Jagdgeschwader 54
Jagdgeschwader 54 (JG 54) Grün herz was a
Luftwaffe fighter
wing during the
Second World War. It was known as the Green Hearts Wing, and it was the second highest scoring wing of all time,
JG 52 being the highest. JG 54 flew on the
Eastern Front, racking up over 9,600 kills, with over 100 aces such as
Walter Nowotny,
Otto Kittel, and
Hannes Trautloft being the most famous
experten. Having enjoyed initial success over the Channel and South-east England during the summer of 1940, the unit was transferred to the Eastern Front in the spring of 1941 for
Operation Barbarossa - the German invasion of the Soviet Union. JG 54 would remain a Jagdwaffe stalwart in the east, flying firstly Bf 109Fs and then the Fw 190.
JG 54 was known for its non-standard camouflage schemes. For example, Bf-109F-4's on the Leningrad front 1941-2 were painted in black-green/dark-green finish with yellow under cowling and under wing tips.
I./JG 54 was initially formed as I./
JG 70 near
Nürnberg in July
1939. As was to become tradition within the "Grunherzgeschwader", the Gruppe took the Nürnberg coat-of-arms (a vertically divided shield with a black heraldic bird on the left, and red and white diagonal stripes on the right) to represent the region the unit came from.
On
September 15, 1939, I./JG 70 was redesignated I./JG 54.
The initial unit designation for II./JG 54 was I./
JG 138. This unit was raised in
1938 after the
Austrian annexation. Thus many
Austrian nationals were recruited when I./JG 138 was formed. I./JG 138 was briefly designated I./JG 76 before finally becoming II./JG 54 on
April 6,
1940.
III./JG 54 has its roots in
Prussia. Initially raised as I./
JG 21, the members were drawn from the
Jesau region in Prussia. On
July 15, 1939, I./JG 21 was redesignated III./JG 54. However, the bureaucratic nature of the young Luftwaffe was such that it was over a year before records would reflect the new designation. Thus III./JG 54 fought in Poland and France as I./JG 21.
The disparate units that would make up JG 54 were active throughout the
Battle of France, claiming some 139 aircraft shot down between them. JG 54 then took part in the battles across the Channel and over England during the summer of 1940, claiming 238 RAF aircraft shot down. Some 41 pilots of JG 54 were killed or POW during the
Battle of Britain.
Major
Hannes Trautloft left III./JG 51 to command JG 54 on 25 August 1940 and served in that capacity until July 1943. A natural leader, he left an indelible mark on that famous fighter unit and was regarded as a leader who cared for his men. Trautloft was born in
Thuringia, the "green heart of Germany," hence the adoption of the green heart emblem for JG 54.
In November 1940 JG 54 moved back to northern Germany for rest and re-fitting. In January 1941 the unit briefly went to Le Mans and Cherbourg , prior to operating over the
Balkans and
Yugoslavia in April 1941, flying mainly ground attack and strafing missions. Here, JG 54 pilots encountered Yugoslav-flown Messerschmitts which Germany had sold to them before the war.
JG 54 served on the Northern Front during the invasion of Soviet Russia in June 1941 as part of the Luftwaffe's
Luftflotte 1, and would remain on that part of the Eastern Front for most of its existence. The Finnish, Baltic & Leningrad Fronts were far more static in nature than other theatres in Russia, leading to a more stable existence for JG 54 operations, although the severe cold during the winters of 1941-44 would constantly hamper fighter operations.
Trautloft instituted the successful tactic of intercepting Soviet nuisance raiders on moonlit nights, and JG 54 claimed 56 kills in January-July 1942 while suffering no losses on these interceptions. On February 23 1943, JG 54 claimed its 4,000 kill, and on 7 March 1943 claimed 59 aircraft shot down in one day. During 1943 a
schwarm of 1 staffel, JG 54 became the most successful formation of its type in the Luftwaffe; Hpt.
Walter Nowotny (257 kills), Uzz
Karl Schnörrer (46), Lt
Anton Döbele (94) and Lt
Rudolf Rademacher(126) amassed 500 air victories between them in 1943-4.
Trautloft left JG 54 in July 1943 when
General der Jagdflieger Adolf Galland asked him to join his staff as
Inspizient Ost. (He ended the war with 57 victories and the
Knight's Cross.)
In January 1943 III/JG 54 was transferred back to the west for operations against the RAF and USAAF. Attached to JG 26, III gruppe would remain in the west for the rest of the war.
The 7,000 JG 54 claim was made on 23 March 1944, with the 8,000 mark passed on 15 August.
During the autumn of 1944, III/JG 54 was the first Luftwaffe unit to be supplied with the new Fw 190 D-9 "Dora". The D-9s were used in base defence missions for the Me 262 jets of
Kommando Nowotny, and later over NW Europe. 68 operational aircraft were available early in December, but such were the heavy losses sustained the gruppe was disbanded soon after. Hpt. 'Bazi' Weiss,(121 kills) the Gruppe CO, and 12 other pilots were killed by RAF fighters on 29 December 1944 alone.
At the end of 1944 ZG 76 was disbanded and its pilots formed the nucleus of a new III./JG 54. Operating from Muncheberg, near Berlin, the unit's Fw 190s saw intensive action against Russian ground targets such as road and rail supply columns, flak positions, armour and the bridges across the River Oder. A few weeks before the war ended, III./JG 54 was disbanded, being absorbed into JG 26.
I,II and IV./ JG 54 ended the war fighting around the Baltic region, supporting the troops of
Army Group North through Latvia and Estonia, and into the 'pocket' of East Prussia. JG 54 could never hope to regain air superiority against the mounting number of Russian aircraft. The Russians never defeated Army Group North, which held out until the last day of the war, surrendering 210,000 Germans to the Soviets in
Courland.
The remaining serviceable FW-190's were ordered fly to
Flensburg on the Danish border; with the German Navy evacuating as many of the ground personnel as possible by ship, the JG 54 pilots, led by Oberst
Dieter Hrabak, ripped out all unnecessary equipment from the fighters, allowing room to take two men, one man crouching behind the seat and the other fitting into the fuselage. In this way at least 90 JG 54 personnel escaped Russian capture.
Major
Martin Mettig; 2 Feb 40 to 25 Aug 40
Oberst
Hannes Trautloft; 25 Aug 40 to 5 Jul 43
Major
Hubertus von Bonin; 6 Jul 43 to 15 Dec 43
Oberstleutnant
Anton Mader; 28 Jan 44 to Sep 44
Oberst
Dieter Hrabak; 1 Oct 44 to 8 May 45
*
Gordon Gollob*
Walter Nowotny*
Otto Kittel*
Hannes Trautloft*
Franz EckerleLuftwaffe Organization
