Willi Resche´s Tempest kill from April 14,1945

Some other things that happened on or around April 14, 1945.
Roosevelt died on April 12.
Bergen-Belsen liberated by British troops.
320000 german troops in the Ruhr surrendered to General Bradley.
Only 3 weeks left in the war in Europe.

Also, from Mike Williams site:
Spitfire Mk XIV versus Me 109 G/K
Here are a couple Spitfire pilots combat reports from April 24,1945

F/Lt C. J. Samouelle of 130 Squadron recorded in his Combat Report for 24 April, 1945:

I was leading Yellow section of 130 Squadron and we were at 7,000 ft when Yellow 3 (F/Sgt Woodman) reported an A/C at 9 o'clock to us. We were flying East at the time. I immediately gave chase and we steadily overhauled the E/A which was diving towards the aerodrome at NEUSTADT. Just as we approached the A/D F/Sgt Woodman got within range and gave the E/A a short burst. It rolled over to starboard and crashed into a field. I also saw F/L Bruce (Yellow 5) attack a FW 190 on my starboard side. There was a great red flash from the E/A and the pilot baled out. This A/C crashed into a field S.E. of the aerodrome.
By this time there were two or three FW 190's round the circuit I saw one with wheels down at about 1,000 ft going found the circuit. I closed in to about 300 yds and just as the E/A got its wheels up I opened fire from dead astern. I got strikes all over the rear of the fuselage and the E/A crashed immediately into a village N.W. of the aerodrome.
I broke to port and saw another 190 south of the aerodrome at about 200 ft coming in to land. I pulled round and attacked from the starboard quarter. I saw strikes on the starboard wing. The E/A continued to fly on a straight course with wheels and flaps down. I continued to hit him and the E/A went in to land with white smoke pouring out of the starboard wing, at the end of his run he went slowly up on his nose.
I claim the first E/A destroyed and the second damaged.

Click to expand...

F/Lt Bruce of 130 Squadron recorded in his Combat Report for 24 April, 1945:

My section was on an armed recce in the PLITZ WALK area and we were at 7,000 ft going East when Yellow 3 (F/Sgt Woodman) reported a F.W. 190 at 7,500 ft going N.E. As we approched the aerodrome I saw another F.W. 190 at a 1,000 ft with its wheels down about to make its approach and land. I pulled up to the right to lose speed and then came down behind the e/a opening fire at 300 yds, at 30 degrees off. I saw strikes on the fuselage near the cockpit. The e/a had retracted his undercarriage and turned to port. I closed to 50 yds and saw him jettison his hood. He turned tightly across me. I fired again as he crossed me and I saw more strikes on the starboard wing. The e/a slowly rolled on its back and went down vertically to about 500 ft at which height the pilot bailed out. The A/C went down and crashed about 2 miles from the A/D.
I claim this E/A destroyed.
F/LT Samouelle confirms the claim. He says: I saw the e/a calimed by F/LT Bruce crash into a field on the edge of a wood on the South East side of the Aerodrome. There was a big red flash as F/LT Bruce attacked and the pilot bailed out.

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Both 130 and 350 Spitfire squadrons operated in the Ludwigslust area during the time in question and recorded a number of "long nosed 190" kills.

486 Squadron pilots also got 3 FW kills over Neustadt-Glewe on April 16, Shedden, Shaw, Shrader and Reid. Reid mentions specifically that his was a "long nose".

Odds are that all these kills were Doras, but given that JG301 Ta152s were operating out of Neustadt-Glewe, it does make one wonder.

109ROAMING said:

That'd be good Mate

Il also ask on a New Zealand forum about him ,hopefully I can get some photo's/info

Click to expand...

Hi Roaming,

got an e-mail from Willi´s son today telling me that he doesn´t remember the historian´s name but he will send it to me as this historian sent his book to Willi few years ago. So he has to speak with his father and he will let me know...
So it means there must be a book written by some Newzealander, but don´t know if it is about Mitchell´s sqdn, wing or just about Newzealanders serving in RAF...anyway, will keep you informed...

Hi Roman,
I know it's not directly related to this incident, but there is a book written by a New Zealander, a WW2 pilot named Johnnie Houlton. The book is 'Spitfire Strikes' and, as suggested, is about his Spitfire squadron. I'll have a look through it in case there's any references to combat on the same dates. Incidentally, Houlton's last Spitfire IX still flies in the UK, as a 2-seater, in the hands of Caroline Grace.
Terry.

Hi Terry, think this is related to another sqdn, 485th I guess?

Something from Wikipedia yet:

The Ta 152's first combat occurred on 14 April 1945 when Oberfeldwebel Willy Reschke tried to intercept a De Havilland Mosquito over Stendal, but failed to catch up due to engine trouble.[4]

On the evening of that same day, Reschke was to demonstrate that the Ta 152H could be used as a low-altitude fighter. A section of four Hawker Tempest Vs of 486(NZ) Squadron were out on patrol. After attacking a train near Ludwigslust, the section split up into pairs; Wing Commander Brooker ordered the Tempests flown by Flying Officer S J Short and Warrant Officer Owen J Mitchell to make their own way back to base. On the way back, this pair, which was strafing targets along the railway tracks near Ludwigslust, was spotted by lookouts posted at Neustadt-Glewe. Three Ta 152s flown by Reschke, Oberstleutnant Aufhammer and Oberfeldwebel Sattler were scrambled, catching the Tempests by surprise. Reschke:

We reached the position at an altitude of 200 metres, just at the moment when both Tempests after diving started climbing again. Just as the dogfight was developing Sepp Stattler, on our side, was hit and his plane fell like a stone out of the sky [...] The Tempest which I attacked quickly reached the same height as me and was [at] approximately 10 o'clock before me. The dogfight began between 50 and 100 metres above ground level and very often the wing tips passed close over the treetops.[...] The whole fight was executed in a left-hand turn, the low altitude of which would not allow for any mistakes. Ever so gradually I gained metre by metre on the Tempest and after a few circles I had reached the most favourable shooting position. [...] I pressed my machine-gun buttons[5]for the first time [...] I could see the Tempest for a short moment in straight ahead flight displaying slightly erratic flying behaviour. But immediately she went straight back into the left turn. [...] I sighted the Tempest very favourably in my cross-hairs and could not have missed but my machine-guns experienced feeding problems. I therefore tried to shoot it down with my cannon and forced her into a tight left-hand turn from where she tipped out over her right wing and crashed into a forest.

The Tempest was that flown by W/O Mitchell who was killed. It is thought that Obfw Stattler had been shot down by either F/O Short or Pilot Officer Bill Shaw of 486 Sqn, who claimed a Bf 109 in the same area (the Ta 152s were mistaken for 109s)

Hey Roaming, what about this?
Sortehaug, Paul. The Wild Winds; The History of Number 486 RNZAF Fighter Squadron with the RAF. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Print 1998., ISBN 1-877139-09-2
Check it out please...

Hi Roman, you're right, the book I mentioned is about Houlton's time with that squadron, but I think there might be a passage about a friend of his in a Tempest squadron. I'll check and let you know.
Terry.

Reschkes Weiße 1 did not have any mg's fitted only cannon in the inner wings and through the prop

U beat me to it Erich....

seesul said:

Hey Roaming, what about this?
Sortehaug, Paul. The Wild Winds; The History of Number 486 RNZAF Fighter Squadron with the RAF. Dunedin, New Zealand: Otago University Print 1998., ISBN 1-877139-09-2
Check it out please...

Click to expand...

Will do asap

Thanks! And then let me know please, if there´s a pic of Mitchell in this book. If not, we could try to get in touch wih Paul Sortehaug somehow...

I have access to the book 'the wild winds' its quite sort after here in NZ and I havnt got a copy myself yet.

It mentions the fight but not in great detail, the 152s were reported as 109s at them time by one of the pilots engaged.
but it doesnt go into much detail, I can scan the pages up after christmas hopefully.

Im keen for the codes and serial of the Tempest if anyone has them, as I've been asked to do a 152 screenshot piece and wanted to do a recreation of this scene

Yup sure is mate

I may be able to take a look at it tomorrow ,its a "reference only" book from the Library

But as you said if theres not much in it then I don't see the point of looking but I will anyhow

W.R. flew ''white 1'' that day, no idea about W.Nr. Maybe Erich could know something, if it is not secret yet?

I recently investigated the 14-4-45 Ludwigslust's aerial combat, collecting every information I could find on the net and on books and drawing my own conclusions.
Since my analysis it's quite long (and also includes an analysis of the over-hype surrounding Ta152H) I think it would be better to publish the outcome on a web site page and not on a Forum, so I'll report (in the following two posts) just my conclusions about the fight.


(more to follow ...)

(continued)

The sources are:
- the overly famous RESCHKE'S ACCOUNT (you'll find it everywhere, also into this thread ...)
- RODERICH CESCOTTI'S ACCOUNT (as reported at Ta 152 vs Tempest V mythology - Topic Powered by eve community)
- OFFICIAL RAF REPORTS
(from: Tempest V Performance, scanning of the original Short and Shaw's report at http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/tempest/486-shaw-14april45.jpg)
- RAF 2ND TAF'S VERSION OF THE ENCOUNTER (from the book "2nd TAF Vol. Three from Rhine to Victory, Jan to May 45", Shores and Thomas, pg 486, as reported at Ta 152 vs Tempest V mythology - Topic Powered by eve community)
- A NEW ZEALANDER JOURNALISTIC RECONSTRUCTION (from NZFPM |Two of the Best)
- TEMPEST VICTORIES ON APRIL 14, 1945
(from The Hawker Tempest Page)
- DISCOVERINGS AND OPINIONS ON WILLI RESCHKE'S (AND OTHER GERMAN PILOTS) STORIES "RELIABILITY"
from the now-defunct page "http://members.aol.com/falkeeins/Sturmgruppen/contents.html"; unfortunately AOL Hometown pages "has been shut down permanently" since Oct. 31, 2008. Until a few weeks ago it was possible to retrieve that page from Google cache: cache:0OGtoE7bkFcJ:members.aol.com/falkeeins/Sturmgruppen/contents.htm - Google Search but now is dead (however I locally saved page content).
and from Pilots who flew the Ta152 - Luftwaffe Experten Message Board

I'll omit here many long considerations about reports, sources, mistakes (e.g. the erroneous identification of Ta152Hs as Me109) and their coherence (or not), as well as explanation of apparent weak points of my version, just to came to conclusions.


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THIS IS MY PICTURE OF WHAT LIKELY HAPPENED:

- Four Tempests of 486 Squadron (Brooker and Shaw in the first pair, Short and Mitchell in the second pair) were flying in the Ludwigslust area, attacking ground targets north and east of the town.
Both pairs were flying at low-level, but Short and Mitchell were pulling up after an attack and headed for homebase, whereas Brooker and Shaw were still diving.

- Three Ta152, flown by Aufhammer, Reschke and NN (unidentified pilot) scrambled at once from Neustadt-Glewe to intercept the Tempests. A fourth Ta152 (Sattler) took off a few minutes after (due to a starter problem) and flown to the battle separated by the other three.

- Sattler DON'T climbed up until at least 2000 m, as Cescotti's report suggests, to join the fight. He has to flown much lower and almost horizontally, in order to regain the time previously lost at take-off. Then he managed to arrive near to Short and Mitchell about at the same time of his comrades, unaware that he has been spotted by Shaw.

- The first Tempest pair (Brooker and Shaw) were diving when Shaw spotted Sattler's Ta152, east of their position.
Brooker and Shaw Tempests were east of Ludwigslust, whereas Sattler was coming from north-east and, almost joining his comrades, was attacking the other pair (Short and Mitchell) which was at a slightly northern position.

- Brooker (which, being No.1 was probably leading the dive) was unable to pull up quickly and pursue the Ta152

- So Shaw took the initiative, stopping the dive, gaining height and then diving onto the German (which at that point was probably positioning himself to attack Short and Mitchell).
Sattler was hit by Shaw with a good deflection shot and was downed in flames, diving and crashing.
His crash was noticed by the other German pilots, that at least in part were equally unaware of Shaw and Brooker, hence Reschke disbelief about a possible enemy action against Sattler (remember: according to Reschke report, they all had an eye on the only two Tempests they thought were involved into the action, they weren't aware of the other two!).
Since nor Brooker neither Shaw attacked the remaining three Ta152, it's possible that they even didn't saw them just like Reschke didn't saw Shaw, so confirming that Sattler flown (and was downed) at a certain distance by Reschke.

- At the same time, the other three Ta152s attacked Short and Mitchell by rear, at very low level. Short managed to gain height and started a turning fight against Aufhammer, from the deck up to 4000m (according to Cescotti; from Short's report we know he climbed up to about 6000ft/2000m at least). Mitchell was unable to do so, then was slightly damaged by Reschke and crashed (maybe more for a stall or a wrong manoeuvre than for having being critically hit; it's even possible that Reschke didn't fired at all!).
Mitchell was a pilot with almost no combat experience, flying the Tempest and being on the front-line since no more than a month and half (NZFPM |Two of the Best).
On the contrary, Reschke was already an ace (24 victories at that moment, two more in the following days), with almost ten months of hard fighting at the front (Aces of the Luftwaffe - Willi Reschke).
I think that Mitchell's fate was signed at the moment he started turning at low height and low speed, having to face a German ace (and one more Ta152) when flying a tricky plane in that condition.

- At higher altitude, after 3 turns Short managed to damage Aufhammer, but was forced to break by the arrival of Reschke and the NN pilot that, after Mitchell's downing, climbed up and joined Short and Aufhammer at the turning dogfight (in fact, Short reports he had "one 109 [an obvious identification mistake here] on my tail another positioning to attack").

- Cescotti says that Aufhammer's Ta152 had a failure on the supercharger setting, so he was unable to get a kill. Strangely, he don't mention any damage on Aufhammer's plane, notwithstanding the fact he was certainly hit by Short (and by more than a shot, Short reports about four). This brings me to have some suspects about Cescotti's account on this point.
My opinion is that Aufhammer damage was only of moderate entity, but he probably would have been downed by Short if the other two Ta152s wouldn't have helped him.
Aufhammer is ranked as an "ace" having five victories (Axis History Factbook: Fighter aces of the Luftwaffe), that is a quite moderate achievement for an experienced German pilot!
On the other side, Short had at least one victory on the Tempest, a FW190 downed on December 27, 1944, in the Münster area (The Hawker Tempest Page).
Also look at this interesting citation: "Oberstleutnant Fritz Aufhammer was the official Kommodore but was mainly an administrator" (JG 301 STABSSCHWARM Ta 152).
Frankly speaking, considering that Cescotti doesn't mention at all any damage on Aufhammer's plane, I think that Cescotti could lie about the failure, just to justify the lack of any combat results by his Kommodore (quite a bad thing for a formally "chief" in a desperate Luftwaffe headed towards the defeat, with chiefs very likely risking the Court Martial in case of suspected cowardice, remember that during the last months of war about 5000 german soldiers were shot by firing squad for desertion and cowardice ...). This could also explain the missing info about the damages suffered by the Kommodore's Ta152, to put all the blame on the "failure" and to exalt Kommodore's "skill" in spite of that trouble.
Please note that if we accept all the details given by the German reports, we have to draw the conclusion that in the same short action there were 4 failures on three Ta152s out of four!
1) Sattler starter 2) Sattler's unknow deadly failure 3) Aufhammer's supercharger failure 4) Reschke's weapons failure
Possible but unlikely, even for Ta152H …
I obviously have no proof, but I tend to disbelieve to the reality of presumed failure 2 (that seems aimed at defending the combat reputation of the plane) and reported failure 3 (that seems aimed at defending the combat reputation of the Kommodore, even more than plane's reputation).

- After Reschke and NN arrival near Short, the dogfight ended. Short headed for home and so did the three Ta152s.
The first Tempest pair, Brooker and Shaw, has likely already headed for homebase, too. It seems that Brooker never entered into any fight and that neither him nor Shaw (after having downed Sattler) went in help of Short and Mitchell.
I think it's probable that, in dusk scarce light, Brooker and Shaw didn't even saw the remaining three Ta152, that at the time of Sattler's shooting down were circling at very low level.
Moreover it's likely that the first pair was low on ammo (if not out of ammo), probably they used a lot when strafing ground targets before the aerial combat, and they could be low on fuel too (they had tanks but dropped them to face the enemies).
On the contrary, the Ta152s has just been refuelled and were fully armed.
It seems that Short's Tempest didn't have any problem in disengaging, in spite of the much vaunted (by the Germans) "superior performance" of their fighter (and take note that the final phase of Short's dogfight happened a 4000m, an altitude which is at the upper limit of Tempest's "good zone") ...
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(more to follow ...)

(continued)

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CONCLUSIONS.

In my opinion RAF version, as reported in 2nd TAF's book, is the correct one, or at least the more reliable.
Not only because it is (understandably) in good agreement with RAF pilots personal reports, but also because is in good agreement with German reports when you "purify" them from inconsistencies they have between themselves (!).

In fact:

1) RAF version relies on pilot reports written short after the fight, whereas the German side reports seems to be just stories collected dozens of years later.
Note that, according to J-Y Lorant researches, Reschke's tales seems to be quite unreliable "in particular about some victories obtained at the controls of the revolutionary late war Ta 152". Reschke here is wrong about the total number of Tempests and is not really credible when says he was behind Sattler, if we have to trust Cescotti more than him. Since Reschke has been proved unreliable in other cases, I trust Cescotti more than him about details both should know (total number of enemies detected and Sattler being late at take-off).
Only thing I am a little bit skeptical about is Cescotti's account of Aufhammer supercharger failure, made without mentioning any damage on his plane (which was certainly involved in a long turning battle, so was certainly his plane that was damaged by Short).
The two things seems to lead to the conclusion that Cescotti tried to find a "justification" for Kommodore's lackluster performance (even if that could be excusable, for a pilot that was mainly an "administrator" ...).
Add this to the usual mythicization of the Ta152 from German side and you'll find many answers ...

2) Reschke's own account made quite clear that three Ta152 pilots (himself, Aufhammer and NN) directed their attention just towards the Short-Mitchell pair, ignoring that there were another pair near them. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that after Sattler crash all three remaining Ta152 chased Short, whereas nor Shaw neither Brooker were involved in further fights. Therefore, Reschke and Short reports agree about this "fixation" of German pilots, so leaving Shaw creditably free, unnoticed and being able to take Sattler by surprise (just like RAF version suggests).
Being Sattler late (a creditable detail, when told by a ground technical member which probably not only witnessed the takeoff but also took part in the solution of the starter problem!) he probably was in a better (and slightly detached) position to notice the Brooker-Shaw pair, at least at the last moment. He probably did, but was almost instantly killed by Shaw.

So, joining the strong points of RAF official reports and using the German reports (that also show revealing inconsistencies), we have a good explanation both about German pilots behaviour (fixation on Short-Mitchell pair) and the reason of Sattler's crash (Shaw, ignored by all German pilots, had the opportunity to take him by surprise).

[omissis]

So, at the end we have:

- on one side an "unexplicable" crash of a Ta152H
and
- on the other side a FW190-like plane surely downed by Shaw, in the same area and at the same time where his teammates were fighting against Ta152Hs and where Sattler's Ta152H crashed

I think it quite easy to draw the conclusion that is very, very likely that Shaw downed Sattler's Ta152H.

Of course, there is no absolute confidence that things went exactly like I described. But I think that the scenario I described accounts well for all the relevant details of the episode, first of all the "mysterious" crash by Sattler.

In my opinion, only the evidence of another FW190 downed on April 14, 1945 in the same or very near area and the same time (distinct by the one downed by Sheddan) could lead at the conclusion that Shaw didn't took part at the battle and downed another plane instead of Sattler's Ta152H.
So far, I didn't found that evidence.
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(end)

CloClo thank you very much for your interesting hypothesis........let me add two cents although this may all sound like a mish-mash of information/ am taking more cancer meds so my head is not quite clear/ Cescotti plainly states this that Sattler took off after the other Tanks were airborne got into a fight with a Tempest scored some hits (ah but which Tempest ?) in a sharp dive and the dive continued until Sattlers tank hit the ground and burst into flames. No mentions of being hit or shot down in flames. Cescotti goes on to say in his version as he saw it from the ground with other Tech personell that I mentioned in an earlier post; his thoughts that Sattlers unit must have gone through the sound barrier during the fierce dive and the controls froze up. other tech personell heard a boom and though it was supercharger /engine malfunction(s) seized engine and poof, could not pull out of the dive. C ~ finishes by stating the TA 152H was not built for extreme stress (no kidding ! )

in regards I personally appreciate the scenarios from both sides of this questionable equation as this is the best instead of one side or another. Several of Stab.JG 301 pilots Flugbuchs have been copied and are in our possession for the future books, but must understnad the point and REschek makes this readily apparent in his own work if you read bestween the many lines, his book is really about him and is just a glossing over of the unit JG 301, he even states several times in earlier 1944 missions that the mission reports have been lost, things were not up to date in regards to being written down properly by the JG's historian and Willi questions this over and over......in fact on a couple of mission in December 44 his own III. gruppe was given no kills, although he witnessed several US bombers being shot down and upon further reflection and interviews of those bomber group reps interviewed indeed through their own admission bombers were indeed shot down by the JG . So with this you can see how hard it is and is going to be to try and put an operation and the players one on one with each other-whom shot down whom on this very date as one specific incident.
Aufhammer I feel was not protected but was a scared CO flying a updated crate that he was not prepared to fly but thought and felt proud that his JG was responsible for putting the Tank up in the air against the Allies/Soviets whenever and wherever he/they could. So screwed up was JG 301 they were literally torn apart after march 2, 1945 as to airfields when they could find airfields, defending against Soviet jabo attacks and performing those as well against the Soviets and yet trying to take out Tempests and even up flying or trying to fly versus the 8th AF Mustangs. Remember too where Cescotti was viewing the air battle on this date, the home of II./JG 301 which flew the Fw 190D-9. At this time I have no records of Doras of II.gruppe being lost but it would not surprise me in the least that the 486th squadron ran up in the air and these are the A/C that were claimed as shot down - Bf 109's, in reality Dora -9's.

now anyone have more questions because I certainly do.........

v/r E ~

Erich, Cescotti's and Resche's accounts are in full conflict on Cescotti's statement of Sattler being late "a few minutes" in take-off faced to the contemporary statement of Reschke that he was flying behind Sattler at the moment of the crash.
There is a logical (and practical) conflict regarding both the fact Reschke flown behind Sattler (--> impossible!) and also the fact Sattler could have climbed up to 2000 mt or more and being on battle area exactly at the same time of Reschke (--> impossible!).

In fact it's not possible at all that Reschke flew behind Sattler during the flight from the airfield to the battle zone, if we had to believe to Sattler's delay in takeoff (which is a particular that a technical officer like Cescotti should remember more easily than the German ace, also considering that one of his duties was just to solve technical troubles!).
Considering that Ludwigslust North is about 8-10 km far from Neustadt-Glewe LW airport, even guessing an average speed of just 300 km/h for the first three Ta152, it would have been sufficient a couple of minutes to reach the battle area and Sattler was, according to Cescotti's words, late by "a few minutes".
So, it's impossible that Sattler:
1) was flying in front of Reschke
2) reached the battle area at the same times of his teammates, following the same path of his comrades.

And please note that more you guess the battle area was really near Neustadt-Glewe and more Cescotti's account on Sattler is unlikely!

The only explanation, if we want to try to keep all this together (and considering Reschke's statement a bad memory, it seems he has several ... ), is that the first three Ta152 climbed up to some thousands of meters, seeking altitude advantage while reaching Ludwigslust North, and that Sattler was induced to fly almost on the deck (just like Shaw's report says ... ) to regain so much time lost at take off and join the fight just from the start.

So, Cescotti's report is unreliable about Sattler's flight, because of Cescotti's words themselves!
It's impossible that Sattler was late by a few minutes, then "climbed above the ongoing dogfight", then arrived on place at the same time when dogfight started and finally dived "from 2000 mt", as Cescotti says, ...

Add to this the fact that it's quite incredible (at least to me ...) that Cescotti could have seen all that so clearly from many kilometers away!

Please consider this:
1) in the unlikely case that the fight would have took place above or very near Neustadt-Glewe (only real chance for Cescotti to eyewitness it), Sattler would have been still on the ground when Reschke intercepted Mitchell!

2) in the same unlikely case, the fact the battle took place above or very near an enemy airport (a quite dangerous situation for the Allieds!) would have certainly been mentioned in RAF pilots reports. It wasn't.

3) if, as can be deduced also by RAF reports, the battle took place about 8-10 kilometers away from Neustadt-Glewe, near Ludwigslust North, there is no chance for Cescotti to have witnessed it ...

4) I don't know if you have other sources for Cescotti report, but the report I know don't talk about an eyewitness testimony. It just says "He [Sattler] climbed away, above the ongoing dogfight and dived into the action. Ofw Sattler shot one Tempest out of the circling dogfight, but continued to dive and hit the deck out of an altitude of about 2000m - there was no evidence of an attempted recovery."
These words could have been as well written (and in my opinion they was) just on the basis of German pilots tells after the fight, not on the basis of a personal direct testimony. And, in fact, here Cescotti doesn't say he witnessed that!

My explanation on this point: having probably climbed themselves up to 2000m, the other pilots (probably unaware of the entity of Sattler's delay) erroneously thought that he had followed them on an analogous path, so their report on Sattler's crash involved a "dive from 2000m".
Not because they SAW him diving from 2000m, but because they THOUGHT he did that before crashing!

And Cescotti just reported their (quite inaccurate) tells ...

but did Cescotti report inadequately or did the 486th squadron pilots did not know for certain EXACTLY where the engagement took place 100 %, and that Clo is my point. as I said and will say it again there is some big problems with the German accts of JG 301 all through 1945, after action reports are lost, living pilots are now quoting from memory and we have the letters at hand, the JG 301 historian did not make duplicate copies or the items are conveniently lost.
As I mentioned we have his eye-witness testimony through letter and personal interview(s)

personally Sattler never got to good combat height, there is not enough evidence except from the vast array of reports that he ever did all from different German and French sources. I feel that there are some very important points missing in all this operation which did not take place at combat altitude for the Tank. the two 486th reports still do not make sense, if we are to allow one or the other for taking down Sattler.

Clo if you would like to believe this or not it is up to you, opened up a note here in my office.

Cescotti : I witnessed one air battle myself from the ground at Neustadt-Glewe Air Base on 14 April 1945............so Cescotti is lying ?

I think we both can assume yes or no

also several of you sources I am well aware of including N. Pages sturmgruppen site if you have looked through the other pages that are still on the net you will see that I have added photo content as well as text details through personal interviews of several that were mentioned on the web. Neil and I started that site together by the way.

Lorants comments are taken I have been in touch with him in the past along with R. Goyat. also being a long time member of LEMB and TOCH yes have read and copied accts and comments about Reschke s thoughts on his work and have made comments in this thread repeatedly.

let me do another add here which is critical both Stab./JG 301 and II./JG 301 with Dora-9's were based at the same airfield. though it is pointed out in the sources given by Clo-Clo with some good reads within, Cescotti was also Gruppenkommandeur of II./JG 301 not just the T.O. of the JG. In fact he just took over the C.O. position from Nölter who was killed on the 13th of April 45.