The history of 15. (Croat) JG 52

This text was kindly provided by Marko Jeras, who plans to publish a book on 15./JG 52 soon.

The Blitzkrieg on the territory of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia started on 6 April 1941 and ended with the capitulation of the Kingdom on 17th April 1941. On the 10th April 1941 a new state was proclaimed - the Independent State of Croatia with Zagreb as its' capital city and Dr. Ante Paveliæ as it Poglavnik (equivalent to Führer). On the 12th July 1941 the 4th air-force regiment of the Croatian air-force was formed and it comprised of one (4th) fighter group and one (5th) bomber group. This regiment was Legionary and was choosen to be sent to the Eastern front to fight alongside German units. The 4th fighter group had two Staffelen: 10th and 11th. Commander of the 4th fighter group was Oberstleutnant Franjo D¾al. The 4th fighter group was sent on 15 July 1941 to JFS 4 for fighter training. 10th Staffel underwent training at Furth and the 11th at Herzogenaurach. During the training in Germany one Croat pilot was killed when he collided in the air with another plane. Finishing training first, 10th Staffel left for the front on 28th September 1941 and arrived on 6th October 1941. On the way to the front, one Croat pilot was killed in a landing-collision with another plane.

Operations started on 9th October 1941 and the first aerial victory was achieved on 11th November 1941 by the commander of the 10th Staffel Hauptmann Vladimir Ferenèina over one Soviet I-16. On 16th December 1941 the 11th Staffel arrived at the front, but was disbanded and all personnel joined 10th Staffel, which was renamed 10th strenghtened Staffel. In the first months of 1942 the Croat pilots were on leave in Croatia and returned to the front in March 1942. Till the end of 1942 they took part in battles for Sevastopol and in the Kuban area and exchanged their old Bf 109 Emils to Bf 109 Gustavs. In October 1942 new Croat pilots accompanied 15.(Kroat.)/JG 52 at the front. On 22nd December 1942 the Croatian Staffel returned to Zagreb. Till then, Croat pilots performed over 3000 sorties and achieved 164 confirmed aerial victories. The most successful pilot was at that time Fähnrich Cvitan Galiæ with 29 confirmed aerial victories. After leave, the Staffel returns to front and first sorties were conducted on 31st March 1943. On their way to the front one Croat pilot was killed in an unsuccessful emergency landing. The Croat pilots returned to their homeland in July 1943, but on the 21st October 1943 the Staffel again resumes operations on Crimean peninsula with a new cadre of Croat pilots with the at this time second ranking Croat ace Oberleutnant Mato Dukovac as the new commander. On 15th March 1944 the Croat staffel was withdrawn from combat. Up to that time, Croat pilots achieved over 300 aerial victories in over 5000 sorties. 14 pilots became aces with 10 or more aerial victories and top-scoring ace was Mato Dukovac. Croat pilots performed Freie-Jagd and Jabo-missions, protected other German planes on their bombing, recon, tranport and even film missions. They attacked, independently and alongside German planes, Soviet ships on the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, boats on the river Don, armoured trains, airfields and fighted Soviet pilots flying in probably every Soviet plane that flew on this part of the front (for example, the flying boat MDR-6) including western-made Spitfires and Airacobras.

The last departure of the Croatian Staffel was at beggining of August 1944 to Eichwalde, Eastern Prussia and finaly to Labyu in Latvia. There was re-designation of the Staffel, but it was still 15./JG 52 in German documents. On the 20th September 1944 the commander Hauptmann Mato Dukovac defected with another pilot to the Soviet side. After this incident the Staffel was grounded and on the 1st November 1944 the Germans requisitioned the planes from Croats and the Croatian legionary fighter Staffel ceased to exist as an air-force unit. The Croat personel was de-graded to the regular German infantry, but they kept their Luftwaffe uniforms. The majority of the Croat personel managed in different ways to return to Croatia, where some of them joined the Croatian air-force.

16 Croat pilots were KIA on the front, a figure that represent over 25% of the pilots sent to the front before the fall of Crimea.