The Messerschmitt Me262 was most vulnerable during takeoff and landing, more so than piston and prop aircraft due to the greater time and distance required for this process. Allied pilots knew this weakness and lurked around bases in hopes of a victory.
Rather than depend on the High Command, Adolf Galland, a high ranking pilot with great flying and combat experience, set about establishing his own airfield defense squadron which came to be known as JV44 Würgerstaffel, meaning Butcher Bird. For this he turned to distinguished elite pilots such as Hptm. Waldemar Wübke.
The airfield protection unit was equipped with the long nosed Dora variant of the Fw190, both D-9 and a rare D-11 were used. The aircrafts were painted with bright red with unevenly spaced white stripes which varied in width, to aid in recognition by weary Me262 pilots returning to base and to help German flak gunners identify them in the air. These aircrafts also had unusual markings including a personal inscription on the port side of the fuselage.
A sarcastic comment originating when Wübke was ordered to fly Jabo missions. The inscription was found on the sides of boxcars carrying bombs. Wübke felt that rail cars and bombers, not fighters, should deliver bombs. Wübke used this inscription throughout the war. Personal inscription reads: “By order of the State Railway”.
Above Photo: From left to right: Lieutenant Heinz Sachsenberg, Hauptmann Waldemar Wübke, Oberleutnant Klaus Faber and Lieutenant Karl-Heinz Hoffmann.
