Bf109F-2 of Gerhard Michalski, II./JG53

 

An early Bf109F-2 flown by Gerhard Michalski of the II./JG53 Gruppenstab at St.Omer in the spring of 1941. An all time favourite of mine that for some reason never made it to profile until now! The bold markings and the Ace of Spades emblem combined with the mottled yellow cowling and spinner is eye-catching for sure. The aicraft is also fitted with a rare telescopic sight.  

Edit: Profile updated 2025-09-21 as Neil Page posted a close up photo of this aircraft on his blog here. I had the style of the "2" wrong and have updated according to the photo. The photo was taken at a later date as is evident from the aircraft having less mottle, possibly due to polishing. 

JG53 Bf109E Graue 13

 

An interesting Bf109E-3 or E-4 from 5./JG53 in the autumn of 1940. The combination of a yellow cowling with a partially overpainted red band makes it likely that the photos of this aircraft are from late September or October 1940. In November the Ace of Spades emblem was reapplied. 

The tactical markings applied in RLM 02, typical for 2 and 5./JG53, as well as the yellow nose extended further than usually seen on JG53 aircraft makes this a quite unique Emil!

Bf109E-4 Stab III./JG53

The first known photograph of this aircraft was taken some time in the summer of 1940. Visible on the photo is the small Ace of Spades emblem as well as a Gruppenkommandeurs markings and two victory bars on the tail. That victory tally does not match any of the III gruppe commanders in 1940. The best match would be that of acting Gruppenkommandeur Rolf-Peter Pingel who although having several earlier victories to his credit, scored two victories during his time with III./JG53 in June 1940. 

 

The second known photo shows the same aircraft with some additional mottle and or dirt as well as the red ring around the engine cowling. This photo is often claimed to show the aircraf of Harro Harder which is very possible given the red ring marking that was applied in August. As Harder obviously didn't fly this aircraft the day he was shot down, it's possible, but far from certain, that it was also flown by his replacement, Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke. 

A third photo shows this aircraft again in November, now having had the small triangle painted out to create the markings of a Gruppe Adjutant, who at the time was Erich Schmidt. More interesting is the yellow I.D. colors, the reapplied and enlarged Ace of Spades emblem and not least, the painted out swastika, a feature of III./JG53 aircraft at the time. 

All in all, as if the paintshcemes and markings aren't interesting enough, it seems as if this aircraft was flown by at least three, if not four, of the Luftwaffe aces of the Battle of Britain!

Bf109G-14/AS flown by Herbert Maxis

White 13 was flown by Herbert Maxis during operation Bodenplatte on January 1, 1945. There's a great number of photos of this aircraft, which doesn't make it much easier to try and interpret the colors. In photos all colors look quite dark while in a few others there's stark contrast between the two upper colors. This contrast makes me believe in a mixed camouflage of RLM 75 and green RLM 81. The high contrast between the white markings and the undersurface color points towards the greenish color rather than the pale RLM 76.

Update!
Photos from the recovery of this aircraft sent to me by Rémi Baudru (Thank you!) shows that this aircraft was painted in greys. The contrast of the colors are greater than a regular 74/75 camo but clearly grey.One can only speculate about these "latewar greys" as they can be seen on more wrecks than this one, but the ligther one could possibly be a faded version of 75, perhaps affected by lack of raw materials or a lower amount of pigments in the paint.  Whether the darker color is RLM 74 or a makeshift replacement following the withdrawal of RLM74 would also remain pure speculation.

This is one of the joys of running this blog - getting new information from all around the world that enables me to make the profiles as accurate as possible.

Bf109G-6 found at Kassel

This Bf109G-6 was found by US troops at the Henschel Aero Engine works in Kassel. The colorphoto of this aircraft is quite wellknown but new B&W photos of this aircraft has surfaced revealing more interesting detail. The enginecowling is a replacement in a different camoflage than the rest of the aircraft. Interestingly, it's mottled all over, there's no color covering the top as on regular camoflage schemes for the 109. The starboard wing also seems to be a replacement, the color of the undersurface being different than the rest of the aircraft but very similar to the enginecowling. In all likelyhood, a replacement in RLM 74/75/76. The port wing has the same color as the main fuselage but with some natural metal showing through. 

All that aside, the most interesting detail to me is that the close-up pictures shows a complete set of stencils on the fuselage, more or less proving that Bf109G's was at least to some extent delivered from the Mtt Regensburg factory in latewar colors.

Update: Thanks to some questions from John Irwin I've been able to see some new details and the profile has been updated accordingly. 

Yellow 12 of Felix Sauer

I previously posted a profile of Yellow 1 from 6./JG53 labeled as having been flown by Felix Sauer, Erik Mombeeck has since pointed out that Yellow 1 was most likely not flown by Sauer. Yellow 12 depicted here was! Looking at the colorpictures of this aircraft it seems as if it was painted in a regular paintscheme of 76/74/75 but with a misting of 02 creating a slightly greenish cast to the fuselage.

Karl Vockelmann Bf109F-2 Weisse 12

 

Another III./JG53 Bf109F-2 that seems to have been polished so hard that some of the camoflage has worn off. This one, with Wrk. Nr. 8093 was photographed at Maldeghem in the spring of 1941.

Bf109F flown by Felix Sauer, 6./JG53

Several colorpictures in Erik Mombeecks "Luftwaffe Gallery" shows this aircraft flown by Felix Sauer on the Channelfront in the spring of 1941. The propblades, mottle on the enginecowling and the darker color on the spine seems to be the same i.e. RLM70. The grey on the spine is much warmer than the greys on the side of the fuselage so I believe that the spine is painted RLM70 and RLM02 while the sides are overpainted in RLM 74 and RLM75. Looking at the wingroots I believe that RLM70 and RLM02 was worn on the wings as well.

Additional info, Erik Mombeeck pointed out to me that although photographed by this aircraft, it was propably not Felix Sauer who actually flew it.