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Franz Schall
Franz Schall (1 June 1918 – 10 April 1945) was a German military aviator who served in the Luftwaffe during World War II. As a fighter ace, he flew approximately 550 combat missions and claimed 137 aerial victories—that is, 137 aerial combat encounters resulting in the destruction of the enemy aircraft. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, the highest award in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. He was killed on 10 April 1945, when his aircraft rolled into a bomb crater and exploded during an attempted emergency landing at Parchim. Career Schall was born on 1 June 1918 in Graz in Austria-Hungary. He began his military service with the anti-aircraft artillery before in September 1941 he was trained as a fighter pilot. Holding the rank of ''Leutnant'' (second lieutenant), Schall was posted to the 3. '' Staffel'' (3rd squadron) of ''Jagdgeschwader'' 52 (JG 52—52nd Fighter Wing) on 18 February 1943. At th ...
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Graz
Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the population of the Graz larger urban zone (LUZ) stood at 652,654, based on principal-residence status. Graz is known as a college and university city, with four colleges and four universities. Combined, the city is home to more than 60,000 students. Its historic centre (''Altstadt'') is one of the best-preserved city centres in Central Europe. In 1999, the city's historic centre was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites and in 2010 the designation was expanded to include Eggenberg Palace (german: Schloss Eggenberg) on the western edge of the city. Graz was designated the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2003 and became a City of Culinary Delights in 2008. Etymology The name of the city, Graz, formerly spelled Gratz, most likely st ...
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Anti-aircraft Warfare
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, subsurface ( submarine launched), and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements, and passive measures (e.g. barrage balloons). It may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries, the main effort has tended to be homeland defence. NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defence is an extension of air defence, as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight. In some countries, such as Britain and Germany during the Second World War, the Soviet Union, and modern NATO and the United States, ground-based air defence and air defence airc ...
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Ilyushin Il-2
The Ilyushin Il-2 ( Russian: Илью́шин Ил-2) is a ground-attack plane that was produced by the Soviet Union in large numbers during the Second World War. The word ''shturmovík'' ( Cyrillic: штурмовик), the generic Russian term for a ground-attack aircraft, became a synecdoche for the Il-2 in English sources, where it is commonly rendered Shturmovik, StormovikStapfer, 1995 and Sturmovik.Rastrenin, 2008 To Il-2 pilots, the aircraft was known by the diminutive "Ilyusha". To the soldiers on the ground, it was called the "Hunchback", the "Flying Tank" or the "Flying Infantryman". Its postwar NATO reporting name was Bark.Gunston 1995, p. 106. During the war, 36,183 units of the Il-2 were produced, and in combination with its successor, the Ilyushin Il-10, a total of 42,330Jane's 1989, p. 529. were built, making it the single most produced military aircraft design in aviation history, as well as one of the most produced piloted aircraft in history along with t ...
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Franz Woidich
Franz-Walter Woidich (2 January 1921 – 5 July 2004) was a Luftwaffe flying ace of World War II. Wernitz was credited with 110 aerial victories claimed in roughly 1000 combat missions. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, the highest award in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany during World War II. Career Woidich was born on 2 January 1921 in Znojmo, present-day Czech Republic, at the time in the bilingual region of southern Moravia of the First Czechoslovak Republic. ''Oberfähnrich'' ( Ensign) Woidich joined the 5. '' Staffel'' (5th Squadron) of ''Jagdgeschwader'' 27 (JG 27–27th Fighter Wing) on 11 July 1941, then stationed in North Africa.For an explanation of the meaning of Luftwaffe unit designation see Luftwaffe Organization He was credited with two aerial victories out of four claims filed in the North African theater of operations. The first claim was made on 22 November 1941 over a Royal Australian Air Force Curtiss ...
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Operation Citadel
Operation Citadel (german: Unternehmen Zitadelle) was a German offensive operation in July 1943 against Soviet forces in the Kursk salient, proposed by Generalfeldmarschall Fritz Erich Georg Eduard von Manstein during the Second World War on the Eastern Front that initiated the Battle of Kursk. The deliberate defensive operation that the Soviets implemented to repel the German offensive is referred to as the Kursk Strategic Defensive Operation. The German offensive was countered by two Soviet counter-offensives, Operation Polkovodets Rumyantsev (russian: Полководец Румянцев) and Operation Kutuzov (russian: Кутузов). For the Germans, the battle was the final strategic offensive that they were able to launch on the Eastern Front. As the Allied invasion of Sicily began, Adolf Hitler was forced to divert troops training in France to meet the Allied threats in the Mediterranean, rather than use them as a strategic reserve for the Eastern Front. Germany's e ...
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Third Battle Of Kharkov
The Third Battle of Kharkov was a series of battles on the Eastern Front of World War II, undertaken by Army Group South of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Red Army, around the city of Kharkov between 19 February and 15 March 1943. Known to the German side as the Donets Campaign, and in the Soviet Union as the Donbas and Kharkov operations, the German counterstrike led to the recapture of the cities of Kharkov and Belgorod. As the German 6th Army was encircled in the Battle of Stalingrad, the Red Army undertook a series of wider attacks against the rest of Army Group South. These culminated on 2 January 1943 when the Red Army launched Operation Star and Operation Gallop, which between January and early February broke German defenses and led to the Soviet recapture of Kharkov, Belgorod, Kursk, as well as Voroshilovgrad and Izium. The Soviet victories caused participating Soviet units to over-extend themselves. Freed on 2 February by the surrender of the German 6th Army, ...
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Luftwaffenkommando Don
I. Fliegerkorps (1st Air Corps) was formed 11 October 1939 in Cologne from the 1st Air Division. The Corps was also known as Luftwaffenkommando Don between 26 August 1942 until 17 February 1943. It was transformed to the 18th Air Division on 4 April 1945. Commanding officers *Generaloberst Ulrich Grauert, 11 October 1939 – 15 May 1941 *General der Flieger Helmuth Förster, 3 June 1941 – 23 August 1942 *General der Flieger Günther Korten, 24 August 1942 – 11 June 1943 *Generalleutnant Alfred Mahnke (acting), 1 April 1943 – 25 June 1943 *Generalleutnant Karl Angerstein, 26 June 1943 – 6 November 1943 *General der Flieger Paul Deichmann, 7 November 1943 – 3 April 1945 Chiefs of Staff * Oberst Rudolf Meister, 18 December 1939 – 22 June 1940 * Generalmajor Walter Boenicke, 22 June 1940 – 8 November 1941 * Oberst Werner Kreipe, 8 November 1941 – 25 October 1942 * Oberst Klaus Uebe __NOTOC__ Klaus Uebe (1 May 1900 – 3 February 1968) was a Luftwaffe general and re ...
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Poltava
Poltava (, ; uk, Полтава ) is a city located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the capital city of the Poltava Oblast (province) and of the surrounding Poltava Raion (district) of the oblast. Poltava is administratively incorporated as a city of oblast significance and does not belong to the raion. It has a population of History It is still unknown when Poltava was founded, although the town was not attested before 1174. However, for reasons unknown, municipal authorities chose to celebrate the city's 1100th anniversary in 1999. The settlement is indeed an old one, as archeologists unearthed a Paleolithic dwelling as well as Scythian remains within the city limits. Middle Ages The present name of the city is traditionally connected to the settlement Ltava which is mentioned in the Hypatian Chronicle in 1174.
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Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after Frederick Barbarossa ("red beard"), a 12th-century Holy Roman emperor and German king, put into action Nazi Germany's ideological goal of conquering the western Soviet Union to repopulate it with Germans. The German aimed to use some of the conquered people as forced labour for the Axis war effort while acquiring the oil reserves of the Caucasus as well as the agricultural resources of various Soviet territories. Their ultimate goal was to create more (living space) for Germany, and the eventual extermination of the indigenous Slavic peoples by mass deportation to Siberia, Germanisation, enslavement, and genocide. In the two years leading up to the invasion, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed political and economic pacts fo ...
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Helmut Bennemann
Helmut Bennemann (16 March 1915 – 17 November 2007) was an ''Oberstleutnant'' of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe in World War II. Bennemann claimed 93 aerial victories in over 400 combat missions. The majority of his victories were claimed over the Eastern Front. His commands included ''Geschwaderkommodore'' of the JG 53 fighter wing. World War II Helmut Bennemann held the position of Adjutant of I./ ''Jagdgeschwader'' 52 (JG 52—52nd Fighter Wing) in June 1940. He claimed his first aerial victory on 26 August, when he shot down a Royal Air Force (RAF) Spitfire near Dover. On 15 September, Bennemann claimed three RAF Hurricane shot down to record his sixth through eighth victories. Until 21 February, the entire I. ''Gruppe'' was based at an airfield at Katwijk in the Netherlands where it was tasked with patrolling the Dutch coast area and German Bight, the three ''Staffeln'' were then deployed at various airfields on the Dutch, German and Danish North Sea coast. On 27 April 194 ...
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Rudolf Miethig
Rudolf Miethig (17 October 1921 – 10 June 1943) was a German Luftwaffe military aviator during World War II, a fighter ace credited with 101 aerial victories—that is, 101 aerial combat encounters resulting in the destruction of the enemy aircraft. All of his victories were claimed over the Soviet Air Forces in an unknown number of combat missions. Born in Zwickau, Miethig was trained as a fighter pilot and posted to ''Jagdgeschwader'' 52 (JG 52–52nd Fighter Wing) in early 1941. Fighting on the Eastern Front, he claimed his first aerial victory on 14 November 1941 during Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In July 1942, Miethig was appointed ''Staffelkapitän'' (squadron leader) of 3. '' Staffel'' (3rd squadron) of JG 52. Three months later, he was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross on 29 October 1942. On 8 June 1943, Miethig was credited with his 100th aerial victory. Two days later, he was killed in action following a mid ...
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