Excerpt from John Weal's book (Luftwaffe Sturmgruppen):
Whatever decisions, if any, were arrived at, 27 September would, for the first time, see all three Sturmgruppen operating together in a single Gefechtsverband.
The Eighth Air Force's objectives on that day included transportation networks and war plants in western Germany; and it was against the 2nd Bomb Division's B-24s, targeting the Henschel works in Kassel (producers of the much-feared Tiger tank), that the first massed Sturm assault would be directed.
IV.(Sturm)/JG3 scrambled from its temporary base at Alteno at 1000 hrs. After rendezvousing with the other Gruppen (including I./JG 300, whose Bf 109s were to fly cover), the entire formation set course for Kassel. Some 45 minutes later contact was made with part of the attacking force to the southwest of the target area. The Gefechtsverband had chanced upon the 'wandering' 445th BG, which, having become separated from the main bomber stream, had opted for Göttingen as a target of opportunity and was now heading back out over Eisenach.
The three Sturmgruppen hit the unescorted Liberators in turn. The first to attack was IV.(Sturm)/JG 3. Flying their customary broad arrowhead withHauptmann Moritz at the point, the pilots bored in close before splitting into Staffeln, their heavy 30 mm cannon cutting swathes through the hapless Liberator formation. In just three minutes they had claimed a staggering 17 B-24s destroyed, plus a further four Herausschusse. Their own casualties amounted to just five pilots wounded.
Next to go in was II.(Sturm)/JG 300. The Liberator gunners were fighting for their lives. The Gruppe's 21 claims (a third of them Herausschusse) cost it seven pilots killed, the sky now a tumult of burning and exploding aircraft. One surviving B-24 pilot recalled the scene. 'At one moment I saw four German fighters and five of our own bombers going down around me. It was indescribable'.
One of the assailants, 5.(Sturm)/JG 300's Unteroffizier Ernst Schroder, was more graphic in his description of the bloody clash high over Eisenach;
'As we approached in close formation we could see the results of the first wave's attack - some bombers on fire, others blowing up. My Staffelkapitan and I had a new type of experimental gyroscopic gun-sight fitted in our fighters. This enabled me to claim two B-24s within seconds of each other.
'When I hit the first it immediately flipped over onto its side and went down. Its neighbour was already damaged, the two left-hand engines pouring smoke. The new sight allowed me to line up on him almost instantly. Another short burst and he was enveloped in flames. I flew alongside him for a moment, staring at the long banner of fire streaming back beyond his tailplane. Then this great machine slowly turned over onto its back before it too plunged earthwards.'
By this time a group of P-51s that had been escorting a formation of 1st Division B-17s near Cologne, some 100 miles (180 km) away to the east, and had picked up the Liberators' calls for assistance when they first spotted the approaching mass of German fighters, were finally beginning to arrive on the scene - four minutes after IV.(Sturm)/JG 3's first unopposed pass.
Despite their belated appearance, the Mustangs may have been responsible for some of II.(Sturm)/JG 300's losses. They certainly inflicted heavy casualties on the reconstituted II.(Sturm)/JG 4, whose pilots were in the last of the three waves to go in. The Gruppe's subsequent claims for 25 B-24s destroyed, plus a further 14 Herausschusse, are patently wide of the mark (the bomber formation was never that large to start with, let alone after the first two attacks!), but the inexperience of many of the pilots in this, their baptism of fire, should perhaps be taken into account.
There are fewer uncertainties about the unit's casualties. At least 13 of its Sturmbocke were hit, and seven pilots were reported killed or missing, with another three wounded. Nor were the losses restricted to the ranks of the replacements, for among the missing was arguably one of the most experienced Sturmpiloten of all - the veteran Staffelkapitan of 7.(Sturm)/JG4, Oberleutnant Ottmar Zehart. His wingman that day was Obergefreiter Gerhard Kott, who recalled;
'After our first pass we wanted to re-form for a second attack. But hardly had the Gruppe got itself into some sort of formation before I saw Zehart's
machine rapidly losing height. He was later posted as missing.'