Fly Past

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SPOT FACT The  rst Bf 109s had Junkers

Jumo 210B engines with two-bladed props

Men Behind

the Bf 109

Republican aircraft were claimed destroyed by Bf 109 pilots in the Spanish Civil War
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three days. At midday on May 14,

1940, Schypek achieved his first kill

when he and another four pilots

engaged four French fighters. He

recalled: “My no.1 victory, a French

Curtiss... was in a wild dogfight

with a squadron of French fighters

defending the Maas river bridges

near Sedan/Charleville.”

During the day, I./JG 76 claimed

13 aircraft for the loss of three. Lt

Rudolf Ziegler (1./JG 76) came

down near Sedan but returned later,

only to be taken prisoner on August

30. Fw Wilhelm Lohr (3./JG 76)
    was killed and another pilot was

I./JG 76 shot down a Blenheim

of 114 Squadron flown by Plt Off

George Turner on January 12, 1940.

Losses outweighed I./JG 76’s

successes. On November 22, Fw Karl

Hier (1./JG 76) and Lt Heinz Schulz

(3./JG 76) were shot down by French

fighters from Groupe de Chasse I/3,

and both were captured: Hier was

released in 1940 but Schulz remained

a prisoner for the rest of the war. Two

pilots were killed in accidents in early

1940, while on April 21 of that year,

Fw Leopold Wyhlidal died while

in combat with Hurricanes

of 73 Squadron. But

everything was about to change with

the German attack on France and the

Low Countries on May 10, 1940.

Blitzkrieg

Schypek had flown 34 uneventful

operations by May 10, by which

time he was flying with Oblt

Joachim Wandel’s 2./JG 76 from

Ober-Ohm. He took off at 0552hrs

to escort bombers attacking targets

near Echternach in Luxembourg, the

first of three sorties that day.

The next day he made the transit

to the new base at Wengerohr,

from where he flew 11 missions in

Above left

Jochen Schypek (right)

together with his

mechanic alongside

‘Yellow 13’. The

photograph was taken in

Wien Aspern, August 1939.

Above

The unit badge on a Bf

109 E-1 of 1./JG 76 coded

‘White 9’. The identity of

the man in the cockpit is

not known.