Following is a kind of war diary on this combat-filled week:

29th of May (Whit Monday)

In the early morning, Sinesti (15km SE of Targul-Frumos) is attacked by ca. 15 soviet planes. Two more attacks are flown against axis airfields at Husi and Roman:
- Roman is attacked by 2ShAK and 4IAK with ca. 40 planes at 4:00 german time with no material results for both sides. But most probably during this attack, Friedrich Blessin from III./JG52 is wounded in aerial combat ("bei Luftkampf mit IL-2 bei Vulpasesti").
- Husi is attacked by 1 GShAK and 7IAK with ca. 40 planes (ca. 50% fighters and Sturmoviks); several parked A/C are damaged.

Around 9:00, fighters from II./JG52 claim 2 Pe-2 bombers, while Gefr. Alois Zabel, one of their comrades, is wounded during an emergency landing 10km N of Iasi (reason unknown).

Later in the day, three Airacobras are claimed by JG52 in the Iasi area.

The VVS is reported to be very active between Targul-Frumos and Iasi.

 P. I. Chepinog, in summer 1944 a pilot in 129 GIAP, in front of his Airacobra 

On this day, two Staffeln from I. and II. Gruppe of JG52 get orders to leave the Eastern Front: 2. Staffel under Oblt. Paul-Heinrich Dähne and 4.Staffel under Ltn. Hans Waldmann. So, JG52 is reduced to 7 of 9 Staffeln. Anyway, the last claim by Hand Waldmann is recorded for the evening of 31st of May.

30th of May

At 4:00, the german operation starts after a 20min artillery barrage and air strikes. I./KG4 bombs enemy artillery positions, claiming an enemy fighter during the mission.
The first two fighter victory claims at the end of the artillery preparation are a Sturmovik and a Airacobra.

During the first two hours, three times Stukas attack own troops, once even a first-aid station. Two of these friendly-fire incidents affect 23.PzDiv operating on the right wing of the ground forces. Reportedly, this is caused by romanian Stukas, who themselves loose 4 planes in 93 sorties during the day.

By 10:00, the red Air Force gets more and more active. This is also visible in the claims by Luftwaffe: In the six hours before 10:00 only 10 claims, after that 58 more claims.

10:50, the Red Army uses artifical fog to protect its bridges over the Prut river at Sculeni and Medeleni. These bridges were often attacked by SG2's Stukas, only to be quickly repaired by the Russians [H.-U. Rudel].

During the day, Korpsgruppe Mieth is often attacked by groups of up to 30 Sturmoviks. Of all these attackers, eleven are claimed by Luftwaffe fighters.

 Around 19:00, NW of Erbiceni a german plane makes an emergency landing. It's pilot is able to reach german lines. This may have been Uffz. Josef Lechner from 3./JG52 who is reported as KIA (later?).

Coming back to Luftwaffe's claims: 2/3 of the 68 claims are located in a 10km broad and ca. 25km long stripe between Iasi and Sculeni (Luftwaffe grid "78 xxx", 2/3 again in  "78 6xx" and "78 8xx"). The rest except two (typos?) are in adjacent sectors. Known losses for the soviet side are 15 Cobras from 205.IAD and one from 16.GIAP.

Altogether for this day, Luftwaffe reports 3 Bf109, 2 Fw190 and 2 Stukas as combat losses with several other damaged.

This day's events of the romanian 9th Fighter Groupday are described elsewhere as follows:
"Six [...] were claimed on 30 May. On the first mission of the day, cpt Serbanescu led a Bf-109G patrulă (made out of him, Feldwebel Ernest Stengel, cpt. Gheorghe Popescu-Ciocanel and adj. Constantin Miron) in a fighter sweep north of Iasi (Jassy). They encountered 9 Soviet P-39s and attacked them. Serbanescu missed his 41st kill, because of a malfunction that filled his windscreen with oil. Barely seeing he managed to get out of the fight and return to the airfield. Cpt. Gheorghe Popescu-Ciocanel also missed and soon was trying to evade a Soviet fighter, but his wingman, adj. Miron intervened and shot the pursuer down. Soon some Yak-9s and Il-2s joined the battle. Finally, cpt. Popescu managed to shoot down one of the Soviet fighters in the area. Later that day, Serbanescu took off together with of. echip. cl. III Ion Milu and adj. Ion Mucenica on a Ju-88 escort mission. These were attacked by 6 P-39s. The Romanian fighters engaged them and Ion Milu scored his 31st victory. Another one was downed by Ion Mucenica. The other two victories belonged to lt. Ion Dobran and adj. Cristea Chirvasauta and were scored during the numerous Hs-129 escort missions of the day."

Panzergrenadiere waving to a supporting Stuka near Iasi in summer 1944

The IAR81C-equipped second Fighter group also flew combat missions, but much less successfull:
"The first missions were flown on 30 May, when the group made 44 sorties, mostly bomber escorts. Eight IAR-81Cs from the 67th Fighter Squadron engaged a dogfight with about 20 P-39s. One IAR-81 was lost, without achieving any victories. The next day there were another 36 sorties and a dogfight between 8 IAR-81Cs and 15 Soviet P-39s. One plane was lost and another damaged, without achieving any victories over the VVS aircraft. This demonstrated again that the IAR-81 was obsolete and that there was a need for better aircraft. While escorting some Ju-88A4s from the 5th Bomber Group, the pilots from the 2nd Fighter Group even had problems with keeping up with the bombers."

31th of May

On this day, the german Panzer forces widen the wedge they pushed into the Soviets defense. In the morning, a tank-supported red counterattack is cleared with 15 tanks deystroyed each be Luftwaffe and Heer.

The sky over the battlefield is filled with aircraft for the whole day, with Luftwaffe's effort summing up to 1.100 combat sorties and minimum the same number on soviet side. That means ca. 80 starts per hour on each side during daylight. All these planes met in the mentioned, hard-fought small area!

A group of 6 Airacobras from 16GIAP, lead by Rechkalov, is nearly annihilated in a dogfight with only the leader escaping. Probably, this happened between 8:45 and 9:00 with several Luftwaffe units involved. The regiment looses three pilots, Leit. Karpov Nikolai, Ml.Leit. Petukhov Vladimir and Leit. Chistov Nikolai. 205IAD looses nine P39 today, with these (incomplete) losses standing against 76 claims by german pilots.

Luftwaffe reports 3 Bf109, 4 Fw190, 1 Stuka and a Hs219 as combat losses with several others damaged, ARR losses are unkown. This stands against 142 claims by the Red Armies flak and VVS. One particularly hard loss for JG52: Gerhard Barkhorn, Kommandeur of II./JG52 is shot down and badly wounded during his 6th mission of the day, escorting Stukas. Wolfgang Hahne from Stab II./JG52 (Barkhorn's Kaczmarek?) is missing in action since. In the one lost Stuka from I./SG2, Lt. Hans Schwirblat is wounded with his Bordschütze escaping unhurt. Florian Budu, a romanian ace with 16 kills is KIA as well as Karl Schuhmacher, a veteran from 8./JG52 with 56 claims. 

Two examples for the Luftwaffe's high activity level: Hermann Buchner, member of Fw190-equipped 6./SG2 flew six missions with 50-60 minutes each on the 30th and 31st from the base in Bacau, ca. 15 flight minutes away from the battlezone. The new Gruppenkommandeur of I./JG52, Willi Batz, the new Kommandeur of III./JG52, flew the same number today and claimed 15 (sic!) aerial kills, six of these being IL2s.

1st of June

In the morning (10:00 Berlin), an attack from german 79.ID & 23PzD just west of Stanca is supported by artillery and the Luftwaffe. It starts successfully, but after one hour the situation worsens for the Germans and they give in.

Strong AAA in the area Carpiti - Rediu Metripoliei hinders blue air operations.

Around noon, constant attacks by IL2-groups are reported in the combat zone as well as behind it. These groups are as big as 20-20 planes plus fighter escort. Nevertheless, german fighters only claim one Sturmovik today: Uffz. Anton Resch, 3./JG 52, alt.300m at 09:15.

Above that, 19 fighter claims are recorded, eight of them P-39 (205IAD looses four Cobras that day). Reports also indicate that the soviet fighters fly free hunt in addition to escorts missions.

9GIAD alone claims 17 kills today, which stands against 5 known german losses. One of these losses is a Storch from JG52. But for this, there can only be found two soviet claims on the 31st by Rechkalov "South-East Porcheshti" and another one by M.V. Alekseevni (897.IAP) on 2nd of June "at Height 226 / Romania".

The romanian 8. Attack group has only 15 Henschel 129 left in flyable condition, but it still managed to make 66 sorties, dropping 35 tons of bombs. A Swarm of Hs129 is attacked by soviet fighters. One loss is recorded for SG9 this day, which might reflect this attack.

In the afternoon, the weather worsens, allowing only 650 combat sorties to be flown by the Axis. This is also reflected in the claims, only two are after 15:00. Reports of 8.Armee indicate that 31 soviet tanks were destroyed today, six of them by the Luftwaffe.

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Last update 03.09.10