Looking for info info on Escuadrilla Azul, 15. (span.)/Jagdgeschwader 51's Bf-109Fs. I'm hoping folks with more access to Spanish material might bring me better luck. Info I am looking for is (A) Aircraft ID numbers. Black or red? Most ref. says black. Couple say red. (Luftwaffe regs say that 15 Staffel of all gechwader is yellow. Photos rule that out.) (B) Did the esquadrilla receive any "trop" aircraft in RLM 79/78 paint? I know JG-3 and JG-54 received some 109F (trop) in 79/78 and added "green " splinters to the upper surfaces. I dont know if JG51 (or precisely Esqudrilla Azul) got any. (I have several aircraft in RLM74/75/76. Want a little variety.)
Equadrilla Azul Bf-109Fs (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Sluff
- Start date
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
buitre
Recruit
There is an excellent, comprehensive, article on the activities of the Escuadrilla Azul here:
Jesús Salas Larrazábal, "Actuación en Rusia de las escuadrillas expedicionarias españolas", Aeroplano, 2:50-96, 1984. You can find the article online here: https://bibliotecavirtual.defensa.gob.es/BVMDefensa/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.do?path=71345 (Caution: it can be slow loading, be patient!)
Unfortunately, the article is in Spanish, but that's what Google Translate is there for, right?
The pilots arrived in Russia in 5 successive batches (Sept. 1941; June 1942; Nov. 1942; June 1943; and Feb. 1944), overlapping slightly with each other from the 3rd replacement onward. Confusingly, each one of these batches was called by the Spanish an "escuadrilla" (squadron), but they all constituted (sequentially!) the 15th squadron of JG51.
The 1st "escuadrilla" used Bf 109Es; the 2nd Bf 109Fs; the 3rd Bf 109Fs, and later FW 190As; the 4th FW 190As; and the 5th Bf 109G-6s.
In regard to the potential existence of "trop" Bf 190s in Escuadrilla Azul, the article does not mention any such thing. Given the level of detail of the article and the general reliability of the author (a military historian, the younger brother of the commander of the 1st "escuadrilla"), I think it's very unlikely that the Escuadrilla Azul got any "trop" Bf 109s.
In regard to the color of the plane numbers, in the above article and in the following two ...
Jorge Fernández-Coppel, "50 aniversario de la Escuadrilla Azul", Revista de aeronáutica y astronáutica, 610:160-165, 1992
Antonio Zárraga Llorens, "Francisco Valiente, la última victoria de la Escuadrilla Azul", Aeroplano, 10:77-81, 1992
... I have found one single photo of Escuadrilla Azul Bf 109Fs in which the numbers are visible (see below), and the numbers look pretty dark; my best guess is that they are black, although we probably can't totally rule out that they might be red. There is a 2nd picture of what I'm pretty sure is a Bf 109E, and it shows some light-colored stuff ahead of the fuselage cross (see the last picture below), but the quality of the picture is pretty bad, so I can't be sure that it was a light-colored number.
What is perfectly clear is that the FW 190s of Escuadrilla Azul had yellow numbers. (See below.) I still have not seen a single photo showing a dark number on an Escuadrilla Azul FW 190.
