Up till now, photos from JG 301 airplanes have been rare and often puzzling:

* why did Ta 152 "black 13+-" from Stab./JG 301 have a strangely non outlined but still visible red horizontal group bar over yellow/red fuselage bands ? (See the Ta 152 book from Dietmar Harmann p102)


* why did wreckage from Fw 190D-9 of Gefr. Kleinstuck, 2./JG 301 show a white horizontal group bar ? (See Kagero JG 301 book p 66)

* Why did Ta 152 from III./JG 301 at Alteno show a yellow horizontal group bar and is therefore wrongly said to be from 7./JG 301 instead of the awaited 11./JG 301 ? (See Peter Rodeike "Focke Wulf" books p419 & 433)

* why Erich Brown tell us that Me 109G-10 from IV./JG301 had a red horizontal bar, but again strangely not outlined but with visible contrast over the yellow/red fuselage bands ? (see Me 109G-10 "yellow44+-" in "broken eagles 3" p18)


* why did the Fw 190A-8/A-9 "yellow 8+-" have a white horizontal second group bar and not the awaited black or yellow" ? (See Luftwaffe at war 6 "defeat in the west 1943-1945" p16)
And in the same way why did Fw 190D-9 "white 12+-" or A-8/A-9 "white 21+-" have a red second group bar and not a black or white as it could be expected ?


>>> The only solution i found to the above questions is that, probably around December44/January 1945, JG 301 began to use a very unique group marking system:

One horizontal group bar with specific group color was used in all units, with same color arrangement as for the staffeln:

* Stab.JG 301 > black digit + green horizontal bar
* I./JG 301 > white horizontal bar
* II./JG 301 > red horizontal bar
* III./JG 301 > yellow horizontal bar
* IV./JG 301 > blue horizontal bar

> Note: It's only in April 1945, when all Ta 152 joined the Stab, that Stab markings were changed to the well known green digits without any horizontal bar.

> Note: In the same way, it seems that at the very end of the war, I./JG301 went back to the no horizontal bar marking. Especially after III./JG301 and IV./JG301 had been disbanded, at the end of March 45 (even if they still flew war missions during April)


> Note: All photos from I./JG301 without horizontal bar are strange:
- Fw 190A-8 "yellow 17+ " viewed at Pilsen is though to be from a school group: I./Erg.KG(J) -see "Luftwaffe over Czech territory" p42
- Fw 190F-8 "<4+ " as well as Fw 190A-8 "black 9+ " got inverted RVT! - See "Fw 190 walk around" from squadron signal
- Fw 190A-8 "<4+ " with red+Yellow nose ring is probably more from I./SG2 or I./SG10 than from I./JG301.
- I have no information about Fw 190A-8/A-9 "white 5+ " and I dont know were to find the corresponding photo ? Could anyone give help ?

* Indeed, it is also possible that 5 & 6./JG301 used the red horizontal bar, and 7./JG 301 a white one, when I./JG 301 didn't use any horizontal bar at all.
So even if this latest possibility can't explain the questions asked at the beginning of this article, until we find more photos showing, for intance, a "white or red digit" + white bar OR a "yellow digit" + red bar, we may never be 100% certain.


Olivier MENU - aka LLv34_Doc - France - February 14th, 2005. email: llv34doc@wanadoo.fr

Stab: [before they turn to green digit]


I./JG301:


II./JG301:


III./JG301:


IV./JG301:

EAW, my first love

I always thought they were just stab markings. Most pilots were ordered to be remove markings from their aircraft around late '44 by the RLM or by personal preference (not sure) when the allies had established air superiority of the skies over Germany. This would have been for "self preservation" reasons as such markings made the aircraft a pinpoint target for roaming enemy fighters - as allied pilots knew what the many personal, Gruppen and Stafle markings and colors signified.

Those markings and similar ones you will see in Sundin's books (like the one posted above) would be hard to see in the air during combat but clearly visible during formation flying.

I didn't think there was much mystery is the fact that removing ones "rank" would be a smart thing in combat.

Hi X_Man !

You dont really got it.

Here the extraordinary thing is group markings.

One horizontal bar for any of of the four 'gruppen' as well as for the GechwaderStab but with a different color in each group (ie: green for Stab, white for I./JG 301, red for II, yellow for III and blue for IV./JG 301.

In near all other JG you have no special marking for I group, horizontal bar for the 2nd, vertical bar for the third and a wavy line in the fourth.

Ahhh! OK! I understand now!

Abb. 752: Im Frühjahr 1945 am Waldrand auf dem Platz von Alteno abgestellte Ta 152 H; bei der Maschine im Vordergrund handelt es sich um die gelbe “ 1 + - “ der 7./JG 301, bei der deutlich ein schmaler gelber II.-Gruppen-Balken auf dem gelb / roten RV-Rumpfband des JG301 zu erkennen ist. Vom Rumpfbalkenkreuz sind die oberen schwarzen Winkel offensichtlich übermalt worden. I know that Stab, I., II. & III. JG 301 were stationed at Leck at VE-Day. This tells me that these units probably flew missions up until the last days of the war and basically received the bulk of new poorly trained pilots the Luftwaffe had to defend the "homeland".

JG 301 I also know for sure had several pilots that were trained for night time intercepts that were converting to daylight missions.

With such a hodgepodge of newbie pilots going up against allied pilots with better training and the superiority in numbers, giving them the ability to locate their staffle commanders during a mission was paramount to their survival.

This is why I think those staffle bars are thin and hard to see unless you were looking for it. They were also color coded - which mean it's functional and has a purpose. Note: They appear on both the Fw 190A-9s, Fw 190D-9s and Ta 152H-1s (yet to see one on a Bf 109G-10, maybe the vets flew those exclusively).

JG 301 operated like the Sturmgruppen. Each Gruppen had both a "heavy" and "light" staffles. Two staffles of the "light wing" flew as high cover (Bf 109G-10s, Fw 190D-9s and Ta-152H-1s) to engage fighter escort and 2 staffles flew as the "heavy wing" to combat the bombers (Fw 190A-8s & Fw 190A-9s).

The question is - why would you color code the staffle bar? For anyone with the definite answer, I'm just speculating here - so no need to slam me

Also:

That last pic has the wrong Reichsverteidigung markings and thus doesn't belong to JG 301!

Messerschmitt (Bf) 109G-10/B "Wr.N. 151556" belonged to II./JG 7, assigned to protect the Me 262s during the take-offs and landings, Prague-Ruzyn, April 1945.

X-Man

In fact the distinction between a "heavy" and "light" role was not made on Staffel base, but Gruppen base meaning one complete Gruppe would attack the Heavies, another would tangle with the escorts.

Secondly the Bf 109 "White 44" was of JG 301 and the JG7 tailband is just an error (one I also made a while back ). JG 7 never operated anything but Me 262's.

Are you sure ??
I found this lying around on my hard drive .

YES white 44 was wrongly said to be from JG 7. Actually the airplane is from IV./JG 301 but understood that up to now it was quite difficult to say that an airplane with an horizontal bar could be anything else than a 2nd group ! This lead to wrong identification > read again the five first questions at the beginning...

Just a couple of comments... The following aircraft that until recently have been thought to have a red and yellow band around the nose is now thought to have looked like this:



It was an ex-JG301 aircraft that got sent to the Eastern Front and there it got a yellow nose band as Eastfront aircraft did at the end of the war. Therefore it ended up looking like it does when the yellow noseband was applied to the dark colored nose.

Also, about inverted tailbands on some 190's is thought to have been a result of 190's transfered from JG11 and then had the all yellow tailband partly overpainted in red. Sometimes they chose the wrong part to overpaint and the result was an inverted tailband.

Both these theories are from Jerry Crandall, but they make sense to me...