xx Introduction

xx Introduction

natural outgrowth of its war station on the Channel coast, where its mission was to fend off attacks by the best aircraft and airmen that the Allies could muster. For two years, JG 26, with no more than 124 fighters under command, dominated the airspace over northern France and western Belgium. It fought against the Western Allies for the entire war and flew its last missions against the British one day before the armistice that ended the fighting on its front. This is the story of the men behind the legend.

Origins

1935-1939

THE RESURGENT LUFTWAFFE

THE THROATY ROAR OF AIRCRAFT ENGINES REVERBERATED

for miles down the river valley. The Rhine barge crews looked upstream. Three dots soon became recognizable as small biplanes, in close formation. The aircraft, Heinkel He 51 fighters, were less than twenty feet above the water and left wakes in the blackish-green Rhine. As the fighters passed the barges, the men below could recognize their bright orange cowlings and waved enthusiastically. The pilots responded by gently rocking their wings and proceeded downstream. Jagdgeschwader 234, " the Rhineland's own" fighter wing, was on patrol.

The fighters had arrived the previous year, as part of the German military force that had moved into the Rhineland. Only one Jagdgruppe (fighter group) of the still-tiny Luftwaffe had participated in the operation. On 7 March 1936, Hptm. Oskar Dinort, the Gruppenkommandeur (group commander) of the Third Gruppe of Jagdgeschwader 134 (abbreviated III/JG 134), was informed of Hitler's decision to reoccupy Germany's western border states, which had remained demilitarized by treaty after the withdrawal of Allied occupation forces in 1930. The Rhineland was to return to the protection of the German Reich. Two Staffeln (squadrons) of Dinort's Gruppe were ordered to circle the cathedral of Cologne at noon on 8 March and then land at the Cologne airport. A Ju 52 transport carrying ammunition for the He 51s of the Gruppe was to meet them at the airport. The mission was duly carried out, and the ammunition was loaded in the fighters. Their guns could not have been fired even if they had been needed, however, as the fighters lacked their synchronization gear.

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