Eagles of the Third Reich: Men of the Luftwaffe in WWII (Stackpole Military History Series) (42 page)

TABLE 14: ORDER OF BATTLE, AIR TRANSPORT COMMAND STALINGRAD, 4TH AIR FLEET, EARLY DECEMBER, 1942
Unit	Aircraft Type
5th Special Duty Bomber Wing	He-111
9th Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-52 *
20th Special Duty Bomber Wing	He-111 *
21st Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-86 *
22nd Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-86 *
50th Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-52
102nd Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-52
105 th Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-52 *
172nd Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-52
200th Special Duty Bomber Wing (Long-Range)	Ju-90, Ju-290, FW-200 *
500th Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-52 *
700th Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-52 *
900th Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-52
I Group, 1st Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-52 *
II Group, 1st Special Duty Bomber Wing	Ju-52 *
III Group, 4th Bomber Wing	He-111
27th Bomber Wing	He-111
50th Bomber Wing	He-177 *
55th Bomber Wing	He-111
I Group, 100th Bomber Wing	He-111 *

*
Arrived after the encirclement of Stalingrad.

Source: Morzik MS.

Richthofen initially named Maj. Gen. Victor Carganico, the commander of Airfield Area Tatsinskaya, as air supply chief. Carganico’s staff, however, proved too inexperienced in air supply operations, so on November 29 Richthofen relieved Fiebig’s VIII Air Corps of all its other missions and gave it full responsibility for the entire airlift.
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The tactical air support units formerly belonging to VIII Air Corps were placed under a new headquarters, Lt. Gen. Alfred Malinke’s Air Division Donets. Richthofen also withdrew General Pflugbeil’s IV Air Corps from Army Group A’s zone of operations and brought it north, sending Headquarters I Flak Corps (now redesignated Luftwaffe Command Caucasus), south to direct the few antiaircraft and aviation units supporting the First Panzer and Seventeenth armies.
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Richthofen and Fiebig shifted all the He-111 bomber units to Morozovsk and placed them under a single leader, Col. Berhard Kuehl (former C.O., 55th Bomber Wing). Colonel Foerster at Tatsinskaya was placed in charge of all the Ju-52 units, while Major Willers, the air transport chief at Stalino, assumed command of the long-range bomber and reconnaissance units that had been pressed into air transport service. By concentrating specific types of units at centralized locations, Richthofen was able to at least simplify some of his maintenance problems. He further simplified matters by assigning the 25th Air Administrative Command at Rostov the mission of providing ground support services outside of the pocket, while Maj. Gen. Wolfgang Pickert’s 9th Flak Division provided them inside the fortress.
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The Stalingrad airlift began on November 29, with thirty-eight Ju52s and twenty-one He-111s taking off for the pocket. Due to poor weather conditions, heavy flak, and enemy fighters, only twelve Ju-52s and thirteen He-111s managed to land in the fortress. The next day seventy-seven aircraft took off, and sixty-six delivered supplies to the garrison. This was totally inadequate for Stalingrad’s needs. Losses in men and airplanes were high. Only on December 7 was 4th Air Fleet able to deliver 300 tons of supplies to the Sixth Army. For December, the average daily total was about 90 tons; for the first three weeks in January, it was 120—about 16 percent of the garrison’s requirements.
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Meanwhile, Richthofen’s old comrade Erich von Manstein took charge of the newly formed Army Group Don. He attempted to relieve Sixth Army by attacking the Soviet southern flank with the Fourth Panzer Army, while holding up the Russian advance in the Chir sector with the ad hoc Army Detachment Hollidt (formerly HQ, XVII Corps), the reinforced XLVIII Panzer Corps, the Italian Eighth Army, and a few disintegrating Rumanian units. Despite the impossible demands already placed on it, 4th Air Fleet had to provide support for these forces also. Richthofen assigned this task to General Malinke’s Air Division Donets. Army Group A, whose advance had been stalled in the foothills of the Caucasus since September, was virtually stripped of all air support.
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The Stalingrad relief attack began on December 12. In the dead of the Russian winter, 4th Air Fleet now had three major, simultaneous missions: 1) resupply Stalingrad; 2) support Manstein’s counteroffensive; and 3) provide close air support for Hollidt’s men, who were fighting desperately against almost overwhelming odds on the Chir. Like the ground forces, 4th Air Fleet was simply spread too thin. Nevertheless, on December 18, VIII Air Corps flew 270 tons of supplies into Stalingrad-more than twice the daily average so far. Paulus, however, was demanding no less than 1,800 tons of food and 4,000 tons of fuel before attempting a breakout: a requirement that was absolutely impossible and totally unrealistic.
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On December 19, the spearheads of Hoth’s Fourth Panzer Army were halted in the Myshkova Valley, just thirty miles south of Stalingrad. Manstein again appealed to Hitler to allow Sixth Army to break out. Again Hitler refused. Paulus would not disobey orders and break out on his own. He continued to demand the impossible from the Luftwaffe, but did nothing himself. The last chance for Sixth Army to escape slipped away as the Fourth Panzer was brought to a halt thirty miles from the perimeter of the fortress.

Because of his incessant pleas in favor of a breakout, Hitler’s relationship with Manstein deteriorated to the point where he would no longer speak to his brilliant field marshal. On December 26, Richthofen telephoned Hitler on Manstein’s behalf. He asked the Fuehrer for a conference and even begged Hitler to come to Russia to see the situation for himself. Again the answer was no.
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The initial Soviet counterattacks against Fourth Panzer Army were repulsed, but on December 28 its forward unit, LVII Panzer Corps, had to withdraw from Mishkova to prevent being surrounded. Soon the entire panzer army was in retreat. The 270,000-man garrison at Stalingrad was doomed.

Meanwhile, the Chir front collapsed.

Richthofen never had any faith in the Italians. On November 28 he confided to his diary: “It seems the Russians are going to attack the Italians too—a bad thing, as they will probably run faster than the Rumanians.”
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The blow fell on the morning of December 16. Three days later the Reds had advanced forty miles and captured the major supply base at Kantemirovka. Manstein diverted a badly needed division from Fourth Panzer Army to help them, but it did no good. On the twenty-fourth, after an advance of 150 miles, a Soviet tank corps attacked Richthofen’s main airfield at Tatsinskaya and destroyed at least seventy-two Ju-52s—a major catastrophe for 4th Air Fleet. The main He-111 air base at Morozovsk was also threatened by the Soviet 25th Tank and 1st Guards Mechanized Corps.
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Richthofen committed a major tactical error at Tatsinskaya and must be held primarily responsible for the loss of the irreplaceable transports. General Fiebig had requested permission to evacuate the base the day before the Russians overran it, but Air Fleet Headquarters insisted that Hitler’s orders not to abandon the field until it was under Soviet artillery fire be interpreted literally. As a result, only 108 transports escaped, most of the available spare parts supply was lost, and all of the ground equipment, including the critical engine-warmer wagons, was lost. The lack of this equipment, in turn, led to a further decline in operational aircraft availability due to icing and maintenance-related failures. Operational readiness dropped to 25 percent, even as aircraft losses mounted.
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The Ju-52s that escaped the debacle at Tatsinskaya landed at Salsk, a base 250 miles from Stalingrad. The transports were now operating at near their maximum range and were using up the precious reserves of aviation fuel and oil. Also, the further a transport traveled the more fuel it had to carry, with a corresponding loss in payload capacity. Soon even the poor airfield at Salsk was threatened by the Red advance.

In the meantime, Richthofen desperately sought a means to salvage the deteriorating situation. On December 23 he telephoned Jeschonnek with a radical suggestion. He proposed that Col. Gen. Ewald von Kleist’s Army Group A (First Panzer and Seventeenth armies) be withdrawn from the Caucasus and sent to reinforce Fourth Panzer Army. Perhaps then the tide could be turned in Germany’s favor. The chief of the General Staff of the Luftwaffe made some halfhearted promises, but it was clear to the baron that he would do nothing substantive. Richthofen made similar suggestions to Zeitzler, again without result.
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Neither man could really do anything to help. As long as Hitler clung to his policy of “not one step back,” the tragedy on the Volga would continue to develop to its logical conclusion.

Erhard Milch got into the act in mid-January, when Hitler summoned him to Fuehrer Headquarters for another special assignment. He placed Milch in charge of the Stalingrad airlift and sent him to the Russian front, with special powers to issue orders to all military commands to ensure the resupply of the doomed Sixth Army. Milch took off for the Black Sea town of Taganrog immediately. His arrival on January 16 was greeted with consternation everywhere. General Fiebig commented that there was little left to organize, especially since Pitomnik, the last good airfield within transport range of Stalingrad, had just been captured by the Russians. Richthofen privately informed Milch that the airlift had been impossible to begin with, and it was now madness to continue it. Of the 140 available Ju-52s and 140 He-III bombers being used as transports, only fifteen transports and forty-one bombers were operational, due to the cold weather. Milch, still optimistic, decided to personally fly to Stalingrad the next day to see the situation for himself. En route to the airfield, however, his car was hit by a train, which was traveling at forty miles an hour. An unconscious Milch was taken to a field hospital, where he was treated for a concussion, a severe head injury, and several broken ribs. A few hours later, however, he was back at 4th Air Fleet’s command train, from which he commanded the rest of the airlift operation. He could not leave the train again, however, because his back and ribs were encased in plaster.
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The next day, January 18, Milch concluded (or at least professed to conclude) that 4th Air Fleet had let Sixth Army down. He instructed Richthofen to sack his chief of staff, Colonel von Rohden. He then instituted new cold-start procedures and sent for cold-start experts from the Luftwaffe’s testing and development base at Rechlin. These innovations resulted in an increase in aircraft availability (and therefore losses) at a time when the fortress was already in its death throes. Even if the cold-start experts had been available since November 23, 1942, when the siege began, it would have made little difference. However Gen. Hans Hube, the one-armed tank leader who had commanded XIV Panzer Corps in Stalingrad during most of the battle, was impressed by Milch’s efforts. After the fortress fell, Hube and Milch reported to Hitler in East Prussia. Hube informed the Fuehrer that, if he had appointed Milch just fourteen days earlier, Stalingrad would not have fallen.
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Hube, of course, was a tank general—hardly qualified to judge such technical aviation matters. Hitler, however, accepted Hube’s remarks at face value and was very deeply impressed. What is more, Milch saw that he was impressed. This would have very far-reaching implications, as we shall see.