Walther Dahl

Walther Dahl (27 March 1916 – 25 November 1985) was a German pilot and a fighter ace during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves of Nazi Germany. Dahl claimed some 128 enemy aircraft shot down in 678 missions.^[1]

Dahl was born on 27 March 1916 in Lug near Bad Bergzabern, son of a Volksschule teacher who was killed in action in 1918 on the Western Front of World War I. He joined the military service on 29 October 1935, initially serving as a Schütze with Infanterie-Regiment 35 before transferring to Infanterie-Regiment 119 in Stuttgart on 6 October 1936. On 18 January 1938, Dahl was promoted to Leutnant (second lieutenant) of the Reserves with an effective date as of 1 January 1938.^[2]

On 28 October 1938, Dahl quit his service with the Heer (army) and joined the Schutzpolizei (police) on 29 October 1938. On 1 May 1939, Dahl resigned and joined the Luftwaffe (air force) and was trained as a pilot.^{[Note 1]} From December 1939 he trained at the flight school in Weimar.^[4] On 1 October 1940, Dahl was promoted to Oberleutnant (first lieutenant) and was then posted to the fighter pilot school Jagdfliegerschule 5 in Wien-Schwechat on 31 October.^[2]

World War II in Europe had begun on Friday, 1 September 1939, when German forces invaded Poland. On 30 April 1941, Dahl was posted to the Ergänzungsgruppe (a training unit) of Jagdgeschwader 3 (JG 3—3rd Fighter Wing).^[2] At the time, the Ergänzungsgruppe was based at Krakau, now Kraków, and commanded by Major Alfred Müller.^[5]

In May 1941, Dahl was then transferred to the Geschwaderstab (headquarters unit) of JG 3 under command of Major Günther Lützow.^[6] The Geschwaderstab had just received the then new Messerschmitt Bf 109 F-2 at Mannheim-Sandhofen Airfield and was based at an airfield near Saint-Pol-Brias on the English Channel.^[7]

In preparation for Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Geschwaderstab began heading east on 8 June 1941. They stopped for several days at Breslau-Gandau (now in Wrocław, Poland. On 18 June, the Geschwaderstab relocated to Hostynne, from where on 22 June 1941, Lützow led JG 3 in combat against the Soviet Union.^[8] At the start of the campaign, JG 3 was subordinated to the V. Fliegerkorps (5th Air Corps), under command of General der Flieger Robert Ritter von Greim, which was part of Luftflotte 4 (4th Air Fleet), under command of Generaloberst Alexander Löhr. These air elements supported Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt's Heeresgruppe Süd (Army Group South), with the objective of capturing Ukraine and its capital Kiev.^[9]

On 22 June the first day of the invasion, Dahl flew with the Gruppenstab of II. Gruppe (2nd group) of JG 3. Flying against Soviet airfields in the Lviv area, Dahl was credited with II. Gruppe's first aerial victory when he claimed an I-18 fighter, an early German designation for a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-1 fighter, at 04:30.^[10]

Dahl commanded 4. Staffel of JG 3 from 13 February until 9 April 1942 as Staffelkapitän (squadron leader). He had taken over command from Hauptmann Georg Michalek who was transferred. When Dahl was ordered to take over command of 1. Staffel of Ergänzungsgruppe Süd, he passed command of 4. Staffel of JG 3 to Oberleutnant Gerhard Walz.^[11] On 20 July 1943, Dahl was given command as Gruppenkommandeur (group commander) of III. Gruppe of JG 3. He replaced Hauptmann Karl-Heinz Langer who was one of the temporary leaders of the Gruppe after its former commander Hauptmann Wolfgang Ewald became a prisoner of war on 14 July.^[12] On 11 March 1944, Dahl was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) for 64 aerial victories claimed.^[13]

On 21 May 1944, Dahl was appointed commander of Jagdgeschwader zur besonderen Verwendung (JG z.b.V.—a special purpose fighter wing). He led the unit until taking command of Jagdgeschwader 300 (JG 300—300th Fighter Wing) on 27 June 1944. Dahl set up his Geschwaderstab at Ansbach, planning combined operations with JG 3 "Udet".^[14] Dahl succeeded Major Walter Brede as commander of JG 300.^[15] Command of III. Gruppe of JG 3 was then passed to Major Karl-Heinz Langer.^[16]

On 7 July 1944, a force of 1,129 B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) Eighth Air Force set out from England to bomb aircraft factories in the Leipzig area and the synthetic oil plants at Boehlen, Leuna-Merseburg and Lützkendorf. This force was divided into three prongs. The first group consisted of 373 B-24s, the second force of the 3rd Bomb Division was made up of 303 B-17s, and the third wave was made up of 450 B-17s. A series of accidents at the start of the mission allowed the Luftwaffe to focus their attacks on the B-24 force.^[17] This formation was intercepted by a German Gefechtsverband (task force) consisting of IV.(Sturm) Gruppe Jagdgeschwader 3 escorted by two Gruppen of Bf 109s from JG 300 led by Dahl. Dahl drove the attack to point-blank range behind the Liberators of the 492nd Bomb Group before opening fire. 492nd Bomb Group was temporarily without fighter cover. Within about a minute the entire squadron of twelve B-24s had been annihilated. The Germans claimed 28 USAAF 2nd Air Division B-24s that day and were credited with at least 21.^[18] The majority to the Sturmgruppe attack, IV./JG 3 lost nine fighters shot down and three more suffered damage and made crash landings; five of the unit's pilots were killed.^[19][20] On this mission, Dahl was credited with his 72nd aerial victory, a B-24 shot down in the vicinity of Quedlinburg.^[21]

On 13 September, Dahl claimed to have brought down a B-17 four-engined bomber by ramming according to his own account. Lorant and Goyat, the historians of JG 300, found no evidence of a corresponding loss in US archives.^[22]

On 26 January 1945, Hermann Göring appointed him Inspekteur der Tagjäger (Inspector of the Day Fighters). Despite his promotion, Dahl continued to fly operationally. On 28 February 1945, Dahl was credited with his 100th aerial victory. He was the 98th Luftwaffe pilot to achieve the century mark.^[23]

Dahl ended the war flying the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter with III./Ergänzungs-Jagdgeschwader 2 (a supplementary fighter unit). On 27 March 1945,^[24] Dahl claimed two P-47 Thunderbolt fighter kills.^[25] His 129th and last victory was a USAAF P-51 Mustang near Dillingen an der Donau on 26 April 1945. Dahl was promoted to Oberst (colonel) on 30 April 1945. He was taken prisoner of war by US forces in Bavaria at the end of World War II in Europe.^[24]

Following the war, Dahl became a member of the Deutsche Reichspartei (DRP—German Reich Party)^[26] In the West German federal election of 1961 he unsuccessfully ran as a candidate for the DRP.^[27] On 8 May 1961, Dahl founded the "Reichsverband der Soldaten" (RdS—lit. "Reich Association of Soldiers").^[28] Among others, the founding meeting was attended by Adolf von Thadden and Erich Kern, the honorary president was Hans-Ulrich Rudel. It was planned that the RdS youth program was to be organized in the Bund Vaterländischer Jugend (Coalition of the Patriotic Youth), a group which was banned that same year due to its radical right-wing affiliation.^[29]

Dahl was married to Regina Dahl, a journalist with the National Zeitung, a weekly extreme right newspaper published by Gerhard Frey. Dahl was a spokesman for the German People's Union, a nationalist political party founded by Frey. In 2004, Frey and Hajo Herrmann published an abstract of Dahl's biography in the book Helden der Wehrmacht – Unsterbliche deutsche Soldaten [Heroes of the Wehrmacht – Immortal German soldiers]. This publication was classified as a far-right wing publication by Claudia Fröhlich and Horst-Alfred Heinrich.^[30] Dahl died on 25 November 1985 of heart failure in Heidelberg.^[24]

• Rammjäger: Bericht über seine Kriegserlebnisse 1943 bis 1945 (in German). Pour le Mérite Verlag ISBN 3-932381-01-7 (2000).

According to US historian David T. Zabecki, Dahl was credited with 129 aerial victories.^[31] Spick lists him with 128 aerial victories claimed in 678 combat missions. This figure includes 77 claims on the Eastern Front, and 51 on the Western Front, 36 of them being four-engined bombers.^[1] Mathews and Foreman, authors of Luftwaffe Aces — Biographies and Victory Claims, researched the German Federal Archives and state that he claimed at least 90 aerial victories, at least 56 of which claimed on the Eastern Front and more than 34 on Western Front, including over 22 four-engined bombers, plus further 13 unconfirmed claims. He claimed seven victories flying the Me 262. The claim that he is attributed with 128 aerial victories cannot be verified through the archives.^[32]

Victory claims were logged to a map-reference (PQ = Planquadrat), for example "PQ 49283". The Luftwaffe grid map (Jägermeldenetz) covered all of Europe, western Russia and North Africa and was composed of rectangles measuring 15 minutes of latitude by 30 minutes of longitude, an area of about 360 square miles (930 km²). These sectors were then subdivided into 36 smaller units to give a location area 3 km × 4 km (1.9 mi × 2.5 mi) in size.^[33]

• Iron Cross (1939) 2nd and 1st Class^[4]
• Honor Goblet of the Luftwaffe on 5 January 1942 as Oberleutnant and pilot^{[66][Note 10]}
• German Cross in Gold on 2 December 1942 as Oberleutnant in the Stab/JG 3^[68]
• Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves
  • Knight's Cross on 11 March 1944 as Major and Gruppenkommandeur of the III./Jagdgeschwader 3 "Udet"^[69][70]
  • 724th Oak Leaves on 1 February 1945 as Major and Geschwaderkommodore of Jagdgeschwader 300^[69][71]

• Walther Dahl in the German National Library catalogue