Aces of JG 77 - Johann Pichler

Bf 109 G-6 fighters of III./JG 77 pictured at Chilivani (Sardinia) in July 1943. Note the Herz As emblem on the cowl and the Wanderzirkus Ubben insignia behind the cockpit

Following the German defeat at El Alamein, JG77 was urgently dispatched to relieve JG 27 in North Africa and fought against overwelming odds as Panzerarmee Afrika was forced back into Tunisia. On 10 May 1943 German and Italian forces in North Africa capitulated. JG77 had been all but decimated in the African fighting - Kommodore Joachim Müncheberg was one of numerous JG 77 pilots shot down and killed - and the surviving pilots of JG77 were among the last to be evacuated to Sicily and the Italian mainland. Here the Geschwader would lick its wounds and make good its losses and prepare to meet the Allied assault on the island. As Kommodore of JG 77, Steinhoff was responsible for the aerial defense of Sicily during the Allied bombing assault which began almost immediately - a near impossible task under the pressure of incessant night and day raids on German airfields. At this stage of the war the Allies had overwhelming superiority and deployed waves of low-flying B-17, B-24 and B-26 bombers against the airfields occupied by JG 77 and JG 53, routinely escorted by large numbers of Spitfires, P-40s, P-38 Lightnings and P-47 Thunderbolts. In his unusually powerful memoir- Die Strasse von Messina - Kommodore JG 77 Johannes Steinhoff recounted in broad strokes the aerial battles for Sicily through June and July 1943. Facing crushing odds--including a commander, Hermann Göring, who contemptuously treated his pilots as cowards--Steinhoff and his fellow Messerschmitt 109 pilots took to the skies day after day to meet the feared Flying Fortresses and swarms of Allied fighters in an echo of the later all-out assault on the Reich itself. Steinhoff described the management of both ace and novice pilots, the constant shifting from field strip to field strip, the constant round of day-and-night bombing raids and the unreality of orders emanating from the Luftwaffe hierarchy. The following series of articles aims to put some detail on the events of those desperate months as JG 77 defended their island base. This material was originally published in four issues of the French-language aviation history magazine 'Avions' and is reproduced here in the English for the first time by the kind permission of publisher Michel Ledet and author Eric Mombeek. The selection of images from the articles are purposely scanned in at very low res - if interested you can acquire back issues of the magazine at the Avions web site

At the Casablanca conference in January 1943 Churchill and Roosevelt (reluctantly) decided that the island of Sicily should be assaulted and captured as a base for operations against German forces in southern Europe. Code named 'Husky' the landings began on 10 July 1943 but the campaign for Sicily began properly as early as 13 May following the surrender of Axis forces in Tunisia. For JG 77 the evacuation from the Cape Bon peninsula in Tunisia was a chaotic affair. Transport aircraft were in short supply and the pilots found themselves flying a shuttle between Tunis and Sicily with up to two passengers in the fuselages of the 109s. Having achieved some fifty victories over North Africa (including five on 11 January (106-110), four on 26 February (119-122), six on 13 March (130-135), five on 1 April (141-145) and his 150th on 19 April 1943 ) 4./JG 77 ace Feldwebel Ernst-Wilhelm Reinert was just one pilot to fly the hazardous over-water flight. Too tall to squeeze into the fuselage of a 109, Reinert took the controls of 'White 7', the Bf 109 G assigned to his superior, Oblt. Zeno Baeumel, while Baeumel and a mechanic crammed into the machine. En route to Sicily Reinert sighted a formation of Royal Navy Martlets and swung his heavily loaded fighter in behind one of the British aircraft to deliver the coup de grace before putting down in Sicily, no doubt to the immense relief of his terrified passengers.

Once back on the mainland and with most of their aircraft unmaintained and even unserviceable on arrival in Sicily - the majority of the ground crews having gone into captivity in North Africa - the pilots of I. and II./JG 77 returned by train to Germany to collect new aircraft.

Only III./JG 77 remained in Italy, being based in Foggia north-east of Naples. Aircraft were taken on loan from JG 53 in an effort to rebuild the Gruppe. On 13 May Ofhr. Hans-Juergen Schumacher of 7./JG 77 was injured attempting to get airborne from Foggia in Bf 109 G-4 'White 5' - although the aircraft was 90% destroyed, the pilot returned to III./JG 77 after fourteen days hospitalisation. Schumacher was later lost on the Bodenplatte operation on 1 January 1945. During the latter half of May 1943 III./JG 77 flew routine training, gunnery and transport escort sorties into Sardinia and Sicily. Twenty-one year old Uffz. Kurt Selle of 9./JG 77 was lost on one of these on 29 May. Escorting re-supply Ju 52s, the engine of his G-6 'Yellow 9' suddenly seized. Selle had no choice but to attempt a ditching in the Med but struck rocks off El Tavolara. The hapless pilot died instantly. Some of the more risky sorties involved long coastal recce flights in Rotte strength..
On 1 June III./JG 77 was ordered to take up residence at the airfield of Chilivani near Olbia to provide aerial cover from Allied bombing raids on Italian ports and airfields in concert with II./JG 51. A field strip with reasonable facilities, the pilots recalled above all the intense heat of the Mediterranean summer. Former Uffz. Helmut Schwarzenhoelzer remembered ;
" ..on Sardinia we were accomodated under canvas and the stifling heat was unbearable. Temperatures reached forty degrees plus on the ground in the broiling sun while at altitude in the cockpits of our 109s temperatures could fall as low as minus twenty..."
One week later I./JG 77 returned from Germany and flew into Sciacca on Sicily itself and on 11 June the Allies captured the island of Pantelleria, lying midway between the African coast and the Italian mainland.

Pictured here at Chilivani on Sardinia during June 1943. Uffz. Wilhelm Skreba of 9. Staffel on the wing of his G-6. Note the red Herz As ace of hearts emblem on the engine cowl adopted in honour of the Geschwader Kommodore fallen in Africa

Frontal view of the curious marked prop of the 109 G-6 assigned to StaKa 9./JG 77 Lt. Wolfgang Ernst also seen here on Chilivani. Ernst survived the war with around 35 victories.