply that the machine must have been assigned to I. Gruppe. Needless to say Poruba got that wrong as well. As explained above there is a good chance that this could equally well be a III. or IV. Gruppe machine. The actual identification of this aircraft is revealed in Vol II of our JG 300 history to be published in February 2007 by Eagle Editions...suffice it to say that I./JG 300 was disbanded during March 1945..

The latest update on the JG 300.de site (dated 21 Jan 07) is unfortunately as misleading as some of the others looked at here..Lt. Willi Trabert did not fly a Bf 109 in II./JG 300 as indicated on the artwork caption on that site, nor was the aircraft 'Red 3'. Trabert's Bf 109 G-14/AS was photographed during late 1944 at Mark Zwuschen when Trabert was Staffelfuehrer of 11./JG 300. The 109 is 'Green 3'..see Claes Sundin's superb depiction of this aircraft in Volume II of our 'Bataille dans le ciel d'Allemagne..' Note the gun camera aperature in the wing leading edge reserved for those pilots likely to bring back some interesting footage and the small G-6 style wing wheel bulges.



..and in similar vein I have received a note from the author Jean-Yves Lorant regarding a recent update on jg300.de

" ....You may have seen the latest update -under the triumphant title heading ' Irrtum des Autors Lorant ' - perpetrated by the Berlin hobby shop owner Burkhard Otto on his very amusing jg300.de website. Well, although it has taken him two years to come up with anything at all to say about our best selling history of JG300, he has now taken us to task for a 'misinterpretation' of the photographs published on P258-259 of Volume I. He writes; " a few years ago following pictures were assigned to III./JG 300 ". Yes they were Bobo. They were taken by my friend (Fw.) Arnulf “Timm” Meyer formerly of 9./ JG 300 - copies were undoubtedly circulated, but why your jg300.de 'copyright' marking is on them I have no idea. Herr Otto continues; " the authors is maintained that ..[the white fuselage bands seen on the G-6s of III./JG 300 at Jüterbog..] are departures (sic) from orthochromatic film - something I had doubted all along. Therefore we asked photo experts in a forum we asked " (sic). He then goes on to state that the bright white fuselage band seen on the picture reproduced here cannot be red but is indeed white. Has the webmaster of jg300.de deliberately misread the photo caption to which he refers or is he just intent on misleading everyone! His assumptions might be correct if these were orthochromatic images - but they are not. As the book caption states they were taken with panchromatic film, most probably using a red filter, which effectively 'converts' any red in the subject - note the 'white' undercarriage legs and wheel hubs. Red legs and wheel hubs were commonly seen on those Bf 109s requiring to be refuelled with C3 96/100 octane fuel - an easy visual reference for ground crews. Let me finish too by reassuring Bobo that in all likelihood this aircraft is not being hauled by cattle because it is unserviceable - in addition to confirming the fuselage band as being 'blood red' in colour, my III./JG 300 veteran friend captioned this particular picture thus ; "Ochsen sparen Sprit" - or in other words " Oxen economise on fuel"... " Photo credit Meyer via Lorant. (Low res scan by the webmaster)


If the flurry of updates on his site is anything to go by the webmaster of JG300.de appears to have received his copy of Volume II of the JG 300 history authored by Jean-Yves Lorant and Richard Goyat In one of his latest pages he makes the ridiculous assertion that the 8.Staffel photo series featured on P117-123 of Vol II depicts a fly-past for the propaganda cameras, adding that a Fw 190 would not dare attempt a landing with a full drop tank. Oh dear, Bobo ! Note the aircraft skimming just feet above the ground, flaps fully deflected - the aircraft (below) is just moments from touch down. And the drop tank...? empty...following a two hour sortie during which no contact had been made with the enemy - there thus being no reason to jettison it - these 300 L aluminum tanks were relatively valuable. It was perfectly safe to land in this configuration. By the way log book evidence indicates that this two hour sortie may have been flown from Loebnitz on 11 December 1944 - although other dates are also possibilities. The photographer and the participants did of course assist in the captioning of the pictures back in 1992 which were taken with a dismounted Robot gun-camera set to take individual images. For the record then these are the other missions flown by II.(Sturm)/JG 300 in late November/early December 1944 during which no contact was made with the enemy ;
19 November - Start Loebnitz 11.35 Uhr - Landung Loebnitz 13.15 Uhr
21 November - Start Loebnitz 10.45 Uhr - Zwischenlandung (intermediate stop) Gardelegen 12.45 Uhr - Start Gardelegen aus 15.10 Uhr, Landung Sachau zwischen 14.40-15.20 dann Start nach Loebnitz nach Tankauffuellungen, Landungen in Loebnitz zwischen 15.35 Uhr und 16.15 Uhr. ( Intermediate refuelling fuselage tank)
02 December - Gruppe training flight lasting 110 minutes - Start 11.35 Uhr Loebnitz, Landung Loebnitz 13.25 Uhr.
There was a further training flight on 11 December 1944 early in the morning, but the second sortie flown on 11 December did result in contact - 7.Staffel ran into P-51s on the return