Hans Philipp - Kommandeur  I./JG 54  -  did not keep his colleagues waiting long, and on March 17 - his 26th birthday - he and his wingman, Fw. Reinhardt, returned from Lake Ilmen. He claimed four LaGG-3 fighters shot down for victories 200-203. In only 78 days, Hptm. "Fips" Philipp had reported no less than eighty victories! He was soon to hand command of I./JG 54 over to Major Seiler, having been appointed Kommodore of JG 1 in the West. During this same seven-minute fight on March 17 a total of eight LaGGs went down, two falling to Ofw. Broennle, and one to each Oblt. Robert Weiss and Fw. Reinhardt .

Other pilots also had their reasons to celebrate. The Staffelkapitän of 1./JG 54, Lt. Nowotny in his "white 10", claimed at least seventeen victories in March 1943, including - unusually for the eastern front - a Spitfire of 26th GvIAP (Leningrad Air Defense) for his 79th victim on March 25th.

The Fw 190 continued to reap a heavy toll ; on March 19, JG 54 claimed fifteen enemy aircraft shot down. The same day, 6th VA deployed 78 aircraft to Demyansk, only thirty returning to base, and just a single machine not showing any signs of combat damage! Many of these aircraft were beyond repair and written off. Brought in for support, 1st IAK lost 35 fighters in six weeks.

But mounting enemy aerial pressure was also causing the Germans heavier losses. Nowotny's Kaczmarek Karl "Quax" Schnörrer wrote the following account about the fighting in early 1943;

" ..after the reverse at Stalingrad, I - as a fighter pilot - was starting to get the unpleasant feeling that the aerial supremacy we enjoyed would soon be a thing of the past. Everywhere you looked when flying over Russian lines there were unbroken columns of reinforcements and war matériel rolling towards the front lines. Because of the constant heavy enemy aerial activity over the Ilmensee-Staraja Russa sector our Gruppe shifted southwards to Rehilbizi. We flew daily Stuka escort sorties, always tangling with large groups of Russian fighters as we strove to clear the skies teeming with enemy aircraft. I recall on one occasion that Nowotny's Schwarm ran into 50 -60 Russian fighters and we were quickly into a defensive circle. Tracer trails whizzed across the sky in all directions like comets and after a 40-minute dogfight, with no victories to show for our efforts, our kites were riddled. Drenched in sweat and with gas gauges running low it was time to get out of there and make for home. Suddenly Nowotny's voice came over the radio " I'm hit bad ". In desperation we shook off the last of our opponents and dove for home, our kites brushing the tops of the trees. One mistake now would be our last. We could see that 'Nowy' was having trouble staying with us and could hear him cursing over the FT. A few moments later the field strip at Tuleblja came into view. Nowotny fired off some signal flares to warn the ground personnel of his predicament and dropped down towards the strip like a wounded eagle, touching down at 170 kph. Just at that instant flames erupted from his engine cowl. Nowotny could obviously feel the searing heat in the cockpit and had sufficient presence of mind to throw off his straps,  and seconds later, jettison the sliding section of his canopy . With his machine still rolling at some 50 kph he climbed out onto the wing and jumped into the soft sand alongside the strip. The crate rolled another 30 meters and exploded, the detonation sending pieces of debris some 100m through the air.. "

By the end of March 1943 I./JG 54 had lost eight pilots during the month. The bitter taste of defeat was also experienced by Fw. Otto Kittel of 2./JG 54 - soon to enjoy a reputation as the leading Fw 190 pilot.   On March 15 1943 he force-landed on the Soviet side of the front. Scrambling out of his wrecked machine he soon put distance between himself and his machine. He walked for three days - over sixty kilometers - without winter clothes or food, struggling through snowdrifts and thick forest, knowing that capture would almost certainly mean death. When he reached German lines, ravenously hungry and exhausted, he was immediately sent back to the rear for a period of convalescence. He returned to the front in May 1943...