Luftwaffe Luftwaffe Knights Cross Pilot Grouping

[hucks216]

It has been a fair while since I showed a grouping from my collection so here is one of the most recent. It consists of the Wehrpass, Citations and a few extras for a pilot in a night ground attack unit but not just any pilot. This pilot going by the name of Ludwig Bellof won the Knights Cross, German Cross in Gold & Ehrenpokal with 1./Nachtschlachtgruppe 3, a unit which flew 'nuisance' raids using such obsolete aircraft as the Ar-66 and Go-145 in a similar fashion to the well known Soviet Po-2 'Sewing Machine' of earlier war years on the Eastern Front. The only citations missing are the prelim RK & Kurland Cuffband examples but it is impossible to know if they were ever issued in the first place or have become lost/seperated over time.

Ludwig Bellof was originally a member of the Heer before WW-2 which included a spell with Pz.Abwehr-Abteilung 36 but before the war he transferred over to the Luftwaffe and commenced his flying training. This was the time when the fuel & war situation was such that the Germans could afford to give pilots a full and thorough training and so it was that Bellof would attend numerous training schools and courses from the beginning of 1939 to the end of 1942, a full 3 years and more including time at Jagdgruppe Drontheim and Aufkl.Fl.Schule Brieg. Completing his training in November 1942 Bellof was assigned to 2./Störkampfgruppe Luftflotte 1. This unit was set up in October 1942 in the area of Leningrad to copy the Soviet tactics of sending small, slow aircraft over enemy lines at night to conduct nuisance raids keeping the enemy soldiers on edge and to deprive them of sleep. A lot of the time the pilots of such units would fly up to 4 or 5 sorties in one night with probably the best sortie ratio being achieved in March 1943 when the Gruppe flew 3,052 sorties in 22 nights - an average of 138 sorties per night for the Gruppe!!

In October 1943 Störkampfgruppe Luftflotte 1 was renamed Nachtschlachtgruppe 3 with 2./Störkampfgruppe Luftflotte 1 becoming 1./Nachtschlachtgruppe 3. By this time Bellof had already been awarded both grades of the EK and up to the Bomber Clasp in Gold, and a few days after the renaming to 1./Nachtschlachtgruppe 3 he was awarded the Ehrenpokal.

Edited October 23, 2014 by hucks216

[hucks216]

Nachtschlachtgruppe 3 was formed in mid-October 1943 at Gatchina airfield which is located to the south-west of Leningrad and consisted of such aircraft as the Ar-66, Go-145 and He-46 and continued from where Störkampfgruppe Luftflotte 1 left off, NSGr-3 flew night operations, mainly in the area of Pskov.

During the German retreat from the Leningrad area NSGr-3 saw its operations affected by the constant change of locations.

In May 1944 Bellof won his next high award, the DKiG on 10th May 1944.

By October 1944 NSGr-3 had reached Telsiai (north-west Lithuania) with 34 aircraft. A few days later it moved to Skrunda where it found itself cut off in the Kurland Pocket. In September 1944 Bellof was awarded the Bomber Clasp in Gold with Pendant and one month later received a telegram from Generalmajor Sigismund Freiherr von Falkenstein of 3. Flieger-Division with regards to completing 600 sorties.

With its limited and diminishing resources it continued to support Heeresgruppe Nord/Kurland until the end of the war and in early February Bellof would, as an Oberfeldwebel, be awarded the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes. He was one of just two members of NSGr-3 to win the RK by wars end, the other being Fahnenjunker-Oberfeldwebel Leopold Hackl.

His last award of the war was the Kurland Cuffband that he was awarded on 20th April 1945.

Signatures seen on these items belong to Bruno Loerzer (DKiG), Karl-Franz Beushausen, Alfred Keller (RK), Major Boris von Maubeuge and Friedrich Rademacher.

(Source used for unit details: Dive-Bomber & Ground-Attack Units of the Luftwaffe 1933-1945 Vol 2 by Henry L. de Zeng IV and Douglas G. Stankey)

[piekenier]

Wow thanks for sharing .Nicely researched .Helps if you have the Wehrpass.

[piekenier]

From Ernst Obermaier's Book .You probably have this.

[hucks216]

Thank you. I do have those books but hadn't got round to scanning in the entry. The photo however is that of Helmut Benkendorff rather than Bellof.

Here is an image of the two RKT of NSG-3, Hackl & Bellof...

Edited October 22, 2014 by hucks216

[piekenier]

Sorry you are right I scanned the wrong photo.That last photo is Anton Hackl ?

[hucks216]

Sorry you are right I scanned the wrong photo.That last photo is Anton Hackl ?

Hackl is the one on the left with his newly received RK.

[J Temple-West]

Phenomenal grouping .....Greeeeen with envy.

[Jock Auld]

Fantastic that it has all survived together, I have just been offered a nice group from a house clearance but two docs are missing and the bloke said 'oh theres another box somewhere but it may already have been skipped'!

It is all too easliy lost and near immpossible to replace.

Thanks for showing it.

Jock

[Chris Boonzaier]

So I finally find out what a Störkampfgruppe is... I used to have a small group to such a unit and had no idea what it was...

[hucks216]

Thanks for the comments guys.

... I have just been offered a nice group from a house clearance but two docs are missing and the bloke said 'oh theres another box somewhere but it may already have been skipped'!

...

Jock

Good luck with the missing docs. Hopefully you will show the set here this section if you decide to take it.

So I finally find out what a Störkampfgruppe is... I used to have a small group to such a unit and had no idea what it was...

Glad that you have been able to find out a little about what the Störkampfgruppen were. There were, I believe, 6 such units in total although some were just a Staffel rather than a Gruppe.

Here is another photo from the group showing one of the aircraft types they used...

[Bernhard H.Holst]

Hello Kevin.

Thanks for letting us see this amazing group. Flying those planes was a challenge in itself.

Very unfortunately this distinguished pilot after surviving the war, already died on 1.October 1965.

Bernhard H. Holst

[Paul R]

It is nice to see intact groups like this. Thank you for sharing.