What battles did the 76th Bomber Wing take part in?

Founded in 1935, the 76th bomber wing is one of the oldest bomber combat units of the German Air Force. It took part in the Polish campaign, the French campaign, the British campaign and the Barbarosa campaign. From 1942, KG76 was transferred to fight in the Mediterranean region. 1in March, 944, KG76 moved to Herlan near Linz, Austria, ready to change to Ar234.

On June 7th, 1944, the 3rd Battalion of the 76th Bomber Wing went to Alado Factory in Altron to wait to receive jet bombers. After the first batch of Ar234 arrived at the end of August, the pilots of III/KG76 were divided into three groups for training: one group received flight training, the other group waited for flight training, and the third group went to Alado's factory in Sagan-Courbayre for technical training until. The whole training program lasts for 12 weeks, and the technical guidance consists of navigation theory, ballistics, jet propulsion and radio communication. In addition to learning technical knowledge, pilots have to listen to Nazi theory lectures for one hour every day.

The shift training of Ar234 is very simple. Trained pilots first do some routine flights on Fw 190 fighter, then switch to Bf 1 10 heavy fighter for similar training, then fly several times with He11bomber, and then switch directly to Ar234. This kind of training obviously can't meet the need of changing Ar234, which leads to a high training accident rate. The reason is not that the Ar234 is difficult to control, but that the pilot is used to the slow piston bomber and can't adapt to the jet plane with much faster flight speed for a while. Most accidents occur in the landing phase, and pilots often misjudge the flight speed of the aircraft at this time, causing the aircraft to run off the runway. It was not until the beginning of 1945 that the unit responsible for dressing training obtained several jet trainers, and this situation was improved.

Affected by many problems in dressing training, the III/KG76 didn't take shape until194465438+February 2 1 day, and the III/KG76 was deployed in Mü nster-Han Delve 16 Ar234. Affected by bad weather, Ar234 didn't carry out the bombing mission for the first time until February 24th, 65438. On that day, III/KG76 bombed Liè ge, and each plane carried 500 kilograms of bombs. The second operation took place that afternoon. On Christmas morning, III/KG76 once again dispatched Ar234 to launch an air strike against the allied forces. German planes were intercepted by storm fighters of the 80th squadron of the British Air Force. After Alfred Frank's Ar234 suffered heavy losses, the pilot was safe and sound in crash landing, the Netherlands.

It was not until 1945 that KG76 gradually completed the reassembly of Ar234. At that time, the main target of Ar234 was the allied forces around Liege and Antwerp, and Ar234 mainly used small-angle dive bombing tactics in combat. Bad weather and fuel shortage greatly reduced the operational effectiveness of Ar234 in February 1945. On 24th of that month, an Ar234B was shot down by a P-47 fighter plane of the US military near gayles. The German pilot managed to escape, but the Germans failed to destroy the plane in time. As a result, this plane became the first Ar234 to fall into the hands of the allied forces.

On March 2 1945, two Ar234B of the 9 th squadron of the 76 th bomber wing were shot down by allied fighters. The pilots of the two planes were Arthur Stark and eberhard Roggler, who were shot down by the storm fighter-bomber of the 222nd Squadron of the British Air Force and the Spitfire fighter of the 4 1 Squadron respectively. Five days later, the ludendorff Railway Bridge on the Rhine River near Remagen was occupied by American troops. In order to prevent American troops from crossing the Rhine, the German Air Force launched several attacks on the bridge in the following days, trying to destroy it. 40 Ar234 belonging to KG76 participated in the bombing of Remagen Bridge. The bridge finally collapsed on March 17 after many crazy attacks that almost killed themselves, but it was too late. After the attack on Remagen Bridge, KG76 only carried out some small tactical bombing missions. 19 In March, III/KG76 and 6/KG76 respectively dispatched 19 and 4 Ar234 to bomb a railway dispatching station in Brussels. In the afternoon, 6/KG76 dispatched three Ar234 to attack the allied armored convoy near Batkrone. Morich, the pilot of the 6/KG76, recalled the scene of driving the Ar234 after the war and said, "In all actions, we will face the threat of' storm' and' wild horse'. The most dangerous moment is the slow take-off and landing phase. Once launched, Alado's speed is enough to get rid of the interception of piston fighters, unless they adopt the sneak attack tactics of dive attack. "

At the end of March, due to the threat of the British vanguard, III/KG76 and 6/KG76 had to be evacuated to Faleur and Marx, south of Port William. On April 2nd, six III/KG76 Ar234 bombed the British armored motorcade south of the Rhine. Two days later, 6/KG76 dispatched three planes to attack a group of allied vehicles in the North Horn-Lingen area. On April 10, the allied forces dispatched 1 100 bombers to carry out a large-scale air raid on the jet fighter base in northern Germany. Because the plane was hidden in the Woods in advance, none of Alado was destroyed.

On April 26th, KG76 United Command dispatched two Ar234 to attack Soviet armored vehicles near Berlin. Two days later, III/KG76 retreated from Kaltenkirchen to Lake not far from the Danish border. In the following nine days, KG76 never carried out any decent combat mission, only launched several sporadic attacks on Soviet troops near Berlin. On May 3rd, Cruz of the 8th Squadron completed KG76' s last combat operation in World War II with Ar234. On the same day, four AR234C-3s were delivered to KG76. They came too late to catch the last bus of the war. On May 5th, the last nine flying Ar234 of KG76 were ordered to fly to Stavanger, Norway, while the flightless planes were burned. In the last days of World War II, most of KG76' s personnel were reorganized into infantry, responsible for guarding Schleswig-Holstein until Germany announced its unconditional surrender on May 8.