The painting depicts bf 109 of the 7th Brigade of the Romanian Air Force at the beginning of the Invasion of the Soviet Union
Recently, many World War II enthusiasts are keen to ridicule the Germans' pit daddy teammates, in addition to the well-known Italy, there is actually another one that is Romania. Romania was still fighting the Soviet Red Army with the Germans yesterday, and today it turned against each other and even broke out into air combat. This article will tell an interesting story from the perspective of the Romanian Air Force about the anti-Rhodes anti-current situation. Of course, ridicule is only one way, and the anecdotes are only relative to the bloodiness of the battlefield. There are many uncertainties in the war, and the "pit daddy" move of the German comrades in addition to their own limited strength is more of an embodiment of the uncertainty of the military and political decision-making of the teammates.
In mid-March 1944, the battlefield was irretrievably weakened, and the war finally reached Moldavia, Romania's northwestern border. Disturbing news spread quickly, "Russian road rollers have crushed our territory!" The reason for summoning up the courage to go on crusades had become a paradox, and the Romanians had been worried about a Soviet invasion, and when they stood with the Germans, they believed that it would never happen again; now, everything had turned around, and the shadow of the fiasco of the last great war had resurfaced.
For the Air Force, the Crusade-like operation has long ended, and the current battle has added a sense of mission and a tragic atmosphere because of the defense of the motherland's airspace.
The 9th Brigade, which reached the front line to support the 7th Brigade, continued to retreat and suffer losses, and by March, the size of the force's combat effectiveness was only equivalent to that of a squadron. On March 12, the landplane of Vinca, a pre-war village teacher who had won 17 air victories, was mistakenly hit by a German he 111, and the rear machine gunners on the bombers thought he was Soviet, and Venka died instantly. On 12 April, Tiraspol, the long-standing front center of the Romanian Air Force, was captured by the Soviets.
The Romanian Messerschmidt aircraft has won five air victories
At the end of April, the heavily regrouped bomber forces were largely stationed in the Ianca region of Moldavia. The 6th Brigade, which had completed the rearmament of the Ju 87d in Poland, also joined in mid-May, and after being renamed the 6th Dive Bomber Group, it was temporarily placed under the jurisdiction of the prestigious Luftwaffe SG 2 Immelmann Stuka Wing. There, the Romanian pilots met the legendary figure, Hans-Ulrich Rudel.
Also in this month, the last bit of belongings that was pieced together was almost gone. On May 30, 5 Savoia bombers were shot down and 7 Stukas were shot down or scrapped. This high rate of losses allowed the pilots in the Soviet camp, including Captain Ivan N. Kozhedub, the number one ace of the Allied powers, to fly the La-5f, which shot down 8 enemy planes in a week of operations in the airspace northeast of Romania.
June seems to be a festive month. On the 16th, the First Air Force celebrated the first anniversary of its establishment, and the Military Department released annual statistics saying that the Aviation Force attacked a total of 18,074 sorties in southern Ukraine and the Bessalabia region, dropped 8,055.3 tons of bombs, and destroyed 401 enemy aircraft. On the 22nd, the entire air force ushered in the third anniversary of the war against the Soviet Union, and the war report released said that in three years, the CCP confirmed the shooting down of 834 Soviet aircraft, and another 143 may be shot down. The succession of celebrations has not in any way alleviated the pressure of the bleak reality, and the Air Force is now struggling. The Soviet army, which had ended its recuperation, began a powerful offensive in Moldavia on August 20, with the aim of withdrawing Romania from the war, and the strength of the air force reached as many as 1952 aircraft, of which the number of fighters was 802, almost 2 and a half times the total number of Romanian and German aircraft, which did not count the strength of the Black Sea Fleet aviation.
Against this large army, in addition to the 9th Group equipped with German-made aircraft, the iar.80/81 was replaced because it could not fight the American aircraft (the 7th Group was transferred to deal with the Americans in July), with a total strength of 161 aircraft, and the outcome of the engagement can be imagined.
(Above) Luo Jun bf 109, which was doing ground maintenance after the invasion of the Soviet Union, was in July 1941
On August 20 and 21, five Squadron 2 iar.81c were shot down. Losses of the bf 109 began on the 22nd, when two -5fn aircraft were shot down over Moldavia, piloted by Darjan, who had won 17 air battles, and Miron, who had won 5 air battles. Dajan, who claimed to be the "best wingman" in the Air Force, was destined to enter a Soviet prisoner-of-war camp, while Myron was lucky enough to escape.
At this stage of the war, the remaining pilots who flew Messerschmidt were basically veteran air veterans, so every loss of personnel was difficult to repair. Although the Air Force managed to increase the number of aircraft in this area to 305 in a few days, they could not provide it, but it still did not help. The fate of the Romanian Air Force has been predestined.
At this time, secret negotiations that had lasted for a while began to surface.
In fact, Dr. Dr. Relations deteriorated by 1943, and this trend continued to intensify in 1944. The Romanian aristocracy and intellectual elite strongly opposed Antonescu and were determined to withdraw the country from the war. As for Antonescu, he was at odds with the Germans over the command of the Romanian army.
In early April 1944, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov gave a meaningful radio speech. He assured Romania that the Soviet Union had no territorial claims against Romania other than to demand the return of Bessarabia. Therefore, hiding from the Germans, the romanian anti-war faction began peace negotiations in Cairo on the 12th with representatives of the United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and other countries.
The final outcome of this negotiation was revealed on August 23. Both the king and the government recognized that the war must stop immediately. The crusade was completely desperate, and if it did not withdraw voluntarily, the result that awaited it would be that the Soviets would enter Bucharest in a few days. As in the last great war, it turned out that Romania had chosen the wrong war again, and now they had to drink this bitter wine.
Later that evening, After reporting the war to the king, Antonescu was arrested along with the Minister of Defence and the Minister of the Interior. The Romanian secret police chief was alert to the fact that Antonescu had not returned to the palace, but the German embassy that received his secret report took his words as "gibberish". No sooner had the bell rung at 10 p.m. than the king announced the formation of a new government and made a radio address to the people of the country declaring that the war was over and that the Romanian army should immediately and unconditionally cease hostilities and take the initiative to cease fire with the Soviet Union and the Western Allies. He also stressed that all German troops in Romania must withdraw from Romania within 14 days. This astonishing broadcast also included the abrogating all political and military treaties that existed among the Axis powers. This should be regarded as a speech that bravely shouldered the responsibility of saving the country and the people, but it was also a political drama with the characteristics of Romanian rudder. The Germans in Romania were taken aback, especially by the Luftwaffe personnel. On the Soviet front, Romanian and Luftwaffe personnel who fought side by side forged a deep friendship with each other, many units of the two armies infiltrated each other, many German officers served in the Romanian Air Force, and Neubock, the ace pilot of the JG 52 Wing with a record of 32 shots down, served as the liaison officer of the 9th Brigade of the Romanian Air Force.
Between battles in the summer of 1941, a section of the 7th Brigade of the Romanian Air Force is resting
The effects of the sudden change of situation were far more than the psychological pain of the lover's breakup, and the danger of the large number of German troops, airports, warehouses and hospitals scattered everywhere became a question of whether these Germans could survive. Overall, despite some sporadic exchanges of fire between the two armies, both sides were relatively restrained. The Germans should be able to leave quietly – or as Romania had hoped – quietly.
But Hitler was not prepared to endure such "great humiliation." On August 25, he ordered the Luftwaffe to bomb the Romanian capital. The 4th Air Force at the time, which was supposed to be responsible for air support for the German Army Group South Ukraine, had fewer than 300 aircraft available in August, of which only about 50 were BF 109s. This limited force was needed in many places, such as the rescue of besieged ground forces, but 150 sorties were still sent to bomb Bucharest on the orders of the Fuehrer. The Germans, who shared the airfield with the Romanian Air Force, tried to control the situation as quickly as possible, so that among the aircraft bombing Bucharest, there was the "Stuka" captured from the 6th Brigade of the Romanian Air Force, and the fuselage was painted with a yellow cross.
The goal of the bombing was to overthrow the "mutinous government" and the king, and the horizontal bombers and dive bombers did drop bombs on several targets, including the royal palace, but the operation did not cause much psychological deterrence to Romania, but gave the Romanians a very appropriate excuse to declare war on their former ally Germany. After the 23rd, Romania has been under great pressure from the Soviet Union to declare war on Germany, and now the country has decompressed. At the same time, she also declared war on her historical nemesis, Hungary, which had barely been counted as an ally.
As a sign of firmness in the new direction, Romania released all 1,095 American pilots and 52 British pilots, hot diplomatic chips carried away by 56 B-17 bombers. The wounded in German field hospitals also became spoils of war, and these "meet and greet gifts" were given to the Soviets, including Johann Pichler, the winner of the 52nd air victory of the 3rd Group of the JG 77 Wing. This sudden shift overwhelmed the Air Force's combat units. Yesterday was still comrades, comrades-in-arms, partners in solidarity, today is the enemy? Of course, the order has been made clear, the Germans have opened full-scale fire on the Romanian army, and it is time to erase the memories of the past few years.
This is a scene in August 1944, stopped after the Rojun bf 109 is the German me 323 "Giant" transport aircraft
At one station, Captain Lucian Toma, a veteran Romanian pilot, sat in a soft chair under a camouflage net, watching the busy ground crew around him. These strong men ran up and down under the scorching sun with spray guns and paint buckets, and the heat was dizzy. Yes, these people were going to be busy for a while, and after Romania announced its withdrawal from the Axis camp, the higher authorities only now remembered an important thing: the national logo on the fuselage had to be repainted. That's certainly busy enough.
Pilots like Toma didn't have a crush on the Germans, but over the years of cooperation, they got used to something: German aircraft, German tactics, even German pilots, and so on. The BF 109 fighter he flew himself was obtained from the Germans. Now they have to fight alongside yesterday's enemies and fire fiercely at yesterday's allies...
It wasn't just Toma, the pilots on both sides hated the situation and tried to avoid direct conflict with each other— some of them knew who was sitting in the cockpit when they saw each other's planes. But this situation of maximum restraint soon changed, and after realizing that the Luftwaffe had no scruples in dropping bombs on its own country, fighters and anti-aircraft guns did not hesitate to fire at German aircraft.
On August 24, the day after the muzzle of the gun was announced, two Romanian pilots went down in history with their own record-breaking behavior. First was Lieutenant Stefan Florescu of the 53rd Squadron, who became the last Romanian fighter pilot to shoot down a Soviet plane after shooting down a Pe-2. In fact, this was also his last air victory in the BF 109e. Immediately afterward, Captain Lucian-eduard Toma, commander of the 7th Brigade, shot down a Ju 52/3m transport plane transporting troops evacuated, thus becoming the first to shoot down a German aircraft.
After the official declaration of war, the 7th and 9th Groups announced the shooting down of 6 German bombers, while Sergeant Gheorghe Grecu from the 4th Group shot down 1 Me 323 Giant transport and 1 Ju 52/3m. According to the Air Force's calculation standards, he won 5 air battles (me 323 was equipped with 6 engines but extremely unmatched), so he was lucky enough to become the last "ace of the day".
On August 26, the 9th Group shot down eight German aircraft, including two me 323 Giants. Lieutenant Vasile Gavriliu was best known for attacking German transport aircraft, shooting down not only one he 111h and one Ju 52 each in the air, but also destroying 3 Ju 52 and 1 FW 58 on the ground. These gains were achieved during his daring low-altitude strafing of German airfields, but his plane was eventually forced to land in a cornfield. A series of hunting and killing of transport aircraft brought his air victories to 12 and made him the most successful "ace" in the Romanian Air Force's operations against the Axis Army.
However, once the German fighter jets were encountered, the good fortune of the Romanian pilots came to an end. When the bf109 of the Yellow Cross and the bf 109 of the Black Cross meet, it is often the latter who wins. For example, constantin stolica's Yellow Cross BF 109g-6 of the 7th Brigade was shot down by Black Cross's BF 109 on August 28.
In the summer of 1944, the Romanian he 111 bombers were refueling
The Germans could not have been too fond of war here, and on the whole they were retreating to Hungary and Bulgaria, respectively. The Americans rushed to help the new partners in the anti-fascist camp, and on August 26, 230 B-24s were ordered to attack, ready to bomb the German forces entrenched near the Romanian capital. I don't know if it was a communication failure or some other reason, but in a word a large number of bombs fell on the head of the 4th Romanian Paratrooper Battalion, which was building a forward position.
The 4th Paratrooper Battalion was the only paratrooper unit of the Romanian Air Force, and this attack on the Germans was the only action they had in the entire Second World War!
On June 10, 1941, the 8th Company, the first paratrooper company of the Romanian Air Force, was born. In 1942 and 1943, the 9th Company and the 10th Company (Support Weapons Company) were formed, which formed the 4th Parachute Battalion. By October 1943, only 215 men were fully trained in the entire paratrooper battalion. Antonescu ordered an expansion so that by 1944 the battalion consisted of four companies of the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th (battalion headquarters company, with 1 motorcycle reconnaissance platoon) and a reserve company. The paratroopers were transported by the 105th and 107th transport aircraft squadrons (model ju 52) and the heavy equipment by the 109th transport aircraft squadron (the iar.39 biplane towing dfs 230 glider).
On August 23, the day of the King's speech, only about 800 officers and men of the 4th Parachute Battalion could be put into combat, and the number of dfs 230 gliders available was about 26. The next day, the paratroopers were urgently organized into assault groups to capture airfields around Bucharest. This force caught the German garrison by surprise and caused the German Brandenburg troops who arrived later to suffer a lot. Just when the morale of this paratrooper battalion was high and ready to do a big job, the "surprise attack" of American bombers came unexpectedly, causing them heavy casualties.
In the first week of the war with the Germans, the Romanian Air Force flew 336 sorties, claiming to destroy 84 German aircraft in the air and on the ground, although according to German records during this period, the number of losses would not exceed 25. The losses of the Romanian Air Force were about 50 aircraft.
This article is excerpted from "The Imperial Firmament: A History of the Air Warfare of the German Minions on the Eastern Front of World War II"