
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: Pilots of the "
Sachsenberg Schwarm"
sitting on Red 3. From left to right: Lieutenant Heinz
Sachsenberg, Hauptmann Waldemar Wübke, Oberleutnant
Klaus Faber and Lieutenant Karl-Heinz Hoffmann.